Liberia
Aid returns to Liberia's most remote areas

afrol News, 29 April - The UN refugee agency today said it is gradually re-establishing a presence in the remote areas of Liberia, close to the border with Côte d'Ivoire, where tens of thousands of people had been cut off from humanitarian aid for two months due to increased conflict. Security conditions had somewhat improved.

- Over the past two weeks the security situation in the area has somewhat improved, allowing some aid workers to go back for the first time since 28 February, when an attack uprooted thousands of civilians and left three humanitarian workers dead, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Kris Janowski told the press in Geneva.

Last Thursday, UNHCR and World Food Programme (WFP) staff travelled to Saclepea (in Nimba County, close to the Guinean and Ivorian borders) to distribute food in the transit camp hosting over 700 Ivorian refugees and 34 West African migrant workers who fled the conflict in Côte d'Ivoire. The team stayed in Saclepea for three days, before returning to Monrovia on Sunday, after reports of renewed fighting in the neighbouring town of Tappita.

Tappita was attacked by a relatively new rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (M0DEL), which already holds larger areas in the eastern part of the country. MODEL has been in control of Zwedru, close to Côte d'Ivoire, since March. From this core area, MODEL has now advanced to attack the coastal town of Greenville and the mountain town of Tappita. At Tappita, MODEL rebels are closing into the frontline between government troops and Liberia's principal rebel group, LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy).

A recent report by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) mission to Liberia confirmed that by now, more than 60 percent of the country is under control of various rebel groups. According to UN sources, humanitarian access to some 70 percent of Liberia is now impossible and there do no longer exist safe havens for internally displaced people. UNHCR access to Saclepea however indicates that humanitarian missions are still possible.

UNHCR also continued to review the possibility of a full resumption of aid efforts in Harper, a coastal town in south-eastern Mariland County, where it is, in collaboration with WFP, currently operating two flights per week, the UN agency reported. UNHCR will today use a WFP-chartered boat to send some non-food items, light vehicles and fuel for the refugee operations there.

- We hope that refugees and other people displaced by the fighting in the area will now attempt to reach Harper as soon as they hear that aid is available there, Mr Janowski said.

Close to 100,000 people – a mix of Ivorians, Liberians and third-country nationals – have fled into Liberia since the conflict spread to western Côte d'Ivoire in mid-November of last year. UNHCR had also learned that refugees continued to arrive from Côte d'Ivoire but could not verify the reports independently.