IVORY COAST: The United Nations is to appeal for more funds to help millions of people fleeing Ivory Coast and trapped in lawless parts of the country, a UN humanitarian envoy for the war-torn west African country said yesterday.
Ms Carol McAskie issued her call as negotiations continued on implementing a French-brokered peace deal which provides for the creation of a coalition government to end the five-month conflict in which thousands of people have died and which risks embroiling the whole region.
"The most serious area of concern is the far west, behind the ceasefire line, along the Liberian border, where Liberian militias are running rampant (and) drugged kids with guns are committing every kind of atrocity possible," Ms McAskie told a news conference, after spending almost a month in the region.
Ivory Coast's war erupted from a failed coup in September, fracturing the country along ethnic lines.
Three rebel groups now hold the northern half and chunks of the cocoa-rich west.
More than 3,000 French soldiers are in Ivory Coast, a former French colony, to protect French citizens and other foreign nationals and to police a shaky ceasefire between tense government soldiers and defiant rebels.
The UN had already issued a $22 million appeal for aid but donors have so far only given 10 to 15 per cent of that.
"We will be reissuing a new appeal towards the end of March that will update the existing appeal and include requirements of Ivory Coast's spillover effect in Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana," Ms McAskie said.
"We need to go beyond the concept of refugees and displacement to affected populations generally, so we will be talking about millions of people," she added.
She said that as well as the estimated one million people fleeing the country or displaced, there were up to four million people in the rebel-held north and west who also needed help.
"Keeping Ivory Coast stable is critical for the stability of the region because if Ivory Coast falls then it will have disastrous economic and political consequences for the region," she said.
Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa grower.
Ms McAskie acknowledged that a looming crisis in Iraq may divert attention and funds but said: "My job is to make sure Ivory Coast does not become a forgotten emergency."