Armed groups attack IDP camps

Armed groups on Wednesday attacked two camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) just outside the Liberian capital, Monrovia, according to information on Thursday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). One of the attacks targeted Jartondoh camp in Brewersville, just north of Monrovia. OCHA-Liberia quoted reports as saying that the attackers opened fire at 15:00 GMT (local time), killing three people and injuring scores of others, including an aid worker from the non-governmental Child Assistance Programme (CAP). The attack occurred as the Association of Evangelicals of Liberia (AEL) was distributing food to camp residents, and while OXFAM was distributing non-food items and holding a workshop in the camp, OCHA said. It said armed men drove away with a pick-up belonging to OXFAM after loading it with stolen food and other items. Two OXFAM staff members and some IDPs were abducted and used to carry looted items, OCHA said, noting however that one of the OXFAM workers - a woman - was later released. A vehicle belonging to AEL was also damaged. Most of the estimated 18,000 IDPs who had been living in Jartondoh fled towards Monrovia. An eyewitness told IRIN that some armed men dressed in black T-shirts and jeans had emerged from the bush around the camp and begun firing towards it from all directions. "I also saw rockets flying from all over; even many of the displaced sustained bullet wounds," the eyewitness said. A mortar shell was reportedly fired on nearby Wilson camp, where it destroyed several shelters, OCHA reported, adding that an elderly displaced woman named Toma Sando was burnt alive in one of the huts, while several other people sustained bullet wounds. Most of the IDPs fled to other camps. Agencies visit camps A team comprising OCHA, the Liberia Refugee, Repatriation, and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) visited the camps on Thursday to assess the situation. IDPs from Wilson camp interviewed by the team reported that government militias arrived at the camp immediately after the attack and started looting the shelters. A pick-up belonging to CAP was reportedly stolen, OCHA said. The attackers also took LRRRC monitors from both Wilson and Jartondoh camps. There were also reports that many children were missing or had been separated from their families, and that several people in both camps needed medical help. A number of IDPs trying to make their way to Monrovia were stopped at a checkpoint in a suburb of Monrovia. However, some made their way through on Wednesday night and were camped at a high school. About 500 women and children were sheltering at the school, OCHA said. In all the camps visited by the team, IDPs complained that they lacked protection, according to OCHA, which also said that rapes and looting had been reported in three of the camps and in nearby communities. At a meeting on Thursday convened by UN Humanitarian Coordinator Marc Destanne de Bernis for humanitarian actors to discuss and plan an appropriate response to the situation in the camps, aid agencies condemned the attacks and the abduction of aid workers, and called on the government to protect IDPs and other civilians, OCHA said on Friday. Donors express concern The United Nations Office in Liberia, the US Embassy and the European Commission office in Liberia on Wednesday issued a joint statement expressing deep concern about the humanitarian consequences of the insecurity in Liberia. Humanitarian assistance could not be provided to most of Liberia's 15 counties, they noted. The counties cut off from humanitarian assistance, according to the statement, are Lofa in the north, Gbarpolu and Bomi in the west, Grand Kru, Maryland, Nimba, Grand Gedeh and Sinoe in the east, and the central county of Bong. It added that parts of Montserrado and nearby Margibi had also been affected in the past weeks. "The ongoing hostilities between the government of Liberia and dissident factions have put the Liberian people in the midst of a humanitarian crisis", causing tens of thousands to flee their homes and seek safety wherever they can find it, the joint statement said. UNOL, the US Embassy and the EC office called on all factions to participate in the peace process. They also requested access to safe corridors so that they and NGOs could provide the "badly needed emergency relief assistance to Liberians [and] Ivorian nationals who are currently cut off from humanitarian aid". Fighting in Ganta Meanwhile, fighting was reported to be continuing in the town of Ganta - on the border with Guinea - between the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and government forces, according to OCHA. UNHCR reported that about 16,000 refugees had fled to Guinea. There were also reports that 90 Liberian and Ivorian children under the care of a priest were stranded in Sanniquellie, northeast of Ganta, waiting to cross into Guinea. The insecurity in eastern Liberia has prompted some people who had gone there to escape fighting in western Cote d'Ivoire to return to Cote d'Ivoire, UNHCR reported on Thursday. At a small border post at Nero village, near the southwestern Ivorian town of Tabou, an estimated 50 to 60 civilians were crossing back into Cote d'Ivoire each day. They were a mixture of Ivorians, Liberians, Malians and Burkinabes, UNHCR said. Liberian border officials told the agency that several hundred civilians had passed through the frontier checkpoint in recent days. They added that similar numbers were crossing at other border posts in southern Cote d'Ivoire. UNHCR had also been trying to verify reports that a group of some 2,000 people in eastern Liberia could be heading towards the border near Tabou. The new arrivals said they decided to return to Cote d'Ivoire because of a breakdown of law and order and widespread food shortages in Liberia. Situation hardly better in western Cote d'Ivoire However, the situation is hardly better in western Cote d'Ivoire, where UNHCR had been negotiating for the relocation of 35,000 Liberian refugees to alternative sites within Cote d'Ivoire or in the region. These refugees had been caught up in the Ivorian conflict and subjected to hostility from the local population. Some of them - including children - had also been exposed to recruitment as fighters by rebel and government forces, UNHCR said. The volatile border areas between Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire remained out of reach to aid agencies, UNHCR said. In Liberia, where 95,000 people had arrived from Cote d'Ivoire since last November, access to border areas remained hazardous due to frequent battles.