Red Cross helps displaced

At least 9,000 displaced persons have received emergency aid from the international and Ivorian Red Cross societies in recent weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva said on Thursday. The displaced passed through four sites set up in the Bas-Cavally region in the south-west of the country since 6 November, the deputy head of the Regional Delegation of the ICRC in Abidjan, Pierre Townsend, told IRIN on Friday. Three are in Tabou and one in Grabo, the main cities in the region. Last week some 6,500 people were still receiving help at the four locations, the ICRC said. However, according to news reports on Friday most of the Burkinabe labourers had fled the country. AFP reported that 100 Burkinabes remained at a Roman Catholic Mission in Tabou, some 400km west of Abidjan. At the beginning of November a land dispute triggered clashes between communities of the indigenous Kru people, who are in the majority in this region, and ethnic Lobe and Dangare immigrants. Some 15,000 farmers and agricultural workers, mainly from Burkina Faso, were driven from their homes, ICRC said. The health condition of the displaced people who arrived at the four locations was not serious, the ICRC said. “Nutritionally they were OK, some showed signs of dehydration and were tired but no severe conditions were noted,” Townsend said. Food, including rice and milk, were provided and a measles vaccination campaign for the some 6,000 children, was conducted by the local Red Cross and health authorities. The majority of the Burkinabe immigrants arrived in Cote d’Ivoire more than 10 years ago and had been working on the cocoa plantations.