AID AGENCIES STRUGGLE TO MEET NEEDS IN LIBERIA

AID AGENCIES STRUGGLE TO MEET NEEDS IN LIBERIA

[OCHA]

NEW YORK, 10 July (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) -- Despite the relative calm stemming from a tenuous ceasefire in Monrovia, aid workers are struggling to meet the needs of Liberians.  Humanitarian agencies in Monrovia are constrained by an uncertain security environment coupled with shortages of both staff and supplies in the face of growing needs.

Monrovia’s civilians ---including roughly 200,000 internally displaced persons sheltering in more than 80 locations around the city ---are faced with a high rate of crime, shortages of food, clean drinking water, health care, and sanitation.  A breakdown in law and order and the threat of renewed hostilities prevent internally displaced persons from foraging for food in the bush.  People are resorting to increasingly desperate measures to obtain food, such as selling off their remaining possessions. 

The World Food Programme (WFP), together with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Liberian officials, have carried out preliminary assessments and determined that at least 182,000 people are in need of food aid.  Planned food distributions at 40 centres throughout Monrovia will be prioritized in proportion to the 12,000 metric tonnes of food stocks in the country and the relatively small number of humanitarian staff who are able to operate in Liberia.  The NGO Médicins Sans Frontières plans to conduct a rapid nutritional screening in Monrovia’s internally displaced person camps after reports of rising rates of malnutrition in children under five.

Hospitals, already overwhelmed by the rise in the number of patients, now lack the necessary water for basic activities such as bathing and cleaning. Throughout Monrovia, the number of cases of diarrhea, measles and malaria continues to rise, with 450 cases of cholera reported at John F. Kennedy Hospital alone.  In response to urgent needs, the World Health Organization (WHO) has provided basic health kits to support health needs of 7,000 people for a period of three months.  Some 4,000 sachets of re-hydration salts and other supplies have also been provided by the WHO for treating cholera.  But contaminated water places thousands more at risk.  Together with the Liberian Ministry of Health, the WHO plans to carry out a mass chlorination of wells in Monrovia, but lacks transportation necessary to distribute the 650 kilograms of chlorine that are available.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the European Union, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and NGOs such as Médicins Sans Frontières, OXFAM and Merlin continue to truck water directly to several communities in Monrovia and its suburbs.  The agencies have identified 13 centres with critical water and sanitation needs and have begun coordinating their activities at those sites.  OXFAM is currently constructing latrines and bathhouses at the ‘Masonic Temple’ and the International School.  But these interventions cannot be sufficient in a city of 1 million people where there has been no supply of clean water for more than five years.

Armed robberies at night are widespread.  There have also been reports of armed scuffles over looted goods in Monrovia suburbs leading to deaths in some cases.  The city suburbs remain tense and deserted, and many residents are still apprehensive about returning to their pre-crisis homes.  Many of the residents who have returned have found their homes vandalized or looted.  An inter-agency protection group has deployed protection monitors around Monrovia to investigate, document and report on protection issues in the new internally displaced person settlements.  Protection monitors have received reports of rape, harassment of civilians by armed men, and child separation within the camps.   

Little is known about the number and condition of people in need outside Monrovia, and there are reports of clashes between rebels and government forces at Tubmanburg, some 47 kilometers northwest of Monrovia.

For further information, please contact Stephanie Bunker at tel.:  (212) 963-1143 in New York.

* *** *