RENEWED UNREST IN LIBERIA SLOWS HUMANITARIAN AID AS THOUSANDS FLEE TOWARDS GUINEA

RENEWED UNREST IN LIBERIA SLOWS HUMANITARIAN AID

AS THOUSANDS FLEE TOWARDS GUINEA

NEW YORK, 2 October 2003 –- Violence resurfaced in Monrovia yesterday after a period of relative calm. 

            Outside Monrovia, thousands of people are reportedly fleeing central Liberia for Guinea under threat of attack.  An estimated 1,300 Liberians have fled from Lofa County, which is under the control of the rebel group Liberians United for a Return to Democracy (LURD), towards the border towns of Bignamou and Baala.  Though the humanitarian community has undertaken regular missions, including to Tubmanburg, Buchanan, Harper and Zwedru, securing safe and unhindered access and security for staff and beneficiaries remains a key challenge.  Civilians in many areas outside Monrovia continue to face severe shortages of food, shelter, health and education services.

A recent inter-agency assessment mission to the towns of Phebe and Gbarnga, found villages completely destroyed and uninhabited along the road to Gbarnga and Phebe.  In Phebe, most of an estimated 5,000 internally displaced persons are staying in the inadequate shelter afforded by the remains of damaged homes.

The Phebe hospital has been heavily damaged and looted, leaving one small clinic in Gbarnga, where one doctor treats up to 80 people per day.  Agricultural production appears to have stopped as security concerns keep farmers from their fields.  Food supplies are so limited that most civilians are living on one meal per day.  The main food supply consists of the cassava, fruits and leaves that villagers can forage. 

On 29 September, the World Food Programme (WFP), in conjunction with World Vision and ADRA, completed food distribution to Wilson Centre and Jah Tondo camps for internally displaced persons in Montserrado.  Just over 15,000 people received food in Jah Tondo, and just over 31,000 in Wilson Corner.  In the health sector, there has been a drastic drop in the incidence of cholera as a result of intensive chlorination of wells carried out over the last few weeks by the World Health Organization (WHO) and its NGO partners.  The decline is also a result of the movement of internally displaced persons out of Central Monrovia to Montserrado.

For further information, please contact Rosemary Musumba, tel.:  +377 47 530 048 (OCHA Liberia); Stephanie Bunker, tel.:  +917 367 5126 (OCHA NY), Elizabeth Byrs, tel.:  +41 22 917 2653 (OCHA Geneva)

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