Liberia faces a humanitarian catastrophe, warn aid agencies

Humanitarian agencies are warning that cholera and dysentery could be out of control as conditions deteriorate in Liberia's beleaguered capital, Monrovia. A rebel assault on the city that has killed hundreds of civilians has left hundreds of thousands more without access to food or clean water.

Figure 1.

Relatives of a man with cholera rush him to a clinic in Monrovia

Credit: EPA/PA

With 200 000 displaced people crammed alongside the city's one million inhabitants, there is concern that an outbreak of cholera could run unchecked amid the squalor and carnage of the siege. Médecins Sans Frontières had been treating 350 patients a week until its cholera clinics were overrun by rebel forces in the latest attack, when the town's only water treatment plant was also destroyed.

Health workers fear that conditions will continue to deteriorate until a proposed US/Nigerian peacekeeping force arrives.

“The epidemic of cholera now raging through Monrovia will only worsen if water and sanitation services are not provided immediately,” says Sam Nagbe, who works in Monrovia for Oxfam. “People here are really suffering, but as long as the fighting continues we are unable to help them. If peace-keepers do not come, there will be a doomsday scenario.”

The recent fighting started on 20 July, and insurgents rapidly reached the outskirts, allowing them to shell the town centre. On 28 July the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, accused the rebels of “reckless behaviour that is killing many innocent Liberians and making it impossible for us to deliver humanitarian assistance.”

Justin Bagirishya, the World Food Programme's director for Liberia, said that the crisis was “rapidly turning into a humanitarian catastrophe.” He said: “What makes it worse is that we have food stocks already in Monrovia but it is far too dangerous to try to distribute them.”

On 25 July, shells landed in central Monrovia's Mamba Point, where Médecins Sans Frontières has been running two hospitals since the city's public hospital was forced to close in June. One shell exploded only 10 metres from the hospital. Teams from Médecins Sans Frontières received more than 50 wounded and 11 dead.