Liberia - ICRC-03: 26 September 1996

ICRC
26-Sep-96
Update No. 3 on ICRC activities in Liberia

The ICRC maintains a limited presence

The ICRC continues to work in the city of Monrovia through its locally 
hired employees.  The head of delegation, based in Freetown, Sierra 
Leone, carries out frequent missions into Monrovia to maintain contacts 
and to monitor the situation on a regular basis. He will be joined by a 
second delegate in the coming weeks. The health coordinator for Sierra 
Leone, based in Freetown, is also responsible for overseeing the ICRC's 
work in Monrovia.


Continuing support for the health infrastructure

As most of the basic health care facilities in Liberia have closed, the 
ICRC is providing medical supplies to four clinics in Buchanan, Dolo's 
Town, Gbarnga and Gbatala, which are run by the Liberia National Red 
Cross Society (LNRCS). It also supports a National Society mobile clinic 
which provides treatment for the internally displaced in Greater 
Monrovia, including the Po River area. This team is currently caring for 
over 2,000 patients per week.  

ICRC local staff are seconded to the "Skeleton team", which works in 
cooperation with the Ministry of Health and the National Society to 
exhume the bodies of those who were killed in the April-May fighting. 
They work mostly in the hospital compound, the Barclay Training Centre 
and surrounding areas and ensure the proper burial of the bodies. The 
ICRC also runs an ambulance to transfer those needing medical attention 
to the city's hospitals.

With the breakdown of the water trucking system the population of 
Monrovia has once again become dependent on water from the various wells 
and boreholes in the city, many of which have been neglected for several 
years. The ICRC has therefore increased its supply of raw materials for 
the urgently needed maintenance and chlorination of more than 1,000 
wells. Staff are in the process of rehabilitating hand pumps and 
installing them where necessary. All this work is carried out under the 
technical supervision of the ICRC.


Tracing activities

In addition, the ICRC has stepped up its programme for the exchange of 
Red Cross messages that it had previously established with the LNRCS. 
This offers the people of Monrovia the chance to make contact with their 
relatives who have fled to refugee camps in neighbouring countries or 
elsewhere outside Liberia. 


The latest position

After having been forced to withdraw from Liberia on 12 April this year, 
the ICRC issued a statement condemning "the serious and systematic 
violations of the elementary rules of international humanitarian law and 
of the minimum principles of humanity" that have been committed in the 
conflict in Liberia. In the intervening months, the ICRC has kept an 
extremely close watch on developments but sadly conditions have not 
changed and there are still flagrant breaches of the minimum standards of 
behaviour. 

While the ICRC is aware that there are serious humanitarian needs in 
pockets of the country, the institution believes that these needs are 
due, in part, to restraints imposed on the movement of the population.  
The extreme levels of malnutrition witnessed in Tubmanburg in recent days 
cruelly highlight this situation. However, the serious difficulties that 
humanitarian organizations have experienced in their attempts to respond 
to these needs have only served to confirm the ICRC's position, that is, 
that within this context, the conditions have not yet been met to resume 
a full-scale humanitarian operation. The ICRC considers that the 
situation has not improved markedly in terms of access to the population 
and respect for international humanitarian law.