Photo: UNOCHA/Laura Burke

Côte d’Ivoire: CERF helps families reunite after crisis

When Nestor Gonkapieu heard gunshots ring out in his village in December 2010, he didn’t wait to see who was shooting before running for cover. “In 2002, the same sound preceded a massacre here,” he remembers.
 
Nestor’s daughter, Cyprienne, was playing outside the village with other children. Nestor says he panicked and fled west from his home in Kouyagulpelou, which lies a few miles from the Liberian border. Finding her family gone, 10-year-old Cyprienne also ran, but in the opposite direction.

Cyprienne was one of over 600 children who were separated from their families during post-election violence last year. The ensuing conflict displaced 1 million people. In response to the crisis, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) provided more than US$16 million to UN agencies and partners.

That included more than $269,000 for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to protect children and women against abuse and violence.

“CERF funding was critical to jump-start life-saving operations that enabled us to reunify and protect children from abuse and violence at the onset of the crisis last year,” says Christina de Bruin, UNICEF’s Deputy Representative in Côte d’Ivoire.

“Unfortunately, if we look at either natural disasters or conflict, when family members have to leave their homes in a rush, it’s very common that minors and young children [find themselves] unaccompanied.”

Bringing families together

UNICEF and partner organizations, including Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and Caritas Côte d’Ivoire, have worked since December 2010 to document, trace and reunify children with their families.

“When children are separated from their families, they are vulnerable and prone to violence and abuse,” says Ms. de Bruin.

On the road, Cyprienne started following a young woman with a two-month-old baby on her back. She was called Clarisse Kouianou. They spoke the same language, and Clarisse invited Cyprienne to stay with her. “I couldn’t leave her crying in the street,” Clarisse said.

Clarisse and her husband, Firmin, took in three lost children that day, but room and board were not free. Cyprienne worked long hours in the town of Danané selling beef skins for Clarisse, sometimes until 10 p.m., according to Irene Capet, Emergency Response Coordinator with Caritas. Four months passed and Cyprienne heard nothing of her family.

Luckily, UNICEF’s partners were already in the process of documenting and tracing families, and sending messages to village chiefs and community leaders on the radio and over megaphone in camps for the internally displaced.

Ms. de Bruin explains that the point was “to get the message out to families: do you have a child missing? But also to get the message out to children: are you with your parents, yes or no?”.

Irene Capet, emergency response coordinator for Caritas Côte d’Ivoire in Man, learned of Cyprienne’s situation in April. She began looking for Cyprienne’s father by travelling from village to village.

By talking with a village chief, Ms. Capet was eventually able to find him. He had fled to Liberia. In May, Ms. Capet took Cyprienne back to her village to see her father and stepmother.

“I was overjoyed,” Cyprienne says from under a tree in her village of thatched huts, surrounded by cocoa and banana fields. “I thought I would never see my family again.”
Reporting by Laura Burke.
 

Updated on 4 January 2012

CERF allocates $10.3 million in response to the ongoing crisis in Côte d'Ivoire

Boys sleeping outside a school (Photo: UNICEF)

16 March 2011: In response to the ongoing political crisis, CERF has allocated $10.3 million for humanitarian response in Côte d'Ivoire.

The World Food Programme (WFP) will use some $3.8 million to provide communications services and greater logistics capacity to the humanitarian community as well as household food security support for IDPs. Some $1.6 million has been allocated to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to provide WASH services for IDPs, protection for women and children, and access to education for children affected by the violence. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) will receive $900,000 for provision of non-food items and protection of IDPs. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will use some $600,000 for emergency food security support in the west and north of the country. Some $350,000 has been allocated to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for camp management support in western Côte d'Ivoire. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will use some $175,000 for protection of women and children. Finally, UNFPA and the World Health Organization (WHO) will use some $200,000 to support secure blood bag collection to reduce maternal and infant mortality.

CERF will also fund the following joint projects: UNICEF, WHO, and WFP will use some $1.5 million to provide emergency assistance to vulnerable children and women with nutritional needs, some $1 million will go to UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO to provide health care services to two million crisis-affected people and reduce maternal and infant mortality, and WHO and UNICEF will receive 250,000 for epidemic prevention.

While humanitarian response has thus far focused on displaced populations in western Côte d'Ivoire, the crisis is having far-reaching humanitarian consequences throughout the country. In the center and eastern regions, basic services remain functional, but some 2,500 IDPs are currently living in host communities with scarce resources. Food markets, which primarily employ women, have witnessed an increase in the price of staple food items and other foods, and economic sanctions and unemployment are affecting the entire population.

In the west, close to 90 per cent of qualified medical staff and the majority of teaching staff are no longer reporting to work and some 180,000 children have not resumed school since the crisis began. Many households face food insecurity because they have already sold or consumed next season’s seeds and crops. Furthermore, military operations in the west have been restricting access of UN personnel to those in need since late February.

In Abidjan it is estimated that more than 200,000 have fled the Abobo district where violence has prevailed since the end of February. Most people have found temporarily shelter with host families, their birthplaces outside Abidjan, churches and mosques. Hundreds of residents are still trapped in Abobo.

[Last updated: 07 April 2011]

CERF in Côte d'Ivoire 2009
CERF in Côte d'Ivoire 2008
CERF in Côte d'Ivoire 2007