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FOOD FOR STABILITY
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| Name: Clarice |
| Aged: 6 |
| Born: Liberia |
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Kola Refugee Camp, near Nzerekore, in Guinea
provides food and shelter to 7,000 Liberians,
who have fled the regime of Charles Taylor and
the factional fighting in their home country.
Among them is six-year-old Clarice Dennis, who
was born in a refugee camp in Guinea.
In 1999, she went to her home country of Liberia
for the first time, but within a year her family
had to once again return to Kola as fighting resumed.
"We used to produce our own food - cabbage,
cassava, rice and pepper - but our house was burned,"
explains James, Clarice's father, who is now growing
WFP-provided rice and vegetables at the camp.
Kola is more like a small town, with a school
and huts built around a grid system of mud streets.
There is also a market where the refugees sometimes
sell their monthly rations of bulgur wheat and
beans for other produce such as peanut butter,
palm oil and wine, onions and macaroni.
Despite these rations and the food available in
the market, many of the children suffer health
and nutrition problems, including worms in contaminated
drinking water that distend their stomachs.
For James, returning home to Liberia now seems
impossible.
"My whole country has been destroyed. There
is nothing for us there now. My father was killed
because he was in the government and my mother
was taken away; I dream of my father and mother
hoping that they’re together," he says.
"I find it difficult to sleep here because
people hunt animals at night and the sound reminds
me of Liberia. The only thing I'm asking for is
relocation, somewhere safe for Clarice and my
family."
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WFP IN GUINEA
Over the past decade,
the Mano River Basin (nearly twice the size of
the United Kingdom) - Sierra Leone, Liberia and
Guinea - has been torn apart by conflict as arms,
diamonds and refugees have crisscrossed fluid
borders.
In August 2002, Guinea was one of the world's
largest safe havens for refugees. There are nearly
50,000 refugees from Liberia, many of whom are
in exile for the second time and a further 41,000
people who fled Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war.
But the protracted presence of refugees in Guinea
has stretched the country's resources to the limit,
particularly in the densely populated forested
southeast. The region has experienced excessive
deforestation - for agriculture and construction
as well as firewood - and over-exploitation of
its land.
The current instability in Cote d'Ivoire has added
to the pressure, with a mass influx of refugees
and returning Guineans through the southwest region.
In February 2003, WFP launched an emergency Food
for Life programme in forested Guinea.
This provides hot meals served in transit centres
to IDPs and refugees, monthly distribution of
dry food rations in refugee camps, and emergency
school feeding programmes. Over the past six months,
the programme has fed over 50,000 people.
GUINEA
COUNTRY BRIEF
For up-to-date information
on WFP operations in Guinea, useful contacts,
facts & figures, history of food aid, click
here
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| WFP FOOD
FOR LIFE |
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- The rising tide of civil
conflict, war and natural disasters in the world's
poorest nations has led to a near explosion
in humanitarian emergencies
In the 1990s, the share of global aid budgets
devoted to disaster relief climbed by more than
500 percent
- With hunger the first emergency
in any crisis, WFP is on the frontline of the
ever-widening fight against humanitarian disasters
- Of the 89 million people
who received WFP food aid in 2001, 43 million
were the victims of floods, drought, crop failure
and war. This included refugees and internally
displaced persons
- The secret to WFP's success
in responding to emergencies lies in its ability
to move food aid fast and efficiently, often
at a day's notice. The agency's Rapid Response
teams scramble as soon as a crisis breaks, identifying
the fastest route to a hunger hotspot
If there's no road or bridges, they build them.
When there are no airstrips or insecurity makes
landing impossible, they arrange for an airdrop
They even rehabilitate entire ports and railways.
And if there are no communications' links, WFP
establishes a low cost but efficient telecom
link with the outside world
- Once the supply line is
secure, WFP brings in its emergency food supplies
via wing, wheel and wagon
It uses whatever is available: ships, barges,
dug-out canoes; trucks and trains; planes, helicopters
and air drops; even the backs of donkeys, yaks
and elephants
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