U.S. Committee for Refugees Mid-Year Country Report 2001 - Sierra Leone

Background

An armed insurgency since 1991 has left tens of thousands of civilians dead and triggered massive human rights atrocities by combatants on all sides, particularly by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels. Peacekeeping troops from West African countries entered Sierra Leone in the mid-1990s but were unable to stop the violence. UN peacekeeping troops deployed in the country in 2000 and quickly encountered ambushes by rebel forces. Troops from Great Britain entered the country in 2000 to protect the capital, Freetown. At the end of 2000, RUF rebels continued to control about half the country, including lucrative diamond-mining areas in the northeast.

At the start of 2001, at least 900,000 Sierra Leoneans were living an uprooted existence as refugees in neighboring countries or as displaced persons inside Sierra Leone. Some estimates put the number of uprooted people as high as 1.4 million.

Recent Political/Military/Human Rights Developments

The year began with heavy military clashes. But by mid-2001, violence had diminished and hundreds of combatants were laying down their weapons.

RUF rebels suffered military setbacks in early 2001 when government troops from neighboring Guinea attacked rebel positions inside Sierra Leone. The Guinean military attacks were in retaliation for RUF incursions into Guinea. The UN's peacekeeping force, consisting of some 10,000 troops, gradually deployed deeper into RUF territory in the first half of the year. Some 4,000 rebel and pro-government militia troops formally disarmed in May and June, and rebels released hundreds of children abducted by the RUF during the war. UN officials, citing the accelerated pace of disarmament and demobilization, pleaded with donor nations in June for $17 million to fund the process. Rebel forces numbered 10,000 combatants, according to RUF leaders; pro-government civilian militia reportedly numbered 15,000 to 20,000.

"Significant progress has been achieved in the Sierra Leone peace process," a UN report stated in June. But the report added that "security concerns are still paramount in large areas of the country." Pockets of fighting between RUF rebels and pro-government militia erupted in July, accompanied by human rights atrocities. In late July, UN peacekeeping troops awaited reinforcements and were preparing to move into strategic border areas controlled by RUF.

New Uprooted Populations

Large new population movements continued in all directions during the first half of 2001. Military clashes forced residents to flee from border areas in the west. Some 55,000 Sierra Leonean refugees have repatriated from Guinea since late 2000 because of violence and harassment in Guinea. Up to 15,000 new refugees from Liberia reportedly fled into eastern Sierra Leone during the first half of 2001 because of recurring violence in their own country. Tens of thousands of displaced Sierra Leoneans participated in a program that resettled them into safer areas of Sierra Leone.

By mid-2001, humanitarian aid agencies continued to report that about 350,000 Sierra Leoneans were registered as displaced persons, hundreds of thousands of others remained displaced without being officially registered, and at least 200,000 Sierra Leoneans were refugees in Guinea and Liberia.

Humanitarian Conditions

Years of warfare and decades of government mismanagement have left Sierra Leone the least developed country in the world, according to a new UN study in 2001. A half-million Sierra Leoneans were wholly or partially dependent on international food aid in early 2001. The World Food Program reported in June that it anticipates a food donation shortfall of 17,000 tons for Sierra Leone and neighboring countries in the second half of the year.

"The refugee and internally displaced person crisis [in Sierra Leone] ... is one of the most serious humanitarian and political crises facing the international community today," the UN Secretary General warned in May. Displaced Sierra Leoneans, and refugees repatriating under duress from Guinea, tended to congregate at overcrowded transit centers and in major towns, straining water supplies, sanitation, and other services. The largest concentrations of internally displaced persons were in Freetown, at Lungi north of Freetown, at Mile 91 in central Sierra Leone, in Kenema in the east, at the south-central town of Bo, and the town of Daru in the west. Government officials attempted, with only limited success, to relocate uprooted Sierra Leoneans from major towns to sparsely populated areas in safe regions. Many displaced families, however, were reluctant to transfer to areas that lacked police protection and basic services.

Some former refugees returned to rebel-held areas without incident, while others reported rapes and other human rights abuses in rebel territory. Some returnees were malnourished after months of being trapped without food aid or farming opportunities in the volatile Sierra Leone-Guinea border region.

RUF commanders began to allow international humanitarian workers into rebel-held areas of the east and west in May and June. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported in June that living conditions in rebel areas of eastern Sierra Leone were "critical" without medical care, schools, or water and sanitation facilities. UN humanitarian agencies reported in May that relief projects remained 75 percent unfunded. The UN Security Council in June urged major donor nations to provide additional funding for refugees and displaced populations in West Africa. The U.S. government announced in July that it would provide new emergency funds to relief programs in Sierra Leone.