LIBERIA: A programme to resettle more than 300,000 Liberians who were forced to flee their homes during the country's decade-and-a-half civil war has been completed, the United Nations said yesterday.
The refugees had been living in 22 official camps and 13 spontaneous settlements, mainly around the capital Monrovia. All 22 of the official camps have now been closed. "We consider it a success," said Ron Redmond, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"When you consider that Liberia experienced 14 years of civil conflict and the huge displacement that occurred there, getting people back to their homes is a big success," he said.
However the Geneva-based agency said it still needed more money to help finance continued assistance, protection and reintegration work, and to help refugees seeking to return to the country from outside Liberia.
Liberia emerged from 14 years of civil war in 2003. Up to a quarter of a million were killed in the conflict, while thousands more were mutilated and raped, often by armies of drugged child-soldiers led by ruthless warlords.
Harvard-trained economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who won a November poll to become Africa's first elected female president, has vowed to reunite her war-scarred nation.
Meanwhile, Danish politicians were divided this week over whether Denmark should offer former Liberian leader Charles Taylor a jail cell if he is convicted of war crimes at a UN-backed court. Foreign minister Per Stig Moller had yet to receive a formal request to imprison Taylor or give him asylum after the trial.