VIII. LOCATION OF THE CAMPS

It is dangerous at the border . . . It is possible that the rebels can come and attack. If there is an attack, a bullet wouldn't choose and say, "this is a border, I won't cross." This hasn't happened yet in Koulomba, but I fear it. . . . Security for now, in our own area, there are no problems. Guinean soldiers secure the border on this side. But just on the other side is a rebel zone. It is even more dangerous in Nongoa than here because Nongoa town is right on the river-literally a stone's throw away. . . .¹⁵³

The conflict in Sierra Leone has crossed the border with Guinea on several occasions, leaving these refugees vulnerable to armed attacks. Human Rights Watch first called on UNHCR to move the refugees in June 1998. As of March 1999, UNHCR estimated that 100,000 of the approximately 300,000 refugees in the Gueckedou area lived in camps located dangerously close to the border and hoped to move 50,000 to safer locations by June 1999.¹⁵⁴ However, only 12,000 people were moved before the rainy season began and unpaved roads in the Gueckedou area became impassable in June 1999.

International Legal Standards

According to international law and UNHCR guidelines, camps should not be located close to the border. Article II(6) of the OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa states that, "For reasons of security, countries of asylum shall, as far as possible, settle refugees at a reasonable distance from the frontier of their country of origin." ¹⁵⁵ This has generally been understood to mean a minimum of fifty kilometers from the border. This principle is also reflected in several UNHCR Executive Committee Conclusions, including the 1987 Conclusion on Military or Armed Attacks on Refugee Camps and Settlements.¹⁵⁶

The dangers posed by the location of the camps also jeopardize refugee children's rights to life and physical security under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.¹⁵⁷

Risk of Cross-Border Attacks and Infiltration
The location of many camps in the Gueckedou area has left refugees, including children, vulnerable to cross-border attacks by Sierra Leonean rebels who have controlled much of the Sierra Leonean territory near the border. Between June 1998 and June 1999, several cross-border attacks were reported on different camps located up to thirty kilometers from the border. These attacks were usually short nighttime raids into Guinea, apparently to get food and other supplies, abduct refugees, and instill terror. Such attacks over the past year have resulted in killing, mutilation, and abduction of refugees.¹⁵⁸

The pattern of attacks has depended somewhat on military operations in Sierra Leone. If fighting intensifies in the areas of Kono and Kailahun districts of Sierra Leone that border the Gueckedou peninsula, the refugee population in the Gueckedou area is likely to be at greater risk of attack or infiltration by armed forces. By contrast, between March and May 1999, fighting was heavy in the Kambia district of Sierra Leone and resulted in more cross-border attacks into the neighboring Forecariah region of western Guinea.

UNHCR has been slow in responding to the threat of armed attacks on refugee camps in Guinea, subjecting tens of thousands of refugee children and their families to constant fear and risk. A refugee social worker who was in the Toumandou camp until November 1998 described repeated RUF threats to attack the camp during August 1998:

Boys who came from Sierra Leone would make trouble in the camps . . . The rebels would write every day or every week, saying they were coming to the camp. Boys in the camp would write RUF on the latrines, some thirteen to fifteen years of age. They would do havoc in the night. The chairman met with the U.N. and told them this. But only later [in late October] UNHCR informed the refugees that we would be moved.¹⁵⁹

UNHCR moved the refugees from Toumandou to the already-existing Boudou camp, at a safer location, on November 18, 1998.

All refugees, including children, are at risk during cross-border attacks. In June 1998, Human Rights Watch interviewed a ten-year-old refugee who was shot during fighting between the RUF and the Guinean military near the Nongoa camp.¹⁶⁰ UNHCR has reported that children have been among those abducted in RUF raids on Guinea.¹⁶¹ At least seven refugees were killed during an August 1998 attack on Koulou-Bengu, a refugee settlement in the Gueckedou area, including the father of seven children.

