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In only three days, approximately 30,000 people have been displaced, dozens of civilians have been killed and several constructions destructed after inter-ethnics violence took place in Forest Guinea. The urgent needs are important but emergency resources are lacking. The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is currently carrying out a rapid need assessment in order to start an emergency response to support the most urgent humanitarian needs.
Over the past 15 years, the Forest Region of Southeast Guinea has being host to waves of refugees and returning migrants, a fertile terrain of deep sedimented ethnic conflicts and agro pastoral tensions related to access to resources. Last week a rapid escalation of inter-communal violence erupted in the Guinean city of Nzerekore which caused displacement and the emerging of serious humanitarian needs. This armed violence has forced approximately 30,000 peoples to leave their home. Further, hundreds of houses were burned and looted, and religious buildings have been attacked and destructed. Water access for displaced people is also a major matter for a cholera epidemic prone area, like Nzerekore. These are some of the preliminary results of the ongoing DRC assessment.
“The needs are important at the moment – NFIs, food, sanitation material, and a lot of work should start on fostering social cohesion” says Frederic Deparis, Head of Nzerekore office for the Danish Refugee Council in Guinea.
As part of its regional strategy, DRC has kept an emergency presence, a protection alert cellule, in this complex area - as well as its bordering areas of Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire in order to measure the temperature of tensions and main protection risks. DRC has been present in this area since 2008, and this cross bordering presence has now become the key entry point to provide with a response for this humanitarian neglected area.
“During our assessment, a woman approached me saying that she saw her best friend killed with machete in front of her eyes and her children. She explained to me that her children have started having nightmares every night since then and all her family is afraid to going back home” says Frederic Deparis.
The DRC monitoring team in Liberia, in Northern Nimba, has also identified recent movements of Guineans as of 75 people including cases of separated children which left the country due to the continuous hostilities and increased tensions in Nzerekore. These people for now are with host families in the communities. No casualty reported so far, though the DRC protection monitoring team keeps on following the situation.
In the aftermath of the inter-communal violence in Nzerekore, DRC is present with a national team and an operational base in Nzerekore. DRC is currently endeavoring to carry out an in-depth needs assessment in Nzerekore and Beyla Prefecture to potentially scale up our operations and provide with a response to immediate humanitarian needs in collaboration with the other humanitarian actors.
