IRC Aiding Refugees, Displaced People in Ivory Coast

International Rescue Committee
Wednesday, 27 August 2003

The IRC has begun providing health services in villages around the town of Tabou near the Liberian border, for Liberian refugees, Ivorian returnees, and the host community. When violence erupted in Ivory Coast last September, some 15,000 Liberian refugees who had been living in Tabou and thousands of Ivorians fled to Liberia. But the escalation of war in Liberia and the restoration of calm in Ivory Coast earlier this year prompted their return, and they have been joined by thousands of other Liberians.

"In some villages, there are 10 refugees to one Ivorian," says Julien Schopp, IRC country director. "The influx has created a big strain on Tabou's meager resources and is causing considerable friction."

The IRC has set up mobile clinics in six villages and launched a project to restore 30 water points, repair pumps and construct new wells and sanitation facilities. In addition, the IRC will begin education support in four villages struggling to absorb new students and in a refugee transit center. The IRC will be providing teacher training, furniture, and learning materials, as well as making repairs and extensions on schools. Preparations are also underway to build five youth centers, which will provide non-formal education, literacy, hygiene promotion and HIV/AIDS education for mostly out-of -school refugee adolescents.

In Yamassoukro in central Ivory Coast, the IRC will begin programs next week. The area, just south of the front-line between government and rebel territory, is host to some 300,000 internally displaced Ivorians. The IRC will work with government health officials to offer an emergency obstetrics training program at seven hospitals and 22 clinics and help to set up systems to deal with and prevent gender-based violence.

For more information, or to contact International Rescue Committee, see their website at: www.theirc.org