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Date: August 12, 2003 
New fighting erupted in Liberia today even as former president Charles Taylor left the country. The former vice-president Moses Z. Blah will lead the country until a transitional new government is established in a couple of months.
Last week United Methodist Bishop John Innis of Liberia (right) described the humanitarian crisis in his country. "People are starving. Children are dying. Medication is not available," he said shortly after arriving in the United States on August 4. He had been living in exile in Ghana for safety reasons, as violence in his West African homeland has escalated. He is in the United States to ask United Methodist congregations for help.
"How to get funds to Monrovia is very difficult," said the bishop, who is also acting president of the Liberia Council of Churches. "I hope with the peacekeepers moving into Monrovia, there can be ways to get money . . . our suffering pastors and lay people." He noted that United Methodists in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, and Buchanan City have been without food for weeks.
". . .The current fighting in Monrovia has caused a catastrophic humanitarian problem," the Rev. John S. M. Russell wrote to the bishop on July 29. "Scores of civilians are dying daily. Homes are being looted and destroyed. Thousands of persons are being uprooted from their homes and are being displaced in churches, schools, orphanages and other areas."
The people of Monrovia are experiencing an acute shortage of food, water, medicine and fuel in and around the city, Russell said. In addition, outbreaks of diarrhea, cholera and other diseases have claimed many lives, he added.
Meanwhile, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has been responding to Liberia's humanitarian needs. The agency, part of the church's General Board of Global Ministries in New York, also supports work in Liberia by two of its ecumenical partners, Church World Service (CWS) and the Action by Churches Together (ACT), said the Rev. Paul Dirdak, who heads UMCOR.
ACT members are coordinating their response to this crisis. A CWS aid shipment is underway. It contains 20 tons of food and medical supplies: 25,000 pounds of canned meat; 5,000 blankets; 5,000 health kits and 10 medicine boxes (essential medicines for 10,000 persons for 3 months). This is CWS's third shipment to Liberia since March.
UMCOR has contributed to the CWS airlifts and is packing a container of supplies at Sager Brown, its Louisiana warehouse, for shipment. Dirdak is raising funds to support an outpatient clinic for the next three years, following the destruction of the church's Ganta Hospital. He said UMCOR also hopes to open a maternity clinic at the site.
UMCOR's foreign staff in Liberia, which had evacuated the country, is ready to go back in with staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, Dirdak said. Both groups are waiting in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Dirdak cited Sierra Leone as an example of a country where peace efforts are working in the wake of civil war.
"The peace process has worked very well in Sierra Leone," Dirdak said. "As soon as the British made a very modest contribution of support to the United Nations forces in Sierra Leone, things in Sierra Leone started getting better right away, and they've never stopped getting better.
"That kind of intervention from a closely related outside nation has been proven to work in a number of cases-- and worked very effectively," he said. He supports a similar intervention in Liberia by the United States.
Your gifts to UMCOR's Liberia Emergency, Advance #150300 will enable UMCOR to respond to this latest crisis with humanitarian assistance and continue its ongoing development work and other ministries in Liberia. You may also designate "child soldiers." One hundred percent of your tax-deductible gift will be used for this emergency. The generous giving of United Methodists to the One Great Hour of Sharing supplements the cost of Advance gifts. Give through a local United Methodist church or send financial contributions to: UMCOR, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Call 1-800-554-8583 to make a credit card donation.
Sources: Newswire reports, United Methodist News Service, ACT News Update. Photo Credit: Chris Herlinger, Church World Service, 2003.