U.N. Workers Murdered, Kidnapped

G E N E V A, Sept. 17, 2000 -- A U.N. refugee worker was killed and a second waskidnapped in a raid today in West Africa, officials said. Themotive for the attack was not immediately clear.

Mensah Kpognon, 50, of Togo, was slain at his home by unknowngunmen in the southeastern Guinea town of Macenta, near the borderwith Liberia, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said.

UNHCR said it had heard that the attackers abducted another ofits staff members, Sapeu Laurence Djeya of the Ivory Coast.

The raid came nearly two weeks after the slaying of three U.N.staff members in Indonesian-controlled West Timor.

“Yet another humanitarian has been savagely killed trying tohelp refugees,” said Frederick Barton, deputy high commissioner,at the agency’s Geneva headquarters. “We haven’t even buried ourthree other colleagues murdered in West Timor 10 days ago, and nowwe have lost another friend and co-worker.”

Mystery Assailants

A statement by UNHCR headquarters said Kpognon had contacted theagency’s offices in the Guinean capital, Conakry, at 6:30 a.m.today to report unrest in the Macenta and to say that attackershad burned the town’s military garrison two hours earlier.

UNHCR officials in Macenta were sent to check on Kpognon afterhe lost contact with Conakry, and found his body at his house, theagency said.

“He had apparently been shot by the retreating gunmen,” thestatement said. “His house had been burned, as well as a UNHCRvehicle parked outside.” It said several bodies were seen in thestreets of the town.

The agency said it had issued an urgent appeal to governments inthe region to join in the effort to obtain the release of Djeya,the female staffer.

It was unclear what led the attack that killed Kpognon, whostudied at the University of Iowa in 1984-85.

Cross Border Raids

Guinea hosts more than 460,000 refugees, one of the largestrefugee populations in Africa. Some 330,000 are from Sierra Leoneand 126,000 from Liberia.

Most of the refugees in the Macenta area are Liberian, but someSierra Leonean refugees have fled into the area recently followingattacks by Sierra Leonean rebels.

There have been several cross-border raids into Guinea recently.

UNHCR noted that the government has said at least 80 people werekilled by anti-Guinean dissidents in attacks on several Guineanvillages near the borders of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

It said some 50 people were killed Sept. 1 in an attack onMassadou village, about 15 miles from Macenta.

The Guinean government blamed the attack on gunmen from Liberia.Liberia has accused Guinea of harboring rebels who crossed intonorthern Liberia in July and have been fighting government forcesthere ever since.

Tensions have been high toward refugees in Guinea recently.There have been a number of attacks on refugees in Conakry andelsewhere in the past week since President Lansana Conte accusedthem in a television broadcast of harboring anti-Guineandissidents.