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More than 10,000 Liberian refugees have returned home from neighboring countries and nearly 100,000 internally displaced have resettled since last October, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday.
According to reports reaching Lagos, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in Geneva that the 10,000 mark was crossed last week when three convoys repatriated 963 Liberians from Guinea, bringing to 10,566 the total number of returns under the UNHCR repatriation program.
Liberians have also been returning home from Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria, Marie-Helene Verney said.
"Liberia is one of UNHCR's biggest voluntary repatriation programs in Africa for the current year. We hope to assist the return of some 150,000 Liberian refugees in the course of 2005," said Verney.
All returning refugees receive start-up assistance of food rations, household items and agricultural tools and with UNHCR help, returnees and their local communities have cooperated in repairing houses, roads, water points, schools and clinics, providing much-needed jobs, he said.
"The changes of the past two years offer Liberia and the region a real opportunity for peace and stability, but after fifteen years of conflict, the security situation is still fragile, and the reintegration of former soldiers and combatants remains problematic," he added, urging the international community to continue to help rebuild Liberia.
Liberia's civil war, which claimed at least 200,000 lives, ended in August 2003 when former president Charles Taylor stepped down and was replaced by a power sharing transitional government that is expected to hold presidential election in October this year.
(Xinhua News Agency April 2, 2005)
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