COTE D IVOIRE-LIBERIA: By canoe and on foot, thousands of Ivorians arrive in search of safety

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BUTUO, 22 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - When 70-year-old Marie Mangou ran away from her home in Cote d'Ivoire, she trekked for hours through dense jungle and crammed into a creaking canoe to reach the safety of neighbouring Liberia. Now the feisty grandmother cannot manage another step.

"For a week now, I have not been able to walk because my legs are paining from the long distances we had to cover," she told IRIN, lying listless on a plastic mat in the border town of Butuo, which is just 3 km from the Ivorian border.

She is one of at least 10,000 Ivorians who have fled their homeland in the last two weeks, fearing a fresh chapter of violence after the government in Abidjan broke an 18-month ceasefire and bombed the rebel-held north.

The refugees, most of whom are women, are strung out along remote areas of the border. Most appeared to have come from the area round Guiglo, on the government side of the frontline in western Cote d'Ivoire, and from around Danane, a rebel-held city near the Liberian border, officials from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said.

"From the areas we have accessed, our field staff... have registered about 10,000 Ivorian refugees and based on the information from other crossing points, the figure could rise to between 15,000 and 20,000," Fidellis Swai, the head of UNHCR's field office in Saclepea in north central Liberia, told IRIN at the weekend.

The Ivorian government called off its offensive on the northern rebels after two days when French peacekeeping forces destroyed its handful of jet bombers and helicopter gunships. But many of the people arriving in Liberia said they had continued to hear the ominous sound of gunfire for days afterwards and were worried that full-scale fighting might resume.

"Most of us fled because we heard sounds of heavy gunfire from areas occupied by the Ivorian government troops," explained Gilbert Pascal, a school-teacher from the town of Bin-Houye, which lies near the buffer zone that is patrolled by UN peacekeepers and supposed to keep the two sides apart.

"We were afraid that another war could break out like in 2002 and that is why we all left with the personal belongings that we could lay our hands on," another refugee, Eloise Ngbeh, chimed in.

The country the Ivorians have chosen as their refuge is not the best equipped to deal with their needs. Liberia is struggling to recover from 14 years of brutal civil war which only came to an end in August 2003 and is still welcoming back more than 300,000 of its own citizens who fled abroad.

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