[allAfrica.com]  [Africa_2004]


Guinea: Ethnic Fighting Forces UN to Suspend Activities in Southeast

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
June 18, 2004
Posted to the web June 18, 2004
Nzerekore
Two days of fighting between rival ethnic communities in Guinea's southeastern
town of Nzerekore has forced UN agencies working with refugees in the
surrounding area to suspend their operations temporarily, UN officials said on
Friday.
They told an IRIN correspondent visiting the remote town, 850 km southeast of
the capital Conakry, that the UN refugee agency UNHCR and the UN World Food
Programme (WFP) had both suspended their operations there on Friday, fearing
further trouble.
There were disturbances in Nzerekore involving members of the Malinke and
Guerze ethnic groups on Wednesday and Thursday, but the IRIN correspondent said
the town appeared quiet at midday on Friday. No details of casualties were
immediately available, she added.
In Conakry, Jean-Marie Dore, leader of the opposition Union for the Progress of
Guinea (UPG) party, who comes from the Nzerekore area, said he had received
reports that between two and five people had died in the clashes.
Local sources in Nzerekore said the Guinean security forces had arrested a
large number of people in the town, including many Liberians carrying guns.
Some of these had been identified as members of the Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement, they added.
Dore said a number of former Liberian fighters had taken part in the
disturbances and been using their firearms in the clashes
Diplomats and relief workers have been worried for some time about trouble
breaking out in Guinea's Forest Region of which Nzerekore is the capital.
Tension has been rising there for some time as a result of tens of thousands of
refugees from Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire living in the area with the help of
foreign aid alongside an impoverished rural population, which plays host to an
estimated 100,000 returned Guinean migrants from Cote d'Ivoire .
Diplomats fear that idle gunmen from Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia, where a 14-year
civil war ended last year, may now drift in and destabilise the fragile social
situation.
In 2001, a quarter of a million people were internally displaced in
southeastern Guinea following an attempted invasion by insurgents backed by
former Liberian president Charles Taylor. This was rapidly suppressed by the
armed forces of President Lansana Conte.

   

  =============================================================================
   Copyright © 2004 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks. All rights
        reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
  =============================================================================