Photo: IRIN

Maryland County, Liberia

ABIDJAN, 20 May 2003 (IRIN) - At least 10,000 people have fled into Cote d'Ivoire to escape fighting around the Liberian port town of Harper, Maryland County, which fell to rebels at the weekend, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday. Astrid Van Genderen Stort, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told IRIN that most were scattered in Ivorian villages along the Cavally river which forms the border with Liberia. She said that by Monday night, the UNHCR had registered 750 arrivals in the Ivorian border town of Tabou, about 80 km along the coast from Harper. They included Liberians and Ivorians who had come by sea, river and road. "Those registered are now in a transit camp," Van Genderen Stort said. "UNHCR is monitoring the situation, providing transport and preparing to give more assistance to the refugees." Tabou Police Commissioner, Yao Joseph, told IRIN by telephone that more refugees from Liberia had entered the town on Tuesday and others were scattering into surrounding villages. "I cannot tell the numbers, but the town's population has risen," he said. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) withdrew its staff from Harper and suspended a planned repatriation by sea of 1,000 West African nationals caught up in the fighting in southeastern Liberia. Most of them had gone to Harper, a major port for timber exports, to escape fighting near Zwedru further inland. They originally entered Liberia after fleeing war in Cote d'Ivoire. Relief workers in Monrovia said retreating government fighters looted the offices and warehouses of UNHCR, World Food Programme and Danish Refugee Council in Harper. Speaking from the Liberian capital, Monrovia, they told that IRIN at least two vehicles, power generators, solar panels, radio communication equipment and 17 mt of food were missing. Some troops loyal to Liberian President Charles Taylor commandeered a Croatian cargo ship, the Benty, at Harper to flee to Monrovia. Radio Croatia reported that the ship, with seven crew on board, was diverted by about 50 armed people to Liberian capital. Relief workers said the ship, with about 1,000 refugees arrived there on Tuesday morning. The port was now occupied by fighters of the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), a rebel movement which appeared on the scene earlier this year and has siezed control of large swathes of southeastern Liberia. Diplomats say it has received strong backing from the government of Cote d'Ivoire. The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Liberia said that following renewed fighting in several areas of the country, humanitarian organisations were examining immediate options for providing assistance without jeopardising lives of beneficiaries or losing scarce resources. Harper is one of three main ports for the export of timber, the government's main source of foreign exchange earnings. Another timber port, Greenville, 200 km further west, fell to MODEL earlier this month. The third, Buchanan, is still in government hands. The UN Security Council extended sanctions against the Liberian government last week, imposing a 10-month ban on timber exports, effective from July 7. The Council said Taylor was using earnings from timber to buy arms illegally and destabilise neighbouring states. The IOM said it had registered 1,038 nationals from Ghana, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Mali and Togo; in Harper who wanted to leave Liberia. But many of these are now believed to be making for Cote d'Ivoire. "An IOM team will travel to Tabou on Wednesday to register the newly arrived," Denis Gravel, IOM's Chief of Mission in Abidjan said. Plans were being made to evacuate these people by road from Tabou to Abidjan and on to Ghana. "A ship, the "MV Sandra" is on standby to complete rotations between the port of Takoradi in western Ghana and Conakry, to repatriate Guinean nationals," IOM said. "Others from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo and Nigeria would be repatriated by land."