An appeal for Liberia, the African country suffering from a grave humanitarian crisis, has been made in recent days by the Irish Bishops’ Conference during its plenary assembly. 450 Irish troops have been deployed in Liberia since 2003 as part of the UN peacekeeping force (a contingent of 15,000 men), whose task it is to restore peace and stability after fifteen years of brutal civil war which has caused over a million displaced people out of a population of just over three million. “The contribution of our soldiers – said the Most. Rev. Raymond Field, chairman of the Justice and Social Affairs Commission of the Irish bishops – is recognized, but more needs to be done, by increasing the number of humanitarian projects run by aid organizations like Trocaire and Concern”. Referring to the dire internal situation in the country, the bishop recalled that “no power or telephone networks exist in Liberia, the roads are in disrepair and the railways don’t work. But the main emergencies are in the fields of health and education. Liberia has an extremely high percentage of infant mortality, and the illiteracy rate is close to 75%. The schools were in large part destroyed during the conflict. The country is totally dependent on foreign aid and in a special way on the NGOs”. For all these reasons Bishop Field has appealed to the Irish government to place Liberia among the countries most in need of aid”.
