INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION Regional Office for West and Central Africa NEWSLETTER N°9 / October - December 2014 IN THIS ISSUE IOM contributes to the prevention of Ebola disease spread in West Africa IOM promotes community stabilization and social cohesion in Liberia and Central African Republic IOM signs for Inter-State dialogue with the Mano River Union IOM provides assistance to migrants stranded in Cameroon IOM Tubmanburg Ebola Treatment Unit, Liberia ©IOM EDITORIAL “Responding to Crisis Affecting or Involving Movement or Our activities range from the set up and management of 3 Potential Movement of Populations is Our Concern” Ebola Treatment Centers in Liberia (Tubmanburg, Buchanan Against a background of high population mobility within and Sinje) to the management of the National Ebola and across the borders of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, Training Academy in Freetown for frontline practitioners urbanization, unsafe cultural burial practices and weakened working in or deployed to Ebola Treatment Centers, to health systems, Ebola Virus Disease was able to spread IOM’s Health & Humanitarian Border Management project quickly from one infection of a child in rural Guinea in monitoring the Exit and Entry Health Screening (EEHS) at December 2013 to 20,206 cases and 7,905 deaths mainly in Lungi International Airport, or to the establishment of Ebola the three-most affected countries, as of December 31st, Flow Monitoring Points at border locations between Mali 2014. and Guinea, and social mobilization activities in several locations. IOM responds to crises affecting movement or potential movement of populations and the 2014 Ebola epidemic, IOM’s engagement has marked a significant stepping up of the largest in history according to the CDC, is affecting the international response since the start of its operations multiple closely linked countries in West Africa. in mid-September 2014. IOM is responding to the Ebola crisis in West Africa by Ms. Carmela Godeau, IOM Regional Director for West and Central Africa assisting the Governments of the affected countries in their lead responses to the crisis in cooperation with partners and donors. IOM Regional Office for West and Central Africa - Dakar Page 1 NEWSLETTER N°9 IOM CONTRIBUTES TO THE PREVENTION OF EBOLA SIERRA LEONE DISEASE SPREAD IN WEST AFRICA Since 10 December, the IOM Border Management team ensures the effective implementation, monitoring of the LIBERIA Exit and Entry Health Screening Standard Operating Liberian Vice President Joseph Boakai on 10th November Procedures at Lungi International Airport. inaugurated the first of three planned IOM-managed Ebola Treatment Units (ETU) in Liberia. The new unit, in IOM Sierra Leone officially took over full management of Tubmanburg, was constructed by the Armed Forces of the National Ebola Training Academy from the UK Ministry Liberia, with the support and oversight of the US of Defense on 01 December 2014. The Training Academy is Department of Defense, to be run by 24 internationally comprised of two different training venues in Freetown, the recruited IOM health professionals. Siaka Stevens National Stadium and the College of Nursing The ETU in Tubmanburg is set to offer full clinical care to Faculty Campus, and currently graduated several hundred Ebola patients in Bomi County as part of Liberia’s wider clinicians and hygienists per week. Upon successful Ebola response system. The three US government-funded graduation, clinicians and hygienists will be eligible for ETUs are operated by IOM in close partnership and under recruitment as frontline Ebola responders to operate inside the supervision of Liberia’s Ministry of Health and Social of an Ebola Treatment Centre, Community Care Centre Welfare. USAID’s Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance is and/or Holding Centre. supporting IOM’s efforts to manage the ETU and provide clinical care. Under IOM guidance during the month of December the National Training Academy successfully ran 21 courses with A Comic to raise awareness on Ebola prevention and early over 1600 national and international students trained. care To support social mobilization efforts, IOM developed a graphic story about Ebola with the guidance of the Liberia’s PREPAREDNESS TO RESPOND TO MIGRATION CRISES Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, WHO and UNICEF. This tool is being used by IOM and county based partners to CAPE VERDE raise awareness and encourage positive responses within On 23 November, the volcano on the island of Fogo, communities in Liberia. It is focused on prevention and located in Chã das