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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
LIBERIA: LURD rebels promise to return stolen relief vehicles
TUBMANBURG, 22 August 2003 (IRIN) - The military commander of the LURD rebel movement has pledged to help recover vehicles stolen from the United Nations and relief agencies in Liberia and has promised aid workers free access to LURD-controlled areas of the country.
The assurances were given by General Aliyu Sheriff, chief of staff of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement, to Ross Mountain, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Liberia, at a meeting on Thursday.
The return of looted vehicles was one of the key demands made by Mountain at the meeting in Tubmanburg, a town 68 km northwest of the capital Monrovia, which serves as LURD's frontline military headquarters.
"We need those vehicles to allow us to easily start the distribution of food", the UN official said.
Ramin Rafirasme, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), told IRIN on Friday that his agency had lost at least 20 trucks and other vehicles to looters and it would be unable to distribute food effectively without them.
"A commercial fleet cannot cover food delivery of 9,000 MT per month in Liberia. We received a generous donation of eight trucks from Sweden today, but it still couldn't cover our needs," Rafirasme said. "We badly need those trucks back."
Astrid van Genderen Stort, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), said about 20 UNHCR vehicles had been stolen, including two buses.
An IRIN correspondent who accompanied the UN team said the town was full of vehicles looted in Monrovia, including two recently repainted trucks that appeared to have been taken from WFP.
Aid workers have also reported seeing looted relief agency vehicles in the LURD-controlled town of Bo Waterside on the Sierra Leone border.
General Sheriff told the UN delegation that he had set up a team to identify and retrieve all looted aid agency vehicles. He specifically pledged that all the WFP trucks taken by his fighters would be returned.
Relief workers estimate that more than 50 vehicles have been stolen from aid agencies by LURD fighters since the rebel movement launched its first attack on Monrovia in early June. Several hundred vehicles were stolen from private individuals, they added.
A few aid vehicles, including a four-wheel drive vehicle belonging to Oxfam, which was hijacked by LURD fighters in Monrovia last Saturday, have since been recovered.
Relief workers said some vehicles had also been taken by MODEL, which controls southern and eastern Liberia, including the port city of Buchanan.
Mountain discussed with the LURD commander the establishment of a safe humanitarian corridor through which relief agencies could channel assistance to people living in LURD-controlled areas.
"All we want is cooperation to give us safe and unhindered access to bring humanitarian relief to the people," he said.
Sheriff said his forces were prepared to provide security for aid agencies in the areas of northern and western Liberia under LURD control.
A peace agreement signed by the LURD, the second rebel group, Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) and the Liberian government on Monday, commits the warring factions to provide safe corridors in the areas they control and to allow aid agencies resume humanitarian assistance to civilians.
Sheriff said the only medical facility in Tubmanburg, the capital of Bomi County, was a mobile clinic recently set up by Medecins Sans Frontieres.
The government-owned hospital in the town is in ruins.
"Our people need medicine, food and shelter," Sheriff said. We need international organisations to serve our people now."
The UNHCR reported on Thursday that about 20,000 displaced people living in Tubmanburg were surviving mainly on cassava leaves and palm cabbage and were in desperate need of food, health care and sanitation.
The acting Superintendent of Bomi County, Gbanja Gbor, said malaria, cholera and diarrhoea were prevalent in the area.
"People in Tubmanburg depend on African medicines (herbs). We need a hospital to take care of us," Pa Zwannah, an elderly man told IRIN.
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict
[ENDS]
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