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SOMALIA: SURVIVAL STILL A STRUGGLE: "We gathered everything we could: pieces of sheet metal, boards, uprooted bushes and cardboard floating on the water.".
COLOMBIA: RETURNING HOME: Five hundred and twenty-six people forced to flee several months ago by fighting in the ongoing armed conflict in Colombia have been helped by ICRC delegates to return from Pavarando to their homes in Villa Hermosa.
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SOMALIA SURVIVAL STILL A STRUGGLE
"We gathered everything we could: pieces of sheet metal, boards, uprooted bushes and cardboard floating on the water." Sitting in front of a makeshift hut, the mother of a large group of ragged children relates her struggle for survival during the recent flooding. The worst time was November, when the inhabitants of Marere were forced to seek refuge on dikes built along the Juba river, near where it flows into the Indian Ocean. Protected from the torrent, several thousand people built the new village in which they are still living. When the waters finally fell, they could find nothing of their former homes, even when these had been only a few hundred meters away. Everything (houses, crops and access routes) had been completely destroyed or carried off by the flood.
The villagers are surviving on fish and mangoes. But obtaining drinking water is a problem, as is sickness, in particular diseases transmitted by mosquitoes. The insects were swarming around the refuse littering the village perimeter, an ideal breeding ground, and malaria was spreading like wildfire until a team of Somali ICRC employees equipped with insecticide sprayers powered by portable generators covered the entire surface of the village with a mixture of water and aluminium sulphate. In the space of a few days, the mosquitoes virtually disappeared. But to ensure that they do not return, spraying must be carried out several times a day.
A month ago, the ICRC installed pumps connected to plastic pipes through which water is conveyed for purification and storage in large tanks set up at the centre of the village. The equipment was flown from Nairobi to the nearest airport and then transported to the dike by boat. The system produces 6,000 litres of drinking water a day.
Finally, the Somali Red Crescent Society has set up a clinic in the village to treat the sick.
Further information: Josue Anselmo, ICRC Nairobi, Tel.: ++2542 717 443
COLOMBIA RETURNING HOME
Five hundred and twenty-six people forced to flee several months ago by fighting in the ongoing armed conflict in Colombia have been helped by ICRC delegates to return from Pavarando to their homes in Villa Hermosa (both towns in the Uraba region of northern Antioquia department). The return, which was encouraged by both the Colombian government and the Roman Catholic Church, began on 14 January.
It is still not possible to determine the true extent to which civilians have been displaced by the conflict in Colombia. The government and a number of national and international bodies studying the problem estimate the number of people displaced over the past decade at between 750,000 and 1.5 million.
The 526 individuals in Pavarando were split up into groups of about 70 people. Every day one group was taken by bus from Pavarando to Turbo, and then by boat to Riosucio. There the returnees spent the night in the local church, and the next day completed their journey to Villa Hermosa, once again by boat.
The ICRC's contribution to the operation consisted in providing the families with supplies sufficient to cover their needs for the first two weeks following their return.
In 1997 the ICRC and the Colombian Red Cross Society distributed emergency humanitarian aid to some 57,000 people displaced by the conflict.
Further information: Ruben Ortega, ICRC Geneva, Tel. ++41 22 730 2454
During the weekend of 24 - 25 January 1998, for all information please call the press officer on duty, Joerg Stoecklin, on (mobile) 41 79 202 36 80