UNMIL rescues 265 refugees from drifting ship

A ship bringing 265 Liberian refugees home from Ghana has been rescued by a Dutch navy vessel after drifting for four days without power off the Liberian coast, the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) said on Friday. UNMIL said it received information from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)on Wednesday that the Nigerian-registered ship, El-Shaddai, was drifting three miles off the port of Harper near Liberia's eastern frontier with Cote d'Ivoire. The Dutch naval ship Rotterdam, which is attached to UN peacekeeping forces in Liberia, was dispatched to the scene and took the stricken ship's passengers on board on Thursday morning, UNMIL said in a statement. The refugees, who included 60 children and several pregnant women, had run out of food and water, UNMIL said. Technicians from the Dutch naval vessel inspected the El-Shaddai's engine, but found that it was beyond repair, it added. UNMIL said the Rotterdam was expected to arrive in Monrovia on Saturday morning. The refugees would then be handed over to the care of UNHCR. A UNHCR official told IRIN by telephone from Monrovia that the passengers on the El-Shaddai were all Liberian nationals who had hired the vessel privately to return home from Ghana following the end of Liberia's 14-year-old civil war. He made clear that El-Shaddai had not been chartered by UNHCR The official said that following the engine failure, the El-Shaddai sent a distress call to the UNHCR office in Monrovia, which in turn asked UNMIL to rescue the vessel. UNHCR had pre-positioned food and medical assistance for the returnees when they land on Saturday, he added. Last August, the Guinean-registered ferry Overbeck, suffered engine failure at sea and had to be rescued by a US naval vessel as it was carrying 153 Sierra Leonean refugees from Monrovia to Freetown. That ship had been chartered by UNHCR.