Share & more
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has shipped 598 internally displaced people (IDPs) from Monrovia to their homes in southeast Liberia since last week, ICRC Head of Delegation Jean Nordmann told IRIN on Tuesday.
In Monrovia, many were unemployed and lived in the squalor of abandoned buildings, some of them only partly finished, according to Nordmann. "When they return home they have hope," he said.
The returnees were among 960 registered IDPs from the southeastern city of Greenville (Sinoe County) who, along with IDPs from other locations, are to be transported to their home areas over the next five to six weeks.
"They have expressed a desire to return to their communities," Nordmann said.
The ICRC has given the returnees food and, on arrival, tarpaulin, plastic utensils and soap. Another 1,700 IDPs were due to begin leaving on Tuesday for Harper in the southeastern county of Maryland.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions