ActionAid urges Ivorian politicians to learn from past sub-regional conflicts

Despite Laurent Gbagbo’s willingness to negotiate a peaceful end to Ivory Coast’s ongoing political crisis, it appears that violence within the country is persisting and refugees continue to leave the country in their thousands, offering no lessons to the past conflicts and people’s suffering in the region, said Actionaid on Wednesday.

ActionAid, an international development agency operating in about 30 countries in Africa said in a release availed to APA that unless the violence ends, the peace, economic and human security of neighbouring countries could also be put at risk as they struggle to help those fleeing Ivory Coast.

ActionAid Liberia’s country representative Korto Williams said : “When one country in West Africa slips into conflict, it can easily destabilize its neighbours.

“Politicians must learn the lessons of the recent civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia that affected hundreds of thousands of people. Both countries were virtually destroyed and they are only now beginning to recover,” also noted Actionaid Rwanda’s country director Josephine Uwamariya. She also said that Africa has had enough wars and bad leadership that have led to suffering and death of millions of women and children. “Our leaders should act within the radius of trying to avoid any conflict or war that may lead to further suffering of its people and deaths like was in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.”

At least 22,000 refugees have already entered Liberia where ActionAid works. Of these, 15,000 – nearly 70 per cent – are women and children, it said.

ActionAid has expressed concern about the plight of the refugees and the gender disparity. The agency says that women and children have borne the brunt of the humanitarian crises and power struggles that have affected the West African sub-region over the last 15 years.

“The exodus of people from Ivory Coast will inevitably increase if violence escalates,” said Korto Williams. “Not only will this place growing economic pressure on already fragile neighbouring countries, but the health and security of refugees, particularly of women and children, is also of huge concern.”

ActionAid Liberia has already sent an assessment team to Grand Gedeh in the south-east of Liberia where ActionAid runs child sponsorship programmes and to Nimba County, to the north, both of which border Ivory Coast and are the destination points for the majority of refugees.