Bissau residents flee as humanitarian aid arrives

Bissau residents continue to flee in response to radio appeals by the junta and despite the four-day lull in the fighting, news reports said. According to the Portuguese news agency Lusa, Bissau remained tense. Meanwhile, a Portuguese air force transport plane with eight mt of humanitarian aid from the Portuguese NGO, Assistencia Medica Internacional (AMI), was due to arrive in the “coming days”. The cargo of medical equipment is destined for hospitals treating war victims of the fighting which broke out in Bissau on 30 January.

An aircraft left Dakar, Senegal, yesterday for Bafata, Guinea Bissau’s second city, with 20,000 doses of meningitis vaccine, Lusa, said. This is in addition to the 25,000 doses sent to the region last week.

Meanwhile, local radio stations have warned of the possibility of other epidemics due to people drinking polluted water, the missionary news agency Misna reported yesterday. There is an insufficient number of wells in the country and people are drinking directly from rice paddies where many corpses have been abandoned, it said.