Friday 8 August 2003

Press Briefing Notes
Friday 8 August 2003
Spokesperson: Niurka Piñeiro

COTE d'IVOIRE-More Third Country Nationals flee insecurity
IRAQ - Medevac Programme Rallies International Help for Iraqi War Victims
AFGHANISTAN -Animals Provide Support for Returning Families





COTE d'IVOIRE - More Third Country Nationals Flee Insecurity - IOM continues to organize the weekly humanitarian evacuation of up to 1,000 Third
Country Nationals (TCNs), mostly nationals from Burkina Faso from the towns of Duekoué and Guiglo in western Côte d'Ivoire.

The IOM convoys are leaving the UNHCR transit centre and other transit facilities in Guiglo at a rate of two per week. So far, 4,427 TCNs have been evacuated from Guiglo and Duekoué to Burkina Faso (4,219), Mali (183), and Guinea (183). A further 1,153 TCNs have been evacuated from the southwestern border town of Tabou and 23 from Abidjan.

It is estimated that there could be tens of thousands of other migrant workers in western Côte d'Ivoire who may need assistance to return home.

The situation in western Côte d'Ivoire remains tense as resentment amongst the local population against migrant workers from the sub-region remains high.

Some of the TCNs assisted by IOM say the local population is now barring them from working their fields and coffee and cocoa plantations in an effort to drive them out of the region. Others complain that all their belongings were stolen at unofficial checkpoints set up on dirt roads leading to the towns of Duekoué, Guiglo and Touleupleu.

"Some of those who came to IOM for return assistance had nothing left. Even their flip flops (sandals) had been stolen," says IOM's Jacques Seurt who is coordinating the evacuation programme in Duekoué.

There have also been reports of violence, including machete attacks against migrant workers.

"They have been told to leave and they feel that they have no other choice but to return home, for the time being at least. Because of the insecurity, they have not been able to sow their fields and will not be able to harvest in three months. This is all part of a strategy of attrition to drive these migrant workers away from the land," says Seurt.

A recent joint assessment by WFP and other relief agencies in the towns of Blolequin and Toulepleu found high levels of malnutrition and water, health and sanitation problems. In Zouan Hounien, a village on the road between Toulepleu and Danané, an MSF-Holland nutritional survey found a 15 percent rate of severe malnutrition and a 20 percent rate of moderate malnutrition.

Meanwhile, the Government of Burkina Faso has adopted a three-year plan for socio-economic reintegration of its nationals who have been fleeing violence in neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire, after unrest erupted there last year. Officially, 320,000 Burkina Faso nationals are reported to have returned home so far, but officials say the number could be as high as 500,000.

IOM has received US$2,9 million to fund this operation.

IRAQ - Medevac Programme Rallies International Help for Iraqi War Victims - IOM's Medical Evacuation and Health Reconstruction Programme for Iraq (MEHRPI), has now helped to evacuate 77 patients selected by an international panel of doctors to eight countries for medical treatment unavailable in Iraq.

The programme, which is a dual initiative combining selective medical evacuations with help to re-build the country's dilapidated specialist health care system, is currently monitoring 66 cases receiving treatment abroad.

Eight others have already returned home to Iraq following treatment and a further three have died of their injuries. Another 162 approved cases are waiting to be placed.

The programme matches patients who cannot be treated inside Iraq with free hospital beds and treatment offered by foreign donor countries. To date, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Greece, Italy, Austria and the United States have all provided help.

A recent MEHRPI case was that of 6-year old Mohamed Faris Yaseen, injured while playing among the unexploded munitions of a weapons cache in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul. The resulting explosion cost him his left eye, four fingers of his right hand and multiple shrapnel wounds.

In Mosul's desperately over-stretched and under-resourced hospitals, doctors had neither the technology nor the skills to save his injured right eye or provide the prosthesis and physiotherapy needed to provide him with an artificial hand. They referred him to MEHRPI, which identified a Kuwaiti hospital willing to provide treatment.

Under the programme, Mohammed travelled to Kuwait with his grandmother, who stayed with him in the hospital. This week they returned to Mosul. Mohammed's right eye is now healed and Kuwaiti doctors have taken his measurements for a prosthetic hand to be fitted in two months.

When MEHRPI host hospitals are identified, IOM arranges travel documentation and transport for the patient and at least one family member. IOM staff monitor treatment, provide feedback to families in Iraq and, when the treatment is complete, provide transport back to Iraq.

"IOM is uniquely positioned to implement MEHRPI not just because of the support that our network of offices around the world can offer evacuees, but also because of our long term commitment to the rehabilitation of the Iraqi health sector," says Dr Samir Hadziabduli, who manages the programme in Basrah. "MEHRPI is a short term strategy that can reduce pressure on the Iraqi health system. But in the longer term, it will identify gaps in specialized hospital services that will need to be filled, perhaps with the help of some of the hospitals in donor countries that are already providing beds for evacuees,"

AFGHANISTAN -Animals Provide Support for Returnee Families -IOM will provide 449 families that returned to their communities in water-deprived areas of the Astana Valley with donkeys to help them transport water and to work in the reconstructing of basic livelihoods

Although the 449 internally displaced families who were living in Acha Camp in Shirin Tagab District asked IOM for assistance to return to their places of origin and did so last month, the lack of water in some villages means that many have to walk long distances to the nearest water source.

Before the drought, which caused their displacement, these families had camels and donkeys, which they used to transport water.

IOM will provide 150 donkeys to this group of families - one donkey for approximately every three families and FAO will provide veterinary screening and vaccination for the animals.

Louis Hoffmann, IOM's IDP Return Project Manager for Afghanistan says, "The key to supporting the return of families s in this area and to making these returns sustainable in the short term, is to be able to reinforce local coping mechanisms until the effects of drought are mitigated by rainfall and water management projects are carried out. The transport of water, from very limited sources, is done throughout the valley every day using small water tanks on the backs of camels and donkeys, over distances as far as 6 and 7 kilometres. These families lost everything to drought and displacement, replacing their animals is pivotal for their reintegration."

Funding for this project was provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
Acha Camp was established in March 2001 to house some 500 families affected by drought and earthquakes. IOM originally registered all 500 families in the camp, provided winter assistance and managed the camp until September 2002. Since then, the families have been monitored by UNHCR. Although many of the internally displaced in Faryab Province returned home last year, the families living in Acha Camp could not return home because of lack of water in their villages.

IOM, UNHCR, the Italian NGO INTERSOS, and the local office of the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation have assessed the communities and have identified only longer-term interventions to alleviate water source problems. The donkey will help address acute water shortages after their immediate return.

So far this year, IOM has assisted some 55,000 internally displaced persons (11,600 families) to return to their homes.