Assessment of returnees in Forest Guinea indicates that large population groups affected by the Côte d'Ivoire crisis continue to be in need of assistance

Conakry - 9 January 2004. As a result of the Côte d'Ivoire crisis a vast number of civilians have sought refuge in Guinea since September 2002. Among these are - according to official figures - over 100,000 Guinean nationals who were part of the large West African immigrant community in Cote d'Ivoire.
In the sub-prefectures along the Guinean-Ivorian border alone, local communities are currently hosting over 50,000 Guinean returnees from Côte d'Ivoire and the vast majority of returnees continue to be almost entirely dependent on local communities for basic life sustaining assistance. While the integration of these returnees generally has been smooth and not led to noticeable social tensions, the difficult economic circumstances endured in the area due to the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire have placed a considerable strain on weak social services, in particular in the sectors of Health, Food Security, Education and Water and Sanitation. The returnees currently represent eight percent of the population in this area and fifty percent are children.

These are findings of an assessment carried out from September to November 2003 by the OCHA sub-field office in N'Zerekore in collaboration with local authorities. With the objective of providing humanitarian decision makers with an informed understanding of this less visible impact of the Ivorian crisis on civilians, the assessment covers the numbers and conditions of returnee-families, host-families and communities in all sub-prefectures and main urban zones along the Guinean-Ivorian border.

While the primary responsibility for protecting and assisting groups such as returnees rests with States, in this case the Guinean Government, the scope and complexity of this phenomenon requires the concerted action of a wide range of humanitarian, development and political actors. Within the UN system, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is mandated to lead international action for the protection and assistance of refugees and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is mandated to lead international action in relation to third country nationals. There is, however, no single agency charged with responding to the needs of returnees. This has led to a situation where returnees, who often arrive under the same conditions as refugees and third country nationals, not always have been monitored and received the protection and assistance implied by fundamental humanitarian principles.

In order to build on the capacities of the local communities, humanitarian actors such as World Food Programme (WFP) currently support returnee and host families through, for example, school-feeding programmes carried out in the prefectures of Lola, Youmou and Nzerekoré, targeting some 45,000 persons. While the assessment makes no claim to be exhaustive, it is clear, however, that much still needs to be done in terms of protection of civilians in Guinea affected by the crisis in Côte d'Ivoire.

The full report can be downloaded from the Humanitarian Information Platform for Guinea on www.humanitarianinfo.org/guinea.

OCHA Guinea
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