Returnees forage for food in Tubmanburg

At least 1,000 Liberian returnees in Tubmanburg, Bomi County, were foraging for food in abandoned farms after failing to gain access to any other source of food, according to an inter-agency assessment mission on 3 September. The returnees, from Bopolu in the northern county of Lofa and surrounding villages, were also forced to obtain clearance from local security forces to gather food and firewood, the humanitarian mission reported. The assessment team - led by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Liberia Refugee, Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC) - had travelled to the area to determine the security and humanitarian situation in Tubmanburg and its immediate surroundings. Other agencies that participated in the assessment included the World Health Organization, Catholic Relief Service (CRS), Oxfam, Lutheran World Federation/ World Service, World Vision International, United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations Population Fund, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Information Centre. The assessment mission reported that hospitals and aid agency offices had been looted, and that the destruction and looting of houses was evident "as some buildings were riddled with bullet and artillery holes", OCHA reported in its Liberia Situation report on 13 September. Apart from the international non-governmental organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF-Switzerland), which provides twice-weekly mobile clinic services, there was no other assistance to the Liberian returnees - who were mostly women and children, the assessment team stated. The mission recommended that local authorities return to the town as soon as possible in order to restore law and order and boost the confidence of the local population. It also noted the need to provide a one month food distribution to local residents and humanitarian agencies to carry out a more in-depth assessment of needs, OCHA added. Meanwhile, the WFP food distribution to internally displaced persons (IDPs) and Sierra Leonean refugees which started on 29 August was completed on 13 September, OCHA reported. For the month of September, some 166,013 beneficiaries received 2,552 mt of WFP assistance, it said. From October, WFP is to extend its assistance to 2,266 IDPs registered in the coastal town of Buchanan, who had been covered under a CRS programme, following a break in that agency's food pipeline, according to the OCHA report. An additional 4,720 people under CRS institutional feeding in Montserrado and Margibi counties will also be added to the WFP ongoing vulnerable groups feeding, it said. These groups include the severely and moderately malnourished children at therapeutic and supplementary feeding centres, tuberculosis (TB) patients, orphans in recognised orphanages and in-patients at various hospitals. The overall WFP caseload would, at a minimum, stand at 166,000 people for the next food distribution cycle scheduled to start on 1 October, the report added.