Aid agencies step up health, school support for Ivorian children

DAKAR (AlertNet) - The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) has launched a measles vaccination campaign in Ivory Coast, as aid agencies step up efforts to provide health care and education for tens of thousands of children whose lives have been disrupted by post-electoral violence in the West African country.

The vaccination campaign is targeting 185,000 children after 42 cases of measles were detected among children in the west of Ivory Coast, a UNICEF official said. Rights groups say the region has experienced some of the worst unrest over the past several months, including hundreds of killings, massacres and displacements.

Insecurity has stopped many people reaching hospitals, with medical staff deserting facilities that have run out of supplies of basic medication, leaving many people - especially children - vulnerable to disease.

Aid agencies say almost one million people, half of them children, were uprooted from their homes by fighting as troops loyal to President Alassane Ouattara overran the country to dislodge former leader Laurent Gbagbo on Apr. 11. He had refused to cede power after U.N.-certified results confirmed he lost a November presidential poll.

"We are running against time to improve the well-being of children who are displaced or at home without proper access to health care," said UNICEF spokeswoman Gaelle Bausson.

"For now we are focusing on children in camps and other areas where we have access, as insecurity remains a concern in many parts of the country," she told AlertNet from Duekoue, some 600km northwest of the country's main city Abidjan.

Bausson said the vaccination campaign will cover four districts - Bouafle in central Ivory Coast, and Duekoue, Guiglo and Danane in the west - and will be expanded to the rest of the country as the security situation improves.

SCHOOLS RE-OPENING

Sporadic fighting has continued in Abidjan as Ivorian security forces attempt to disarm militia operating in some of its neighbourhoods. Uncertainty surrounding the security situation in other parts of the country means many are still too afraid to return home, according to a U.N. assessment.

Meanwhile schools have re-opened this week in the south for the first time since early March, but few teachers are working, many having fled to other parts of the country, aid groups say.

"Many teachers we met are willing to return to work, but they do not have the means to do so because they have not received their salaries and banks are not working as yet," UNICEF's Bausson said.

International aid group Save the Children has distributed school kits to primary school pupils and college students in eastern towns in a bid to encourage them back to class.

More than 800,000 children have been unable to attend school in Ivory Coast as a result of the post-election violence that erupted late last year.

CHILD LABOUR RISK

Save the Children also warned this week that children who fled alone or with their parents to neighbouring Liberia are at risk of child labour and even prostitution as they try to raise money for their families who face growing food shortages.

The United Nations estimates that around 140,000 Ivorians have sought safety in Liberia. Most are scattered in villages along the border where they are being hosted by already poor Liberian families now running out of food.

"In conditions like these, where refugees have fled with no money or food, and where such items are already in huge demand, children may be expected to help families get by," Rae McGrath, Save the Children's emergency team leader in Liberia, said in a statement.

"If teenage girls, especially those who are unaccompanied, don't have support and help, the danger is that they turn to prostitution as the only way of earning money. Young children may be at risk of being sent to work to bring in food," he added.

The charity has been setting up temporary schools for refugee children, as well as areas where children can play safely under trained supervision, freeing up their parents to seek paid work.