ARC Suspends Activities in Guinea Following Armed RaidAmerican Refugee Committee The American Refugee Committee has suspended its activities in Gueckedou, Guinea, following an armed raid in the region on Sunday that took the lives of a United Nations staff member and an unknown number of Guineans. ARC evacuated four expatriate staff and a dependent from Gueckedou after gunmen attacked the southeastern Guinea town of Macenta, near the Liberian border. The attackers, believed to come from Liberia, killed the head of office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and abducted another UNHCR worker.  ARC, which began working in Guinea in 1996, operates income-generation and health projects in Gueckedou, where large numbers of Sierra Leone refugees have settled. The income-generation program provides small loans to individuals who form groups that develop a business plan and receive ARC technical assistance and training. The U.S. State Department, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, recently approved funding for a new ARC project aimed at preventing sexual and gender-based violence in the Gueckedou refugee community. Sunday's raid follows increasing tension in the region, with Liberia accusing Guinea of harboring rebels who have crossed over the border to fight government forces. Guinea hosts more than 460,000 refugees, about 126,000 from Liberia and the rest from Sierra Leone. Most of the refugees in the Macenta area are Liberian. The ARC workers have been evacuated to Guinea's capital, Conakry. ARC hopes to resume operations in Gueckedou once security improves.
For more information, or to contact American Refugee Committee, see their website at: www.archq.org |
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