Liberia: UN reports fresh fighting in capital, warns of food shortages

As fighting resumed today in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, the United Nations said the appalling situation facing thousands of war-weary civilians crowding the streets has taken another grave twist: due to virtually non-existent sanitation and a lack of clean water, the city is now in the grips of a serious cholera epidemic.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that after a brief lull in the violence yesterday, the deadly battle for Monrovia picked up again early this morning.

The humanitarian situation remains dire, with food stocks running out and disease spreading. Cholera continues to run rampant, the office said, due to overcrowding and the increasingly poor sanitary conditions in settlements for internally displaced persons (IDPs)

The shortage of potable water is compounding the health crisis, with humanitarian organizations having to rely on bringing water from deep wells, which need chlorination, to settlements for displaced persons. Intense fighting in the city centre has made access to scarce supplies of potable water more difficult and OCHA says that some aid agencies are reporting that the lack enough clean water for oral hydration therapy.

Fuel shortages are also hampering relief efforts, OCHA said, with Monrovia’s main hospitals reporting that, they will run out of fuel for their generators as well as medical supplies within two weeks.

Prices for commodities are still skyrocketing: a bag of rice, about $20 before the fighting escalated, now costs between $75 and $100; prices of other food stocks like cassava have jumped tenfold.