Thousands still need food, shelter

Humanitarian officials said on Friday that 4,202 Liberians who recently arrived at the Sinje refugee camp, in the west of the country, still needed regular food aid and shelter material after fleeing sounds of gunfire at Lofa Bridge, and Gbarma in Gbarpolu County. "They've not been able to get major humanitarian assistance since arriving" between 28 February and 18 March, a humanitarian official told IRIN. In addition, the source said, departing Sierra Leonean refugees, who had previously occupied the camp, took tarpaulins with them on their return home. However, the official said that the most vulnerable among the internally displaced persons (the elderly and children below four years), had received help from Action Contre la Faim Action against Hunger) and the ICRC that has been providing curative health care. The new arrivals joined some 4,000 other Liberians who had earlier fled what they presumed to be fighting between government troops and dissidents. The BBC reported on Tuesday that "thousands of local people" had been emerging from the bush in Gbarpolu County as government troops engaged rebels in the area. Humanitarian agencies met in Monrovia on Thursday to review the new case load at Sinje and verify the numbers, one official said. The population at Sinje is unstable, the source added, "because some IDPs use the camp as a transit stop to Sierra Leone, as refugees".