Refugees Grow More Desperate in Liberia

They huddled listlessly under the bleachers on reed mats or on dingy scraps of foam surrounded by bundles of clothes in the dank corridors of what used to be the main football stadium. The acrid smell of charcoal burning under small tin pots tingled the nostrils as flies swarmed overhead.

Forced to flee their villages as rebel soldiers advanced on this embattled capital last month, at least 100,000 displaced people now call such squalid quarters home. Some of the worst bloodshed in more than a decade has created an increasingly wretched humanitarian crisis.

Every available structure, from schools to churches, has been converted into a form of shelter, some housing as few as 50 people, others more than 20,000.

“It’s one of the worst situations ever for Liberians,” said the Rev. Alex Satiah, a community leader at the stadium camp. “It’s just pitiful.”

The Bush administration is still weighing whether to deploy peacekeepers to this West African nation, racked by 14 years of civil war. Washington has demanded that Liberian President Charles Taylor step down, and the leader has said he will leave after peacekeepers arrive.

Rebels Issue Conditions

The timing of Taylor’s departure is key. The main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, said Friday it would welcome U.S. troops. But the rebels insisted Taylor must leave first, or they would fight any peacekeepers. The group said it fears the U.S. troops could strengthen Taylor’s hand.

As the politicking continues, refugees continue to pour into Monrovia, pushing its population to more than 1.5 million. Local officials say that when the city was settled by former African American slaves in 1847, it was expected to accommodate 10,000.

“Inside the country it’s full of empty villages,” said Jorge Raich, deputy head of the delegation in Monrovia for the International Committee of the Red Cross. “Areas along the front line are like ghost villages. This is one of the first countries I’ve seen where people are so worried about war that as soon as they hear one shot, they flee.”

The overpopulation has increased the burden on an already broken city. Basic infrastructure and services buckled a long time ago. Civil servants have not been paid in 16 months.

Electricity is sporadic if it exists at all. Most businesses depend on generators that cost a fortune to run. Water, purchased in plastic barrels from street vendors, is trucked from the city’s waterworks plant, a two-hour drive from the city. Only a lucky few have wells.

Threat of Epidemics

Contaminated water and substandard health care have sparked a rise in cholera, diarrhea, measles and malaria. Local health officials say medicines are needed to help keep these illnesses from reaching epidemic proportions.

“Sanitation is a problem,” said Raich. “The city is like an open latrine.”

Most international aid agencies have been unable to provide assistance because of security concerns. Conditions deteriorated with the recent surge in fighting between rebels and government forces.

“Some of the international [nongovernmental organizations] are still on the ground, but they are being managed by lower-level staff who cannot make any major decisions,” said James Logan, country representative for the British NGO ActionAid. His offices were recently looted of several thousand dollars’ worth of equipment and supplies. “This is a serious crisis and they really should be here. But I understand under these kind of conditions, it’s kind of difficult.”

Less than a year ago, the Red Cross had access to 70% of the country, Raich said. Today, the area of coverage is 20%.

“The rest of the country is, for the time being, a no-go area,” Raich said. “We’ve been trying many times to get to the front line, but it’s not yet possible.”

U.S. officials in Liberia to assess the country’s humanitarian situation before any deployment of peacekeepers confirmed Friday that the work of the remaining aid groups was being hindered by the lack of safety.

“What they need is more security so they can continue their work at a higher level,” said Maj. Philip Spangler, civil affairs expert on the U.S. humanitarian assistance survey team in Monrovia. “When the environment is secure, it will allow them to increase the level of their work.”

Community leaders at the stadium, where most residents were surviving on a sporadic diet of buckwheat and beans, emphasized that the need for help was urgent.

Line Forms at 4 a.m.

Just 10 pit latrines serve the stadium’s 20,000-plus inhabitants. The line to use them begins to form at 4 a.m., residents said. Drinking water is pumped to two dozen taps, while a man-made creek within the stadium grounds serves as an outdoor laundry.

Washing hangs from the rails and bleachers. Small boys, their bodies powdered with dust, take turns pitching bottle tops for fun.

Inside, in between the makeshift mattresses, young men have set up stalls from which they sell old chocolate bars, soap and cigarettes. But few people can afford such luxuries, since most have no income.

“My survival is from my husband,” said Hawa David, 19, in the pidgin English commonly spoken here. “He go to the bush to get some sticks and sell.”

When the shooting started and the shells began to fall in David’s northern Liberian village, the only thing she had time to lay her hands on were the few rags she uses as her newborn’s diapers. Fleeing into the nearby brush along with hundreds of others, she gradually found her way out of town.

A week of trekking led the young mother, her husband and child to a displaced-persons camp some 15 miles outside Monrovia. Two weeks later, rebel soldiers reached the outskirts of the camp, intent on continuing their advance on the capital.

The David family was on the run again.

At the Masonic Temple, a colossal Colonial-style mansion named for the group that formerly owned it, some 9,000 refugees cram the three floors of the pillared, once-palatial structure.

The situation grows bleaker by the day.

Joseph Tarweh’s 2-year-old twin girls, Bendu and Jartu, are waning. They refuse to eat the mashed rice their mother tries to feed them. In recent days, they have developed diarrhea. Now they just sleep or cry. Tarweh, who fled his village with nothing more than the clothes on his back, is distressed by his family’s predicament.

“I feel bad about my family being here, especially my children,” he said. “I have absolutely nothing. But I want to be here until the war finishes, before I can go home.”

Monrovia’s long-term residents are equally besieged.

“I characterize this whole city as a city of 1.5 million displaced, because even those who had not moved out of their homes have taken in relatives,” said Logan, of ActionAid.

The average size of a household has swelled, sometimes to more than 25 people.

Women have become head of households because so many of their men have been maimed or killed. Some have had to resort to begging for food.

“Liberians are proud people,” said Monrovia Mayor Ophelia Hoff Saytumah. “It affects our dignity having to live under somebody else’s [roof]. Even the displaced, it affects their dignity having to live the way they do.”

However, the mayor said her people were strong-spirited and would never give up.

“The only thing functioning here is the will of the people,” she said. “People are willing to work, willing to help themselves and others. The people are very resilient here. They suffer so much, but they still go on.”