There's a new UNMIL Humanitarian situation report out, which includes the following noteworthy statistics:

UNHCR reported that by May 31, 2007 it had facilitated the voluntary return of 99,491 Liberian refugees from neighbouring countries in West Africa and other parts of the world. It also estimates that 83,741 Liberian refugees are yet to return home, with the bulk of them in Ghana (29%) and Cote d’Ivoire (27%). The official end date for the voluntary repatriation programme is 30 June 2007.

The scale of that relocation effort obviously dwarfs the demographic flow of aid workers, international support staff and interns like myself into Monrovia, but I continue to discover that the latter is also a non-trivial population, and that the effect on housing market and availability is marked. I'm grateful to have a very comfortable place to stay for the time being, though I'll be glad when I know what I'm doing after next week.

Given the number of families living in makeshift homes and structures against the sides of walls and buildings around where I stay, the comfort and luxury of clean, solid indoor space with generator power and running water is hard to overstate. Another of the continuing, incredible contrasts of Liberia.