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New Plan Would Not Protect Refugees

Rebel attacks on refugees returning home to Sierra Leone cast doubt on a new United Nations plan for "safe passage" through rebel-held territory, Human Rights Watch has said.

(Freetown, Sierra Leone, April 3, 2001) Rebel attacks on refugees
returning home to Sierra Leone cast doubt on a new United Nations plan
for "safe passage" through rebel-held territory, Human Rights Watch said
today.

Human Rights Watch research found that Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
rebels are raping, killing and abducting Sierra Leonean refugees fleeing
desperate conditions in refugee camps in Guinea. The findings raise
serious questions about the viability of so-called "safe passage" or
humanitarian corridors through rebel territory for returning refugees,
as proposed in February by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR).

Human Rights Watch documented abuses against refugees from December 2000
through mid-March 2001 in the Koinadugu, Kailahun and Kono districts of
eastern Sierra Leone. It said RUF soldiers are
attacking returnees in Sierra Leone as they trek for days, and
sometimes weeks, in an attempt to reach the government-held towns of
Kenema, Kabala and Daru.

"The so-called 'safe passage' for refugees is far from safe," said Peter
Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa
division. "The United Nations must not lend its authority to a scheme
that will only mean more suffering for traumatized refugees."

The returning Sierra Leonean refugees have been under siege in refugee
camps in Guinea since September 2000, when cross-border attacks flared
between Sierra Leonean, Guinean, and Liberian government forces,
rebels, and militia groups. The Guinean government estimates that
hundreds have died in this border violence, and that over 100,000 Sierra
Leonean and Liberian refugees and thousands of Guineans have been
displaced.

The recently appointed U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud
Lubbers, visited the sub-region in February 2001, to assess the refugee
crisis described by UNHCR as the worst in the world. After meetings with
the leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, he proposed relocating
the refugees to camps further within Guinea. Lubbers also suggested a
strategy of "safe passage," allowing refugees to return to Sierra Leone
both overland through RUF territory and by boat from the Guinean capital
of Conakry to Sierra Leone's government-controlled capital, Freetown.
UNHCR established contact with the RUF to seek a commitment to allow the
"safe passage" of refugees.

Since early February, tens of thousands of refugees have been relocated
from the border region by UNHCR. According to UNHCR, as of March 23,
2001, some 59,000 Sierra Leonean refugees had returned from Guinea to
Sierra Leone since September 2000, many of them of their own accord.
Some 40,000 have returned by boat from Conakry, and some 13,000 by foot
to Lungi, north of Freetown. Some 5,000 are believed to have passed
through RUF-held areas of Sierra Leone. However, more than 135,000 are
still stranded in the Guinean refugee camps located in the Parrot's Beak
region bordering RUF-held areas of Sierra Leone. These
camps remain vulnerable to attack, largely cut off from food assistance
and protection.

Based on its findings of continuing RUF brutality against returning
refugees, Human Rights Watch believes that the protection of refugees
would be seriously compromised if UNHCR goes ahead with plans to
establish "safe passage" through RUF territory. Despite assurances
received by UNHCR during its meetings with RUF leaders in Sierra Leone,
any form of overland travel by refugees through RUF territory should be
discouraged by UNHCR.

Instead, UNHCR should make as its priority the protection and relocation
of the refugees to more secure camps further inland within Guinea.
Refugees should be provided with full and objective information on which
to base decisions about return, and those who wish to return should be
assisted with transport to Conakry where they can safely return by boat
to Freetown.

The international community, including UNHCR, should provide assistance
to returning refugees, many of whom join the already over-crowded camps
for displaced persons around Freetown.

Among the scores of returnees who gave detailed accounts of serious
rebel abuses to Human Rights Watch, numerous men who passed through the
diamond-rich district of Kono and the rebel stronghold of Kailahun
described recruitment of able-bodied men and boys as young as fifteen to
fight with the RUF forces or to carry out forced labor in the diamond
mines or with the rebel army. Four men were killed for refusing
recruitment, disobeying orders, or being physically unable to work.
Human Rights Watch interviewed an elderly woman whose
twenty-five-year-old son was shot and killed in front of her in December
2000, after refusing to be recruited. A woman described how her husband
was executed in early December for refusing to hand her over to the
rebels, while another woman described how her ailing husband was beaten
to death in the mid-March 2001 for no apparent reason.

Numerous women returnees described being abducted, raped and/or sexually
abused. Human Rights Watch interviewed six women who had been raped and
numerous more who were either held or taken away to rebel bases, for a
time span varying from a few hours to several weeks. One woman described
how she was gang-raped by RUF rebels in Kailahun in late January 2001,
after she and five other women were chosen from a group of returnees
detained at a rebel checkpoint. Human Rights Watch interviewed a man who
managed to escape in mid-January after two weeks of forced labor, but
had to leave his wife behind in a rebel base in
Kono.

According to witnesses, the RUF routinely screened returnees, and
sometimes forced them to move to other locations where they were
pressured to settle within rebel territory. Returnees who had been
detained described being held for anywhere from several hours to several
weeks. In addition to the abuses suffered along the way, most refugees
described being robbed of some or all of their possessions.

For more complete testimony of refugee victims of RUF abuses please see
http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/04/sl-testimonies.htm.

For more information on Sierra Leone, please see:

Sierra Leone: A Call for Justice (HRW Photo Essay, Summer 2000) at
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/sleone/photo-essay/

Guinean Forces Kill, Wound Civilians in Sierra Leone (HRW Press Release,
February 28, 2001) at http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/02/guinea0227.htm

U.N. Chief Urged to Protect Civilians (HRW Letter, November 29, 2000) at
http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/11/annanltr.htm