| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
[This IRIN report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.]
MADINA, Liberia, 17 September (IRIN) - After spending five years in Jones displaced persons camp in Monrovia, Boima Mdosii, the chief of Madina village, returned home in March 1997 in transport provided by the relief community.
He decided to return to his village of about 1,340 people some 50 km from Monrovia mainly because he felt security had improved. "We love our homes more than any other place ...," he told IRIN, "but without ECOMOG we would not have come."
The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring
Group (ECOMOG) left Liberia in mid-1999 at the end
of its peacekeeping mission, begun in 1990.
Mdosii said the relief community gave him a tarpaulin,
a hammer, nails, a cutlass, string and a two-month
food-aid ration, which helped him re-establish himself
in his village.
Candoli Gadri is also from Madina. She heads a household
of nine - six adults and three children - because her
husband disappeared during the war. The rice she grows
is not enough for her family to survive on so she trades
soap and palm oil. She also receives contributions
from her father.
Like Mdosii, she was an internally displaced person
(IDP).
There were up to 1.4 million IDPs at the height of Liberia's 1989-1997 war, says the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC), the state body responsible for refugees and displaced persons.
About 85% of the displaced came from Grand Cape Mount, Bomi and lower Lofa Counties, areas rich in diamonds, gold and timber.
Most fled to family and friends in Monrovia during the war but tens of thousands lived in camps, public buildings and private properties in the capital. Monrovia was recognised as a safe haven at the time because of ECOMOG's presence.
In July 1997, when presidential elections were held, some displaced persons like Boima Mdosii volunteered to return to their homes but many others remained in Monrovia.
In October 1997, a WFP-sponsored verification exercise revealed that there were still some 157,000 displaced living in "approved shelters" (government-sanctioned camps whose occupants are entitled to humanitarian assistance) and another 19,000 living as squatters on private property.
February 1998 saw the launch of a formal resettlement programme under which IDPs have been given transport and an assistance package to facilitate the return process.
"About 110,000 of those living in the camps have
returned home, leaving some 40,000 still in and around
Monrovia," Moses Conneh, LRRRC director for the
Western Region, told IRIN.
Hawa Koroma is one of those left behind. She lives in
a makeshift shelter in Moulton Corner on the outskirts
of Monrovia. She told IRIN she was unable to return
home because she could not afford to rebuild her house.
She received no help from the humanitarian community
and survived by petty trading and growing vegetables.
Conneh acknowledged that destroyed homes were usually the main reason the remaining IDPs had not gone home. He added that the LRRRC had no funds for reconstruction.
In Bendu, some 65 km from Monrovia, Mohammed Gibah told
IRIN that about a quarter of the village's roughly
1,000 residents stayed behind when armed groups first
attacked in 1994, even though he himself left for Monrovia.
"Some people fled into the bush until the armed
soldiers passed and then they came back," he said.
"Some of the older people never left."
Bendu is on Lake Piso, one of the largest lakes in Liberia, and many of the people who remained there during the war ate fish and cassava to survive.
Today, both Madina and Bendu villages have a functioning school and clinic but access to drinking water is limited because there are not enough hand pumps.
The main difference is that Bendu, located at the end of a dirt track 15 km from the tarred road, is less accessible. This can have severe implications. In August, a woman died in childbirth because the villagers could not carry her fast enough by foot to the hospital along the main road. It can also be more difficult for the villagers to make ends meet.
"Many people depend on petty trade to survive," Conneh told IRIN, "and it is easier for them if they are near a tarred road which gives them a direct link to Monrovia."
People in both Madina and Bendu are far more security conscious than before the war. Madina now has regular head counts and if a new person arrives, he is closely screened and his movements monitored. In Bendu there is a bell which villagers ring at the first sign of trouble.
Flomo Kamara, originally from near Voinjama in troubled upper Lofa county - the scene of fighting in August between insurgents and government troops - befriended the Madina residents in an IDP camp in Monrovia. When they asked if he wanted to return with them to their village, he jumped at the chance.
"I could not have been fool enough to go back" to Upper Lofa, he told IRIN.
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1631
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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