Liberia: Future of returning IDPs is at critical juncture

Following Liberia’s credible elections in October 2005 there may at last be real cause for optimism for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fourteen years of civil war. While the new government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been taking the first steps towards economic and security sector reform, IDPs and refugees have been continuing to return home in large numbers. In January 2006 the UN reported that less than 50,000 registered IDPs remained in camps – with some 270,000 already assisted to return to their home areas – and that facilitated IDP return was expected to be completed in April 2006.