Liberians have taken in nearly 32,000 Ivorians, most of them in the eastern county of Nimba
BEO-GARNAGLAYE, Liberia (AlertNet) - It was hard enough when two water pumps broke in this Liberian border village, leaving almost 4,000 people with only one source of clean drinking water.
Then post-election violence broke out in neighbouring Ivory Coast, sending refugees fleeing across the border to this village of mud brick houses, overlooked by dense forest.
Like other Liberian communities along the border, the impoverished villagers in Beo-Garnaglaye welcomed the Ivorian refugees with whom they share the same ethnicity, language and ties based on inter-marriage.
The refugees escaped a power struggle between Ivory Coast's incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo and rival Alassane Ouattara over who won a Nov. 28 poll has led to clashes which have killed at least 260 people since the election, the United Nations says.
But aid workers say there is simmering tension as food supplies have dwindled stretching the resilience of the hosts.
"If we have a piece of cassava to eat we give to them. If we have cold water to drink we give to them because they are human beings like us, but I want government and the U.N. to give these people food, medicines and good water," said Cooper Worzon, the chief of Beo-Garnaglaye, which is hosting 158 refugees.
Liberians in about 42 villages and hamlets along the border have taken in nearly 32,000 Ivorians, most of them in the eastern county of Nimba which has a 247 km border with western Ivory Coast.
"We are running out of food, government should find a place for them where they can live and be provided with food and not here," said Carmei Vah, a shopkeeper in the border village of Gborplay which hosts some 900 refugees.
Aid agencies say up to 20 refugees are living under the same roof as their Liberian hosts with everyone taking a turn to sleep.
"WE WANT FOOD"
Although the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) delivered food last month to warehouses in the town of Saclepea, the base of most humanitarian organisations operating in this crisis, many refugees have not received food aid as promised.
In Buutuo, another border village which hosts 3,000 refugees, hundreds of them chanted "We want food", when a delegation of U.N. officials from Liberia's capital Monrovia visited during a distribution of relief items last week.
That aid distribution was meant for 700 people according to the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, leaving over 2,000 others who had expected supplies frustrated.
"They are distributing food items but many people have not been served, I myself have not been served and I have come from a village 40 km from Buutuo, so we are waiting ... that's why we say food, food, we need food," said Richard Gouanoung, a refugee youth leader.
UNHCR says the food supply they have is for about 22,500 people based on a request made to WFP when the refugees numbered around 20,000 but more arrived.
"We are telling those who came after we had requested the food that they should wait and the food will come later," Ibrahima Coly, the head of UNHCR in Liberia, told AlertNet by phone from Monrovia.
"I am not saying that they don't have the right to assistance (food or non-food items) but it is a matter of putting a first-come-first-serve system in place and of course it is difficult for some people to understand," he added.
POOR ROADS
Food distribution has also been impeded by bad roads pushing the UNHCR and WFP to include road improvement in the $55 million humanitarian appeal launched in mid-January.
Coly said a camp for 18,000 refugees will be ready within the next four weeks to relieve the pressure on the host families who, like other Liberians, are still recovering from their country's own civil war that ended in 2003.
"We have agreed with all stakeholders that whatever help is provided to the refugees a portion of 20 percent should be provided to the host communities," Coly added.
Work at the site in Bahn surrounded by swamps and cocoa trees is ongoing and UNHCR plans to begin a campaign this week to inform the refugees about the new camp.
"The innovation at this camp is that they (refugees) will be able to have land to cultivate on as the land given to us has swamps which will be used for agriculture," he said.
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