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U.S. offers more humanitarian aid to Cote d’Ivoire

06 May 2011 01:01 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA.The United States on Thursday announced an additional 8.5 million U.S. dollars in humanitarian aid to Cote d’Ivoire, where a four-month standoff over presidential election results forced more than 170,000 people to flee their homeland, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The U.S. State Department said that the aid would be used to assist the refugees, who mostly fled to neighboring Liberia, and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons.

The contributions will include 6.5 million dollars in support for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and 2 million dollars for the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide the humanitarian assistance, including provision of health care and essential household items, construction and maintenance of camps, increasing access to clean water and restoring family links severed as a result of displacement, the department said.

With the latest pledge, the U.S. will have provided 43 million dollars for humanitarian response in Cote d’Ivoire and neighboring countries.

The power struggle in Cote d’Ivoire, the world’s top cocoa grower, pitted then incumbent Laurent Gbagbo against his rival Alassane Ouattara, who both claimed to have won the Nov. 28 presidential runoff. The standoff ended on April 11 when forces loyal to Ouattara, who had been widely recognized as the winner, detained Gbagbo with the back of UN and French forces.