Appeal Number: 6466
Appeal Amount: $150,000
Situation Report
(This appeal, originally issued April 24, is updated with new information provided June 6 and May 29.)
JUNE 6 SITUATION: Panic and uncertainty are sweeping the west African nation of Liberia in the wake of Liberian President Charles Taylor's indictment for war crimes earlier this week.
The indictment, by a special court in Sierra Leone, was announced Wednesday (June 4), just as long-awaited talks opened in Ghana, aimed at ending Liberia's 13-year civil war. Taylor addressed the opening session of the peace conference in Ghana, then abruptly left and flew back to Monrovia, Liberia's capital city.
The new developments have caused yet more uncertainty in what has been a disintegrating situation in Liberia; as a result of the ongoing war, hundreds of thousands of Liberians have been uprooted from their homes by fighting between government and rebel forces, driving them into overcrowded camps where they live in deplorable conditions.
The Rev. Kortu Brown, who heads the Concerned Christian Community (CCC), a CWS partner in Liberia, reported Thursday (June 5) of fighting in Brewerville, the western suburbs of Monrovia and an area where CCC has programs with internally displaced persons. "I was personally in the area when fighting flared and thousands of people were running helter-skelter," he said. "As I write I have just been informed that another attack has been reported in the another area of the community. Please pray for us."
"The situation is cause for serious concern as people don't know what will be happening next," he said.
MAY 29 SITUATION: The situation in Liberia is deteriorating to the point where church officials are predicting all-out carnage if additional international assistance is not provided quickly.
"If nothing is done, a bloodbath like that in Rwanda or Burundi could result," said Peter Kamei, a United Methodist who is general secretary of the YMCA of Liberia, a CWS partner, making a plea for US emergency assistance to Liberia, a long-time US ally.
Kamei, who visited CWS offices in Washington Thursday (May 22), said that a proliferation of armed groups, forced recruitment of children aged 12 to 18 years and amputations of men, women and children by the belligerent forces are now common, and that fighting has uprooted hundreds of thousands from their homes, driving them into overcrowded camps where the fragile shelters provide inadequate protection in the rainy season, which is now under way.
Other reports, including those by the UN, indicate that:
- Fighting has rendered 80 percent of
the country inaccessible to relief agencies.
- The World Food Program has stopped distributing food to an estimated 200,000 displaced people in camps around Liberia because the rations were being seized systematically by armed raiders as soon as they were handed out.
Civil war broke out in Liberia in 1989 and continues, scattering people and spilling arms across Liberia and into neighboring countries. The war officially ended with the 1997 elections and inauguration of President Charles Taylor. But in 1999, fighting broke out again, this time between government forces and rebels calling themselves Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD).
In April of this year, a new fighting group emerged in southeastern Liberia - the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). On May 20, MODEL rebels took control of the Harper seaport and airport in southeastern Liberia. Now a third force, the Grebo Defense Force (GDF), has emerged in the southeast and is fighting MODEL in River Gee County.
Both Church World Service and its Liberian partners emphasize that much more in the way of humanitarian and political intervention is needed to halt the crisis in Liberia.
"U.S. church support for Liberia has not been what we'd hoped in the past year or so," said Donna Derr, Associate Director of the CWS Emergency Response Program.
ORIGINAL APRIL 4 SITUATION: Recent events in Liberia have left many people displaced and fearful. The Liberians for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), a rebel force within Liberia, began fighting on March 15 in Gbarnga, 80 miles outside the city of Monrovia. The rebels captured the city of Gbarnga on March 21 after a fierce battle with loyal government forces.
Gbarnga, a centrally located city, is important to the economy of Liberia with the Cuttington University College located near Gbarnga and Liberia's second referral hospital (Phebe Hospital) as well. Both institutions have been evacuated and all the patients at Phebe Hospital have been relocated to St. Joseph Catholic Hospital in Monrovia.
An estimated 35,000 residents of Gbarnga and surrounding areas have fled to Totota and Ganta, communities approximately 35 miles away. As well, an estimated 7,000 Liberians have sought refuge in neighboring Guinea. With the increasing influx of people, resources are strained immeasurably.
Following an attack near the Rick's Institute camp for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), the government ordered the relocation of persons within IDP and refugee camps in Montserrado County. This proposed relocation could include 200,000 IDPs and refugees.
Emergency Appeal
The current situation necessitates a revision of the CWS Liberia appeal that was issued February 21. CWS is increasing the appeal goal to $150,000 to include the needs created by the current crisis.