In addition, children risk becoming separated from those caring for them during the fear and confusion caused by the threat of attack. In late 1998, refugees fled in fear and panic when the RUF were threatening to attack the Gelema camp at the tip of the Gueckedou peninsula, just a few kilometers from the border. A refugee teacher told Human Rights Watch that the panic resulting when his students heard this threat led to their immediate flight from the classroom while he was writing on the blackboard. Approximately 300 children fled in terror, scattering in the surrounding bush and a nearby village.¹⁶² A social worker in Koulomba explained:

In October or November, the rebels crossed over to Gelema [which is very close to here] and approached a woman harvesting rice in a field. She had the trauma feeling. . . . She ran away, ran to the town and said the rebels have crossed . . . People fled all over, some fled all the way to Ouende-Kenema. . . . When this panic takes place, everyone-even parents-fight for their own life. It is especially hard for children. One pregnant woman was in labor when the panic hit. She had a stillbirth on the way when she was fleeing. Grown men have more strength to go ahead than children.¹⁶³

There is also a risk that refugee camps could become infiltrated by armed elements. Some aid workers suspect that RUF rebels had infiltrated the Toumandou camp, located near the Sierra Leonean border in the Gueckedou prefecture, before an attack on the camp in late August 1998.¹⁶⁴ The Guinean government also expressed concern in May 1999 that rebels had infiltrated refugee camps in the Forecariah area. However, Human Rights Watch did not find evidence of rebel infiltration in refugee camps in the Gueckedou area in February and March 1999. On the contrary, the Guinean government and the refugees themselves had prevented rebel soldiers from seeking refuge in the camps.¹⁶⁵

The Role of UNHCR

UNHCR guidelines on refugee children call for staff to "locate camps or other accommodation at a safe distance from the border of the country of origin or conflict areas to minimize the danger of armed attacks, harassment or military recruitment."¹⁶⁶ They also instruct staff to "relocate camps or settlements if they are in danger of being raided by military forces." ¹⁶⁷

UNHCR has made efforts to move the refugees to safety, but has had limited success. The move has proven to be an expensive and cumbersome process. UNHCR requested U.S.$4 million to complete the move, but international donors did not make any direct contributions to the appeal. It would have been much less expensive to settle refugees away from the border when most of them arrived in March and April 1998 rather than attempting to move them at this late date.

UNHCR has generally been slow to react to risks stemming from the location of the camps, and has failed to take routine steps to avoid the risks in the first place. UNHCR claimed that it had learned from its mistakes in the Gueckedou area and was attempting to settle refugees who arrived in Guinea in 1999 in camps a safe distance from the Sierra Leonean border in the Forecariah area.¹⁶⁸ Nevertheless, it proceeded to settle these refugees in camps near the border that were vulnerable to at least five cross-border attacks between March and May 1999.

Despite longstanding calls for the Gueckedou camps to be moved, the first refugees were relocated only in November 1998. The move came more than two months after a major attack on Toumandou resulting in the killing or abduction of almost two dozen refugees and reports of infiltration in that camp, with UNHCR moving a few thousand refugees to a safer location.

At that time, UNHCR planned to move up to 50,000 of the 100,000 refugees at risk beginning in November 1998.¹⁶⁹ However, the Guinean government, concerned about large-scale population movements within the country before the December 1998 national elections, requested UNHCR to wait until 1999 to begin the move. The Guinean government has also been slow to propose acceptable sites for new refugee camps at safe locations. UNHCR later decided to wait until after the February 1999 refugee census to begin the move, leaving little time before the rains that begin each June.

