The International Red Cross on Friday expressed disgust at the disastrous humanitarian situation in Liberia, saying it had rarely seen an African country that had been as neglected as the war-ravaged west African state.
”We think that the local population, the Liberians, have been neglected to a point rarely seen even in Africa,” Christoph Harnisch, senior delegate for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told journalists.
”When we see the very fast deterioration of the food situation in Monrovia, the beginning of severe malnutrition with children in some centres of the capital, that food stocks at the port of Monrovia cannot be distributed during days and days because there are not the conditions to do so, then we feel a sentiment of revolt,” Harnisch added.
West African peacekeeping troops moved into the Liberian capital Monrovia on Thursday after arriving in the country earlier in the week, stifling heavy street fighting between rebels and government forces which wrought havoc over the past month.
But concern is rising for the estimated one million people who are facing a humanitarian crisis in the country as a result of the fighting, with 250 000 displaced people in Monrovia living in appalling conditions amid an acute shortage of food, drinking water and medicines.
The United Nations on Wednesday launched a fresh international appeal to raise $69-million from donors for emergency aid in Liberia.
Donor governments have provided less than 22% of the $42,7-million the United Nations (UN) asked for last November, although Liberia was suffering ”a human catastrophe of horrific proportions,” the UN said. – Sapa-AFP