Agencies move closer to affected populations

UN agencies have begun setting up offices in central Cote d’Ivoire to improve their capacity to reach vulnerable populations in areas occupied by insurgents, while NGOs have been strengthening their presence there. The World Food Programme (WFP) set up a logistics centre on Thursday in the Ivorian capital, Yamoussoukro, to back up its operations in north and central Cote d’Ivoire, WFP spokesman Ramin Rafirasme told IRIN on Friday. Access to much of northern and central Cote d’Ivoire has been limited since 19 September, when a failed coup attempt and the seizure of key towns marked the start of an insurgency. The rebels control the country's second largest town, Bouake, 350 km north of the economic capital, Abidjan. The town of Korhogo, north of Bouake, is also under rebel control, as are other northern towns such as Ferkessedougou and Odienne. Following a ceasefire agreement on 17 October, a French buffer force was deployed between rebel and loyalist positions pending the arrival of a West African force. An emergency team led by the head of WFP’s Regional Crisis Response Unit, recently visited Bouake, where it had a meeting with a commander of the French buffer force and a representative of the insurgents to discuss the reopening of a WFP office in Bouake. The agency recently approved an emergency operation to assist up to 100,000 victims of the current unrest in Cote d’Ivoire. The reopening of the Bouake office "would enable WFP to be closer to potential beneficiaries and better conduct the emergency operation," Rafirasme said. He said that while in Bouake, the WFP team met with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), CARE, Action contre la Faim and local charities, both Muslim and Christian, to evaluate the situation and people’s needs. "We will soon be extending food deliveries, targeting especially children under the age of five," Rafirasme said. "Tens of thousands of displaced and vulnerable people are being assisted by WFP in the country." The UN Children’s Fund is also moving to improve its ability to respond to the needs of affected populations in the conflict area. Since the outbreak of the crisis, UNICEF has been conducting a variety of activities targeting displaced women and children in areas such as education, health care and nutrition. UNICEF Country Director Georgette Aithnard told IRIN her agency was setting up a field office in Yamoussoukro "to be closer to the populations in difficulty". UNICEF aimed to deploy some of its staff to Yamoussoukro by 15 November, she said. In Bouake, where UNICEF has deployed three assessment missions since the start of the crisis, the agency works with partner organisations which operate on the ground, such as the Roman Catholic organisation Caritas and Medecins sans frontieres (MSF). Caritas mobilizes resources in communities so as to provide IDP reception centres with food and non-food items. MSF has a medical team in Bouake, including a surgeon, two doctors and nurses, and was in the process of establishing one in Korhogo, the head of the MSF mission in Cote d'Ivoire, Francois Delfosse, told IRIN on Wednesday. ICRC is involved in food and non-food distributions, health care and protection. It reported on Friday that it had supplied 15 medical facilities in rebel-held towns, including Bouake, Korhogo, Ferkessedougou and Odienne, with stocks from Bouake's central pharmacy. Since the start of the conflict, the Ivorian Red Cross, for its part, has distributed 140 mt of food provided by WFP to various institutions sheltering vulnerable people in the conflict zone, ICRC said.