UNHCR sends assessment team to Nimba County

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday it had sent an assessment mission by helicopter to Sanniquiellie, the rebel-held headquarters of Nimba County in north central Liberia, close to the Ivorian border town of Danane. "The mission returned by road thus confirming road access to Sanniquellie from Monrovia. With this development, UNMIL [United Nations peacekeeping force in Liberia] can now extend its patrol to Ganta and beyond," UNHCR said. Ganta was once a densely populated commercial town in Nimba county, 247 km north of Monrovia. It was the scene of intense combat between former government fighters and rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) group, from late March to September. Like Sanniquellie, it is now controlled by LURD. UNHCR said the mission reported that "a large portion of the population still prefer to remain in the bushes until security can be guaranteed." Residents of Sanniquellie, it added, anticipated that it would take the presence of UN peacekeepers to return the security situation in the area to normal. Besides LURD and government forces, fighters of a second rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), have also been active in the area. Last week, the UN flew an assessment mission to Voinjama in Lofa County in northwestern Liberia for the first time since LURD took control of the area in April 1999. The UN said afterwards it planned to send a convoy of relief supplies to Voinjama by road. Relief workers reckon that two months after the signature of peace agreement to end 14 years of civil war, tens of thousands of desperate civilians are still caught up behind rebel lines deep in the interior without adequate food, medicine and safe water. Many of them have lived rough for several years and urgently need relief aid.