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Once again displaced
Rebecca Boma's story is now one of
tens of thousands of stories playing themselves out in this
latest crisis unfolding in the central part of the country,
as people continue to flee the camps in the Totota area. On
Saturday, the first trickle had already started - people simply
unwilling to run the risk of being caught up in a rumoured attack.
On overloaded small pick-up trucks and on foot, they were already
making their way to Salala, or Monrovia at best. |
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David Weefah showing his shoulder that has raw flesh from carrying
his brother. Photo credit: Callie Long ACT International |
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Rebecca
and several thousand other people who straggled in to Salala
camp last week, had fled their homes in Gbatala. "We are
still very afraid" was the message from several people,
as they waited in the rain for humanitarian assistance. At last
count, Salala, a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs)that
is located north of Monrovia, offered shelter to 26,091 people,
a number that is now said to have swelled to at least 30,000.
The Salala camp is still under construction and even before
the recent influx of people its capacity was stretched.
The first UN World Food Program (WFP) distribution
of maize in five months arrived on August 30 for distribution
to the registered IDPs of the camp. According to Nulbah Kennedy,
himself an IDP and now the person appointed to liase between
the government and the IDPs said "The last distribution
was about one and a half months before the war broke out. No
one could come here and since then people have been living on
(dried) cassava and potato leaves. Every day people die."
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Seven and a half 50 kg bags
of rice, (the staple food of people here), three 25 kg of salt,
three 5-gallon tins of oil, 3 bags of beans and 19 packages of
tea were delivered; but when you did the math and divided the
food between the approximately 4,500 people who would share in
this, then you realized that this was no bounty, that in the end,
each family would walk away with not much more than a cup of rice,
according to Mrs. Boma.
People needed every bit of sustenance
they could get. Many families had walked for days to reach what
they hoped to be the safety of Salala. Carrying the two youngest
children, Jeanette Clinton and her sister Mary George walked
a full day through the night with Jeanette's six children ranging
in ages from less than one and a half years of age to nine years
old. The Clinton family was exhausted, the children's' eyes
filled with incomprehension and sadness. A heavily pregnant
Yassah Gayflor and her teenage son had arrived just after the
Clinton family, after eight hours of walking since before dawn.
David Weefah, who walked for three days before he reached Salala,
pulled his shirt down, showing his shoulder, mottled with bright
patches of raw flesh —marks of his love and compassion
for a brother, too disabled to walk, who had to be carried.
And the elderly? "We brought them here in wheelbarrows,"
another man said.
ACT Rapid response funds
In Monrovia, behind ECOMIL lines, $50,000
from the ACT International rapid response fund was used to buy
456 bags of rice that were distributed by the ACT Liberia Network*
The rice stretched to 15 kg each to the 1,455 family heads,
or 6,823 people.
For the 257 visually impaired people who had
sought shelter at the Christian Association of the Blind in
central Monrovia, the food could not have come soon enough.
Terrified, unable to see, they had relied on family and friends
to guide them to safety, where they arrived hungry and exhausted
a few weeks ago. The rice distribution marked a high point in
their lives and they quickly organized an impromptu ceremony
to thank ACT, for what one woman described as a "life saving
mission." They asked to have a group photo taken —they
had been told that an ACT photographer was present— and
took up position. "So that the people of ACT can see how
happy we are to receive rice."
The rice was also distributed to families
over two days at other centres and churches, including the Presbyterian
Church, around the city that had opened their doors to those
fleeing the violence.
Liberia is a country that continues to be
held hostage by a few. A country that remains divided, having
come through nearly fourteen years of conflict, suffering and
trauma. A country, that is now, once again, holding its breath.
*The ACT Liberia Network consists of
the Liberia Council of Churches, Presbyterian Church in Liberia,
United Methodist Church in Liberia, United Methodist Committee
on Relief, the Lutheran Church in Liberia, Lutheran World Federation,
Concerned Christian Community, YMCA-Liberia, World Hope International
and Christian Health Association in Liberia.
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