Concerned Christian Community (CCC) plans to immediately provide relief assistance to 2,500 recently displaced persons who are newly registered at the Perry Town Shelter, with priority given to pregnant women, lactating mothers, the ill and elderly. They will be provided with temporary shelter in 10 transit facilities, and will be provided with food, blankets, cooking utensils and counseling services for a three-month period.
CWS will support the efforts of CCC through an immediate airlift of material resources that include blankets, canned meat and hygiene kits. As well, the YMCA of Liberia plans to provide supplemental feeding and recreational programs for children ages 5-12 displaced from their original camps and are now in Totota.
Church World Service, through combined planning of the Education and Advocacy, Mission Relationships and Witness and Emergency Response Programs is undertaking a coordinated advocacy and information sharing effort to highlight this crisis and issues around which the Church should respond.
Church World Service member denomination, PCUSA, through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has noted that they are considering support of a delegation of church leaders from Liberia to the Mali peace talks, if they are held, and if it is felt that such a delegation could build on an earlier Presbyterian Disaster Assistance supported church peace-building conference which was held in Liberia in November 2002.
CHURCH WORLD SERVICE, ASSISTANCE FOR LIBERIA IDPs, REFUGEES, Account #6466 (ref #: AFLR-31), P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN, 46515. Phone pledges or credit card donations can be made by calling 1-800-297-1516.
On-line contributions to: www.churchworldservice.org
Call the CWS HOTLINE for updates: (800) 297-1516.
For further information about disasters to which Church World Serviceis responding, contact CWS Emergency Response.
Telephone: (212) 870-3151
E-mail: donnajderr@aol.com
News
(FROM JUNE 6:)
A second airlift by CWS to CCC is expected to arrive in Liberia today, following an earlier shipment that arrived April 16. The latest shipment, valued at $38,034, contains 60 bales of CWS blankets, 20 containers of CWS "Gift of the Heart" health kits, 43 bags of rice and 166 containers of canned beef.
CWS is also striving to enlist U.S. churches and government leaders to take an active interest in the situation in Liberia. Taylor's early departure from the peace conference is regrettable, given the difficulty of convening such a conference and the importance of his participation in helping bring about a durable solution to the Liberian civil war, said Victor Hsu, Senior Advisor to the Church World Service Executive Director. CWS has funded the participation of five Liberian church leaders in the peace talks, part of an ongoing program of support by CWS and its member denominations to support peace efforts in western Africa.
Material Resource Assistance
MAY 29 RESPONSE:
As part of the ongoing CWS response in Liberia, CWS has initiated two shipments to Liberian partners. An airlift shipment of 179 cartons of beef donated by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), 60 bales of CWS blankets and 20 cartons of CWS "Gift of the Heart" health kits" with a total value of $38,761 -- to Concerned Christian Community (CCC) was received by CCC on April 16. A second shipment of beef, rice, CWS logo blankets, CWS "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits is also in process.
CCC called the April aid shipment "like manna from above" and helped nearly 3,600 pregnant and nursing mothers, children and elderly in six internally displaced persons (IDP) camps near Liberia's capital city of Monrovia.
Meanwhile, Kamei praised CWS support for the YMCA program of providing supplemental feeding and recreational programs for children ages 5-12 displaced from their original camps. A key component of the program is to provide leadership training program for displaced children and youth, who are the most vulnerable to sexual exploitation and military recruitment.
Kamei said the latter program is struggling to serve 2,000 children and youth with only about one-third of the funding requested for 600 participants.
"Young people see no meaningful living," he said. The CWS-supported YMCA program, he added "tries to get young people to recognize their own importance, and make them feel they are important to contributing to what society becomes."
The CWS ERP appeal seeks to support three additional projects, including a joint Liberian Council of Churches/United Methodist Church nutritional, health care and educational project for 3,000 displaced families in Liberia's Bong region.
In other efforts, CWS is funding the participation of five Liberian church leaders in peace talks scheduled for June 4 in Ghana, part of an ongoing program of support by CWS and its member denominations to support peace efforts in western Africa.
CWS acknowledges with thanks the following denominations, which supported the initial $150,000 Liberia appeal and then followed with support for this spring's emergency airlifts: American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, United Church of Christ, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Church of the Brethren.
This appeal has been seriously under-funded and further support is urgently needed. To date, CWS has received only about a third of the funding goal of $150,000.
Contact
Call the CWS HOTLINE for updates: (800)
297-1516
donnajderr@aol.com
www.cwserp.org