U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1998 - Guinea

  Guinea hosted an estimated 430,000 refugees at the end of 1997, including 240,000 from Liberia and 190,000 from Sierra Leone. More than 50,000 Sierra Leonean refugees arrived in Guinea during the year; Guinea reportedly prevented other would-be refugees from entering. At least tens of thousands of Liberian refugees repatriated. Refugees from Liberia Large numbers of Liberian refugees first entered Guinea in late 1989, fleeing armed conflict in Liberia. The apparent end of Liberia's conflict and its peaceful presidential election in 1997 opened the door to large-scale repatriation from Guinea. UNHCR estimated 415,000 Liberian refugees were in Guinea at the start of 1997. A June 1997 census, however, reduced the estimate of the Liberian refugee population by about 175,000. Observers disagreed about how much repatriation affected the decline. Most Liberians lived in settlements in Guinea's Forest Region just north of the 250-kilometer-long border with Liberia, or in the Forest Region's three major towns: GuÉckÉdou, Macenta, and NzÉrÉkourÉ, from west to east. Many rural refugees survived by sharecropping, working as contract laborers, or selling firewood in larger towns. Although Guinea's treatment of Liberian refugees was generally hospitable, the Guinean police and military have at times subjected refugees to harassment and extortion. Unidentified assailants reportedly attacked refugees and aid agency staff in the Forest Region in mid-1997. Some observers attributed the attacks to the Guinean military. Guinea did not permit Liberian refugees to vote on its soil in Liberia's July 1997 presidential election. "Border controls in Guinea hampered many refugees' efforts to participate in the electoral process in Liberia," the Refugee Policy Group (RPG) reported. Sporadic insecurity throughout the border region prompted Guinea to partially close its border with Liberia in June, preventing many refugees from returning to Guinea after traveling to Liberia to register for the election. On the eve of the election, Guinea closed the border in both directions, according to RPG. Subsequent insecurity prompted Guinea to close its border yet again; that closure remained in effect at year's end. UNHCR's office in Guinea reported that it assisted more than 9,000 Liberians to repatriate from Guinea in 1997 (UNHCR's office in Liberia, however, recorded only 800 assisted returns from Guinea). No definitive estimates existed of the number of spontaneous repatriations to Liberia in 1997. Estimates ranged from tens of thousands to more than 100,000. Refugees from Sierra Leone Large numbers of Sierra Leonean refugees first arrived in Guinea in 1991, fleeing an insurgency. Following small-scale spontaneous repatriation to Sierra Leone in early 1997, an estimated 50,000 or more Sierra Leoneans fled to Guinea beginning in May, according to UNHCR. The number of registered Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea reached nearly 250,000 by the start of 1997, according to UNHCR. A June 1997 census reduced the estimated Sierra Leonean refugee population in Guinea by more than 100,000, however. The arrival of 50,000 or more Sierra Leonean refugees during the year raised the official estimate to about 190,000 by year's end. More than 100,000 Sierra Leonean refugees lived in Guinea's Forest Region, most in the area where the borders of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia meet. The area also hosted large numbers of Liberian refugees. An estimated 70,000 Sierra Leonean refugees lived elsewhere, primarily near ForÉcariah, southeast of the capital, Conakry. Beginning in May 1997, thousands of Sierra Leoneans fled to Guinea because of renewed fighting and a subsequent coup in Sierra Leone; most fled to the ForÉcariah area or to Conakry. In May, USCR called on officials in Guinea to "remain sensitive to the very real security concerns of Sierra Leonean refugees, continuing to permit them to remain in asylum." The official closure of Guinea's border in June reportedly stranded several thousand would-be refugees in Sierra Leone. Although some persons reportedly bribed their way into Guinea, others apparently were forced to remain in Sierra Leone. Guinea's border officially remained closed to persons attempting to enter from Sierra Leone at year's end. Other Sierra Leoneans were able to flee by boat to Conakry. Guinean authorities, however, "routinely denied entry" to men, according to Refugees International. USCR wrote on June 24 to the Guinean ambassador to the United States to express concern over the reported rejection of would-be refugees. USCR noted Guinea's long-standing provision of asylum to hundreds of thousands of refugees, and urged Guinea not to summarily reject asylum seekers at its borders. USCR also noted its appeals to UNHCR and donor countries for greater assistance to Guinea's refugee population. Food Assistance The distribution of relief food to Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea has been steeped in controversy for years. Evidence of food diversions and inflated refugee numbers prompted WFP and international food donors, including the United States, to push in recent years for a revised distribution system. They argued that many food recipients were capable of supporting themselves without relief. UNHCR, government officials, and some international NGOs resisted food cutbacks, however. They said that the overwhelming majority of refugees needed substantial food aid for nutritional as well as economic reasons, and that WFP was overestimating the number of self-sufficient households. A targeted-feeding program for specific groups of vulnerable refugees replaced general refugee food distribution in 1996. Vulnerable recipients included the elderly, single-parent households, disabled persons, and others. Refugees living in Guinea's rural areas received food distributions for several months, during the region's so-called hungry season. WFP also instituted food-for-work and school-feeding programs. In May 1997, following new refugee flight from Sierra Leone, USCR called on UN agencies to "accelerate efforts to correct serious problems of inefficiency, corruption, and insufficient assistance associated with the refugee relief program in Guinea." In a follow-up letter to UNHCR in June, USCR urged "a fundamental reassessment of UNHCR's operation and management" in Guinea. A July report from the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children noted the apparent lack of improvement in the overall protection and assistance program in Guinea. For 1997, WFP approved food distribution to the 30 percent of the refugee population that it deemed vulnerable. Some aid workers charged that the 30 percent figure was established arbitrarily. The reduction in the estimated refugee population following the June 1997 census led to a proportional reduction in the number of vulnerable food-aid beneficiaries. Following the census, WFP and UNHCR agreed on a food assistance program that targeted about 180,000 vulnerable or newly arrived refugees, according to UNHCR. WFP's food-for-work program assisted about 50,000 refugees, while its school-feeding program, finally begun in 1997, provided meals to an estimated 75,000 refugee children, according to UNHCR. Refugee children not classified as vulnerable and not attending school generally did not receive food assistance.