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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

LIBERIA: Relief activities resume in Buchanan after shoot-out

MONROVIA, 12 November 2003 (IRIN) - Relief agencies resumed plying the road to Liberia's second city Buchanan on Wednesday after a shootout between former government fighters and rebels on Tuesday forced them to suspend activities for 24 hours.

The UN World Food Program said in a situation report on Tuesday that it had temporarily suspended road transport to Buchanan, a port city 120 km southeast of the capital Monrovia, pending "further information and improvement insecurity situation".

However Abou Moussa, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Liberia, told a news conference in Monrovia on Wednesday that the situation had been brought under control. Relief workers, he added, had resumed work.

"The information we have received so far indicates that the incident in Buchanan was more of a scare. There was shooting in the air [but] that has not and will not disrupt our activities there," Moussa said.

"From what we know the situation is under control. Our colleagues in the humanitarian field have resumed their regular activities," he added.

A commander of the rebel Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), which controls the area around Buchanan, told IRIN that the shootout occurred along the Monrovia-Buchanan highway, not far from Roberts international airport, at a village called Compound Number One.

"It all started when some of [former president Charles] Taylor's fighters attempted to block our fighters from coming to Monrovia. They rushed on our boys, flattening the tyres on the vehicles they were riding in. This led to heavy exchange of insults," the MODEL commander said.

"Some of the former government fighters started coming from different directions and shooting in the air," he added.

Theme(s): (IRIN) Food Security

[ENDS]

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