Liberia: Scarcity of water, food, and security threatens Monrovians

(New York: 25 July 2003) - Fighting continued in Monrovia this morning, with mortar rounds landing near a UN compound. With Monrovia's main water supply station at Wide Plains destroyed in recent fighting, the city's population desperately needs the supply repaired immediately, or there will be widespread outbreaks of cholera. Monrovia's one million residents, plus hundreds of thousand of internally displaced persons there, face a dangerous scarcity of water, sanitation facilities, food, and security. "If fighting continues over the weekend, thousands of Liberians could die," said Mr. Ali Muktar Farah, the Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Liberia.
Clean water is in short supply, as collapsible tents have dried down and water sources from a few mostly contaminated wells, are too far away from IDPs' encampment sites. Latrines are not available to IDPs at most of the facilities. Food supplies are scarce and expensive. Businesses, including the local markets, remain closed and prices of limited foodstuffs sold within the encampment sites have doubled or tripled. Protein products, such as fish, pulses and meat are scarce but when found the prices are unaffordable for most of the population. Cholera outbreaks and other diseases are still prevalent and expected to get worse unless clean water and sanitation can be supplied.

Humanitarian agencies, including OXFAM, an international NGO, and the European Union are trying to strengthen water supply to a few accessible IDP sites in the city. Before the recent fighting humanitarian groups including Merlin, Medicins Sans Frontiers and the International Committee of the Red Cross were working to provide health services to hundreds of victims. As security conditions allow, Merlin continues to offer assistance to a few sites with water from an old tanker with capacity to carry 50,000 gallons to alleviate the current need.

Dead corpses need to be removed from the streets to avoid an epidemic. Humanitarian actors on the ground are asking the government to provide them with sites to carry out mass burials.

Hundreds of IDPs continue to be forced to remain overcrowded buildings to avoid being hit by barrages of mortar shells, which have in recent days killed hundreds of and wounded over a thousand residents of Monrovia. For the first time since barrage of mortar shells killed about a hundred persons and wounded several people last Tuesday, thousands of people are leaving their hideouts to converge around the UN compound at Mamba Point. When areas around the United States Embassy and UN enclaves go through periods of relative calm, thousands of people venture out to buy food, while hundreds of others mainly from central Monrovia, came to sell their merchandise pillaged from stores and other business places in Monrovia.

Law and order have broken down completely. Looting, rape, and harassment by militiamen have become common in areas far from the frontlines as the fighting rages on between government forces and LURD for control of Monrovia, particularly the Port area. The fighters are reportedly raping and robbing people in their homes at night. The looting of stores in downtown Monrovia continues on a daily basis. Lootings are often attended by sporadic gunfire to scare civilians away. People walking on the streets must properly hide their valuables to avoid them being snatched away by fighters.