Although these events explain why UNHCR did not begin to move the refugees sooner, planning should have begun earlier. UNHCR only requested funding for the move, U.S$4 million, in February 1999?long after the 1999 funding appeal had been issued. UNHCR appointed a coordinator and convened a meeting with its NGO implementing partners to plan the move in March 1999, and the actual move did not begin for more than one month after this process began. The first refugees were moved from Dakongo, one of the most dangerous camp locations, to Katkama, a site significantly farther from the border, on April 12, 1999. Although UNHCR repeatedly and publicly declared its intention to move 50,000 of the 100,000 refugees at risk before the rainy season, this was very likely to be logistically impossible. Approximately 12,000 refugees were moved to safety before the rains began. UNHCR attempted to move some refugees despite the rains, but ultimately had to abandon the operation. In July 1999, UNHCR told Human Rights Watch that completion of the move is a priority and that it had communicated this to its donors.¹⁷⁰

NGOs have also raised concerns about the demographics of the new sites.¹⁷¹ UNHCR's original plan called for one large camp to house 50,000 refugees, as opposed to several smaller camps, the large size of which could increase the risk of crime-including sexual violence-and unrest among refugees. They were also concerned that protection of vulnerable refugees, including single mothers and separated children, was not taken into account early enough in the planning process.¹⁷² In addition, NGOs noted a lack of a "participatory approach" as refugees had largely been excluded from discussions of the move and the new sites. UNHCR subsequently hired a site planner to address these issues.

Human Rights Watch interview, Koulomba, February 24, 1999.

In addition, in May 1999 UNHCR and the Guinean government agreed to move 30,000 refugees away from the border in the Forecariah area.

Guinea is a State Party to the OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, ratified 18 October 1972.

Conclusion on Military or Armed Attacks on Refugee Camps and Settlements , No. 48 (1987), para. (c). See also Conclusion on Refugee Children and Adolescents, No. 84 (1997), para. (a)(ii); Conclusion on Refugee Children, No. 47 (1987), para. (e); Conclusion on Personal Security of Refugees, No. 72 (1993), para. (b); and Conclusion on Safeguarding Asylum, No. 82 (1997), para. (d)(vii).

Articles 6, 19, and 22, Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Human Rights Watch interview with Guinean military official, Gueckedou, February 22, 1999.

Human Rights Watch interview, Boudou camp, February 17, 1999.

Human Rights Watch interview, Gueckedou Hospital, June 17, 1998.

Correspondence with Human Rights Watch, November 24, 1998.

After three days, when there had still been no attack, people started to return to the camp and children were reunified with their families. Human Rights Watch interview, Koulomba camp, February 24, 1999.

Human Rights Watch interview, Fangamadou, February 24, 1999.

A UNHCR officer told Human Rights Watch that "the manner of the Toumandou attack implied that the rebels know the zone very well. They wouldn't have been able to carry out the attack without a certain local complicity." Human Rights Watch interview, Gueckedou, February 17, 1999.

The Guinean government attempts to screen rebel soldiers from other refugees as they cross over the border to arrest them. Refugees, who generally resent the RUF for its role in the civil war and for causing them to flee their homes, told Human Rights Watch that they immediately tell the Guinean authorities if they suspect someone of membership in the RUF so that they can arrest him.

It should be noted that this method of screening for active combatants is not consistent with international standards. As a Guinean military commander in Fangamadou said, "What happens is that, if the refugees don't like someone, they simply report him as being a rebel." Human Rights Watch interview, Fangamadou, February 20, 1999.

UNHCR, Refugee Children, p. 83.

UNHCR, Refugee Children, p. 86.

Human Rights Watch interview, Conkary, March 1, 1999.

Human Rights Watch interviews, Conakry, February 26, 1999; Gueckedou, February 18, 1999. None of the camps visited by Human Rights Watch were slated to be moved in 1999.

Human Rights Watch interview, Geneva, July 2, 1999.

Human Rights Watch interviews in Conakry February, 14, 1999 and February 26, 1999; and in Gueckedou, March 2, 1999.

The guidelines on refugee children require the following: "Promote safe living arrangements for refugee children and their families. Provide living facilities that offer families and communities the most opportunities to protect children. Consider needs for privacy, adequate space, spatial configuration of camps, lighting at night, and special security arrangements." UNHCR, Refugee Children, p. 83.