OCHA Situation Report No. 129
Liberia
26 November - 9 December 2007


HIGHLIGHTS

- Emergency medical care in Grand Kru County

UNMIL and partners provide emergency medical care in Grand Kru County

In line with its role of supporting humanitarian activities, the UN 
Mission in Liberia in collaboration with the Grand Kru County Health 
Team, conducted a medical outreach in Geetugbaken, a town located in the 
southeastern county of Grand Kru.  A medical team comprising UNMIL 
Chinese military doctors and local County health personnel provided 
urgent medical care to 380 residents. During the outreach, 250 women and 
200 children were vaccinated against common preventable diseases. The 
National Drug Service and the UNMIL Chinese military hospital in the 
region provide drugs for the exercise.

Notwithstanding the success of the medical outreach in Geetugbaken, 
there is a need for a health facility to cater for primary health needs. 
Due to relative remoteness and other factors, Grand Kru County and many 
parts of the southeast lack many basic social services and amenities. 
Medical outreaches are intended as stopgap measures are not a substitute 
for the provision of basic health care services.

Second version of WDWW database completed

The Humanitarian Coordination Section has completed the second version 
of the Who Does What Where (WDWW) database, and circulated it to the 
humanitarian community. The database contains PDF and Excel datasheets 
on humanitarian and recovery activities reported by UN agencies, 
international and national non-governmental organizations in Liberia as 
at August 2007. This database release will be followed shortly by the 
second edition of the Dynamic Atlas, which is an update of the first 
edition released in January 2007.

War-ravaged village gets safe drinking water

The approximately 1,000 residents of Wazezu, a village in Lofa County, 
were delighted when they received a new well fitted with a hand pump to 
provide them with safe drinking water. The American Refugee Committee, 
with support from UNHCR, constructed the pump and handed it over to the 
residents on 5 December.

Wazezu is a small village in Lofa County near the Liberian border with 
Guinea. Prior to the dedication of the new hand pump, residents of the 
village collected water from a muddy creek.  Some reports have it that 
it was destroyed by shelling from across the border during the war, 
thereby displacing its pre-war population of an estimated 4,000 people. 
Its residents have since then struggled to rebuild their lives.  The 
town has no school or clinic.

Refugee return update

The voluntary assisted return of Liberian refugees continues from Sierra 
Leone, Guinea and the region. During the week, 270 refugees returned 
from Guinea and Sierra Leone by road via Lofa County in the north. By 1 
December 2007, UNHCR had assisted some 112,000 to return. The returnees 
represent a residual caseload of assisted refugees that registered for 
voluntary assisted return before the official end of the assisted return 
programme at the end of June 2007.

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Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
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Center for International              web: www.cidi.org
    Disaster Information          listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
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