WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME FEEDS LIBERIAN REFUGEES ARRIVING IN GHANA ABOARD FREIGHTER `BULK CHALLENGE'
Press Release
WFP/1034
WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME FEEDS LIBERIAN REFUGEES ARRIVING IN GHANA ABOARD FREIGHTER `BULK CHALLENGE'
19960515 ROME, 15 May (WFP) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) today began feeding the more than 2,000 refugees aboard the Nigerian freighter Bulk Challenge, who were finally allowed to disembark yesterday (Tuesday) at the port of Takoradi in Ghana.Officials reported that some 10 tons of food has been moved from Accra to Takoradi to cover the immediate needs of the refugees, who are mostly Liberians. The country director of the WFP in Ghana, Ramesh Gupta, said the Programme had sufficient stocks to feed the refugees for four months.
The passengers of the Bulk Challenge, who also include some Ghanaians and Nigerians, are being registered and given temporary shelter at a camp near Takoradi port. The WFP is distributing cooked meals consisting of fish, rice and vegetable oil to the refugees, who were stuck aboard the rusty freighter for more than a week looking for a port which would allow them to disembark.
WFP field officials said the Liberians from the Bulk Challenge -- some 1,700 people -- would probably remain in the camp, while the others were likely to return to their homes in Ghana and Nigeria.
The Bulk Challenge left Monrovia on 5 May. Despite the desperate conditions on board, the freighter's passengers were not allowed to disembark in Cote d'Ivoire or Ghana for more than a week. The Ghanaian authorities turned the ship back twice before allowing the refugees ashore last night.
The WFP is also providing food for the some 1,000 refugees of the Victory Reefer, which has been allowed to berth in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Meanwhile, fighting is reported to have escalated in Monrovia yesterday. Thousands of desperate Liberians have been flocking to the port of Monrovia in an attempt to escape the violence.
For more than six years the WFP has been providing relief food aid to over 800,000 Liberian and Sierra Leonian refugees in Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea and Ghana.
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