Agencies resume work - Peacewatch - UN agencies in Sierra Leone

UN Chronicle, Summer, 1998 by Beatrice Grabish

Soon after ECOMOG gained control of Freetown, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in collaboration with Sierra Leone's Embassy in Conakry, Guinea, arranged bus transportation for more than 6,000 of the 20,000 Sierra Leonean civil servants who had escaped to Guinea in May 1997. They returned just days following the end of hostilities. Additional funds are being sought in order to help the last group to return. On the other hand, as fighting continued in the east of the country, thousands of new refugees poured into Liberia. In recent weeks, the influx of refugees into the border towns in Guinea was assuming "alarming proportions" and they were in poor physical shape, according to UNHCR. The increase in refugees was adding to the hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean refugees already being hosted by those countries.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) also restarted its activities in Sierra Leone. Among other programmes, it was working with the Ministry of Health on mass immunization in the capital and, as soon as it was feasible, in other provincial towns. It was also assisting in supplying drugs to the hospitals. On 25 March, UNICEF organized a workshop to sensitive ECOMOG forces, government officials and representatives of civil defence units on the need to protect child combatants of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), as they surrendered. UNICEF estimated that for the next three months, from April to June, it could reach 1.5 million people out of a total population of 4.5 million to assist in providing humanitarian assistance.

The World Food Programme and other United Nations bodies, as well as international and national non-governmental organizations, also began operating again in Sierra Leone and were assisting in providing humanitarian assistance to the population.

On 3 March, the United Nations launched an appeal for $11.2 million to meet priority humanitarian needs in Sierra Leone over the next three months as the country recovers from the forceful removal of the military junta. The United Nations consolidated inter-agency flash appeal was prepared in response to calls for urgent action to meet the immediate humanitarian needs in the country. It seeks funds for priority intervention to support agriculture, re-establish basic health and education services, ensure the resumption of food aid distributions and provide protection, as well as assistance, to the most vulnerable groups affected by the current conflict. In so doing, it complements the 90-day programme of the Government, which serves as a framework for action following the restoration of democratic civilian rule in Sierra Leone.