COTE D IVOIRE-LIBERIA: Influx of Ivorian refugees puts strain on war-scarred neighbour

MONROVIA, 11 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - Around 5,000 frightened Ivorians have raced across the border into eastern Liberia since the crisis in their homeland erupted last week, putting pressure on a country that is already struggling to recover from its own civil war and threatening regional stability, UN officials said.

"We estimate that the number could increase to 10,000 if the situation in Cote d'Ivoire remains unchanged," Moses Okello, the head of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in Liberia told reporters on Thursday.

An eighteen-month Ivorian ceasefire was shattered last week when the Abidjan government bombed strongholds in the rebel-held north and moved its troops into the buffer zone that separates areas controlled by the two sides. On Saturday, two days into the offensive, Ivorian planes bombed a French peacekeeping base and France's swift retaliation sparked days of mob violence on the streets of Abidjan.

Aid workers said they were having trouble reaching the new arrivals from Cote d'Ivoire, massed in the border town of Butuo, because the roads in that corner of heavily-forested Liberia were in such poor condition.

"We are preparing to respond to this emergency at the borders. The problem now is gaining access by road," UNHCR's Okello told reporters.

UNHCR chief Ruud Lubbers warned that another tide of refugees would put a huge strain on Liberia, which is still welcoming back its own citizens who fled abroad during 14 years of civil war that only came to an end in August 2003.

"At such a difficult and fragile stage in the rehabilitation of Liberia, a large influx of new refugees from Cote d'Ivoire would be detrimental, creating further poverty and instability," Lubbers said in a statement on Wednesday. "That is why the situation is so worrying, not only for Cote d'Ivoire, but for the entire region."

Officials in Monrovia said funds allocated to pay for the repatriation of some 300,000 Liberians scattered around West Africa were also being drained by the new crisis. "We have to borrow some funding that we have... for repatriation to be able to respond to the emergency needs of the Ivorian refugees," Okello said.

It is not just Liberia that is feeling the ripple effect from the latest Ivorian crisis. The UNHCR said Ghana, which borders Cote d'Ivoire to the east, had also received hundreds of people fleeing the recent fighting, including more than 700 immigrant workers.

In Mali, Cote d'Ivoire’s northern neighbour, people have also sought refuge, although in much smaller numbers. An IRIN correspondent in the border town of Zegoua said only 28 people had arrived by Monday and virtually all of them were Malians.

Burkina Faso and Guinea, the two other countries that border West Africa's former economic powerhouse, had yet to report influxes of refugees.

[ENDS]