LURD rebels promise to return stolen relief vehicles
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© Ansu Konneh
LURD rebels driving around Monrovia
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TUBMANBURG, 22 Aug 2003 (IRIN) - The military commander of
the LURD rebel movement has pledged to help recover vehicles stolen from the
United Nations and relief agencies in Liberia and has promised aid workers free
access to LURD-controlled areas of the country.
The assurances were given by General Aliyu Sheriff, chief of staff of the
Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement, to Ross
Mountain, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Liberia, at a meeting on Thursday.
The return of looted vehicles was one of the key demands made by Mountain at the
meeting in Tubmanburg, a town 68 km northwest of the capital Monrovia, which
serves as LURD's frontline military headquarters.
"We need those vehicles to allow us to easily start the distribution of
food", the UN official said.
Ramin Rafirasme, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), told IRIN on
Friday that his agency had lost at least 20 trucks and other vehicles to looters
and it would be unable to distribute food effectively without them.
"A commercial fleet cannot cover food delivery of 9,000 MT per month in
Liberia. We received a generous donation of eight trucks from Sweden today, but
it still couldn't cover our needs," Rafirasme said. "We badly need
those trucks back."
Astrid van Genderen Stort, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commission for Refugees
(UNHCR), said about 20 UNHCR vehicles had been stolen, including two buses.
An IRIN correspondent who accompanied the UN team said the town was full of
vehicles looted in Monrovia, including two recently repainted trucks that
appeared to have been taken from WFP.
Aid workers have also reported seeing looted relief agency vehicles in the LURD-controlled
town of Bo Waterside on the Sierra Leone border.
General Sheriff told the UN delegation that he had set up a team to identify and
retrieve all looted aid agency vehicles. He specifically pledged that all the
WFP trucks taken by his fighters would be returned.
Relief workers estimate that more than 50 vehicles have been stolen from aid
agencies by LURD fighters since the rebel movement launched its first attack on
Monrovia in early June. Several hundred vehicles were stolen from private
individuals, they added.
A few aid vehicles, including a four-wheel drive vehicle belonging to Oxfam,
which was hijacked by LURD fighters in Monrovia last Saturday, have since been
recovered.
Relief workers said some vehicles had also been taken by MODEL, which controls
southern and eastern Liberia, including the port city of Buchanan.
Mountain discussed with the LURD commander the establishment of a safe
humanitarian corridor through which relief agencies could channel assistance to
people living in LURD-controlled areas.
"All we want is cooperation to give us safe and unhindered access to bring
humanitarian relief to the people," he said.
Sheriff said his forces were prepared to provide security for aid agencies in
the areas of northern and western Liberia under LURD control.
A peace agreement signed by the LURD, the second rebel group, Movement for
Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) and the Liberian government on Monday, commits the
warring factions to provide safe corridors in the areas they control and to
allow aid agencies resume humanitarian assistance to civilians.
Sheriff said the only medical facility in Tubmanburg, the capital of Bomi
County, was a mobile clinic recently set up by Medecins Sans Frontieres.
The government-owned hospital in the town is in ruins.
"Our people need medicine, food and shelter," Sheriff said. We need
international organisations to serve our people now."
The UNHCR reported on Thursday that about 20,000 displaced people living in
Tubmanburg were surviving mainly on cassava leaves and palm cabbage and were in
desperate need of food, health care and sanitation.
The acting Superintendent of Bomi County, Gbanja Gbor, said malaria, cholera and
diarrhoea were prevalent in the area.
"People in Tubmanburg depend on African medicines (herbs). We need a
hospital to take care of us," Pa Zwannah, an elderly man told IRIN. |