Focus on the humanitarian situation in Bouake

Unable to hold back her tears, Affoue Djah let them flow freely as she explained her plight to members of a UN interagency mission in the central Ivorian town of Bouake. "Please help me, I have 10 people in my house and we have nothing to eat and not a single coin," she said. "What shall I do? Please don't go," she pleaded. Djah, a teacher, was trapped in Bouake, some 350 km north of Cote d'Ivoire's economic capital, Abidjan. She had a debit card, but could not use it: banks in Bouake have been closed since 19 September, when insurgents occupied the town and other parts of central and northern Cote d'Ivoire after a failed attempt to overthrow the government. When the mission visited Bouake on 13 October, it resembled a "ghost town". All businesses, offices, pharmacies, schools and hospitals were closed. The streets were mostly empty and there was no public transport. The few vehicles on the streets belonged to humanitarian non-governmental organisations or were being used by the insurgents. In most residential areas houses were locked, and appeared abandoned. A few people stood by the roadside and around the market place, where there was little on sale except yams, onions, bread, and a few other items. "We have no money to buy these goods or food," the market manager in Bouake told IRIN. Prices for commodities have doubled and even tripled, he added. There were only two hospitals operating in the town: the military hospital and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU -teaching hospital), which had just over 60 patients. These included people with gunshot wounds, fractures and traumas, children and pregnant women. "We are now receiving about 15 maternity cases everyday since the 19th because all other maternity hospitals were closed," an attendant in the CHU's maternity wing said. Medicines and food were scarce. A member of the hospital's kitchen staff said they had had to stop catering for patients. "We were forced to start cooking only for the staff of 80 but we will close the kitchen this evening [Saturday] because we have run out of stock," she said. "Most of these health workers and subordinate staff just want to leave," the head of personnel in the hospital told the mission. A caretaker at the Saint Camille centre for handicapped people, which is next to the CHU, said food there was also running out fast. "There is very little left," she said, explaining that in addition to its 155 inmates, the centre now housed some 300 former prisoners. The latter sought shelter there after being set free when the insurgents occupied the town. The head of an orphanage said some of the 27 children under her care had been abandoned after 19 September, including an infant who was about 18 months old. Eight of the children were handicapped, she said. Her institution cares for children up to the age of 16 years. It normally received food from the government at the end of each month but was unable to get anything in September. "We are in need of food and medicines since pharmacies are all closed," she said. "At least we are lucky to have water but our problem is soap to wash the children's clothing and beddings." Most of the residents said the insurgents had "mostly minded their own business" and not harassed them. "They take action whenever we report any incident of looting or harassment by any of the junior officers," one resident said. However, people had been fleeing the town daily. The number increased drastically last week, and residents said this was because some insurgents attacked residents who had celebrated in the streets following a government announcement on 7 October that Bouake had been liberated. Humanitarian workers estimate that about 200,000 residents have fled the town, whose population used to be about 600,000. On Saturday, hungry, footsore civilians exhausted from days of walking could be seen streaming into the capital, Yamoussoukro, and smaller towns closer to Bouake such as Tiebissou, Sakassou, M'bahiakro and Brobo. "The majority of them stop by for up to three days and then move on," a source told IRIN. Figures given to the mission by Catholic church officials and French military showed that more than 30,000 people had reached the smaller towns, which had no intrastructure to receive them. Most of the time, the Catholic church was their first stop. Church officials said they were overwhelmed. Their facilities, they said, could not accommodate all the new arrivals. Humanitarian agencies were responding to the displacement by providing medicines and food. The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Sunday it had airlifted high-protein biscuits to Yamoussoukro for the displaced and planned to establish a logistics base in the capital so as to better respond to the "unfolding crisis in the northern areas of the country". WFP said more than 2,000 displaced persons in Yamoussoukro and in areas around Bouake had received "urgently needed" food rations, and that the International Committee of the Red Cross had begun distributing WFP food aid to vulnerable groups in Bouake itself on Sunday. Other UN agencies were also in the process of responding to the emergency situation as were a number of NGOs. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) along with the Ivorian Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross were helping to provide the hospitals in Bouake with medicines. The Red Cross and the Catholic church were also assisting displaced persons to contact their relatives by telephone and, in some cases, providing transport for them. Apart from food and health, the displaced urgently needed proper sanitation, water and shelter, the interagency mission found.