Caldeiras, erupted, requiring the seeking early care. 4,000 stories have been handed over to evacuation of approximately 1000 persons. On December 96 community volunteers who go door to door within their 22-26, a short assessment mission was conducted in communities and use the graphic story to collaboration with the national/local authorities, to identify sensitize community members within their households. gaps in the response. As an immediate result, 32 volunteers and elements of the Red Cross and Civil Protection from Fogo attended a rapid Camp Coordination and Camp Management training conducted by IOM, using materials in Portuguese from IOM Angola and Mozambique. NIGERIA On 24 November 2014, IOM signed an agreement with the French Embassy in Nigeria to implement a 12-month project on “Psychosocial Support and Community Mobilization for Conflict-Induced Displaced Populations in the North East Nigeria.” The French Embassy will be providing funding of 144,991 Euros for this project. The project, implemented by IOM from December 2014 to November 2015, will be providing psychosocial support to internally displaced persons currently living in camps in Yola Ladies reading the Ebola Comic, Liberia ©IOM (Adamawa State) as a result of ongoing insurgency and counter-insurgency activities in North East Nigeria. IOM Regional Office for West and Central Africa - Dakar Page 2 NEWSLETTER N°9 Cash for Work activity, CAR ©IOM IOM Nigeria Chief of Mission and French Ambassador, Abuja ©IOM MIGRANT ASSISTANCE AND PROTECTION CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC IOM has actively supported the return to school project NIGER through activities funded by the European Union as part of IOM has opened its fourth Niger transit and assistance the project entitled: “Community stabilization and early center for migrants (at Dirkou, Arlit, Niamey) in Agadez, recovery for at-risk communities in Bangui”. This project one of the main migratory crossroads for irregular migrants supports activities including cash-for-work schemes from sub-Saharan Africa trying to reach Europe through targeting the most vulnerable people across the capital. Libya or Algeria. The new center will normally accommodate up to 400 people, but will be able to host up In October, IOM established work teams in the 1st and 2nd to 1,000 in periods of crisis. districts to clean classrooms and schoolyards of debris and overgrowth. The teams were also doing small-scale repairs, An estimated 40,000 and 80,000 migrants transit annually including fixing front gates, doors, roofs and guttering as through Niger, including Niger nationals and migrants from needed and in coordination with the education-cluster other West African countries. The new Agadez transit actors. center, which is funded by the Italian Ministry of Interior and supported by the Niger government, will reinforce IOM The work teams consisted of 50 people for each school, Niger’s capacity to help the most vulnerable stranded recruited in close coordination with local authorities. They migrants. included vulnerable people from each district with a special focus on people who either graduated or left the schools CAMEROON being reopened. Team members worked in 10-day On 25 November, IOM has helped 650 Chadian and Malian rotations earning roughly USD 50 per rotation. migrants stranded in Cameroon to return home. In the wake of the Central African Republic crisis, Cameroon Between 4 and 17 November, IOM has continued to became host to 17,086 foreign nationals from several West support the construction of houses for IDPs in the peace African Countries, including some 15,572 Chadians and villages within Kabo and Moyen Sido in collaboration with Malians. local authorities. Ten houses have been completed bringing the total number of houses built to 681. A total of 234,057 As a result of IOM’s repatriation operation, funded by the bricks have been produced. US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, 449 Chadian migrants were moved by bus from a transit site in Garoua Boulai to Djako, in Chad, on a two day journey. In addition, 201 Malian migrants left another transit camp in Kentzou to travel with IOM by bus to Yaounde. IOM Regional Office for West and Central Africa - Dakar Page 3 NEWSLETTER N°9 They were then flown to the Malian capital Bamako in a plane chartered by the Malian government. IOM provided land transport, food and medical escorts during the journey. MIGRATION POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND INTER-STATE DIALOGUE IOM/MRU Cooperation agreement On 31st December 2014, the Mano River Union and IOM have signed a Cooperation Agreement for a closer collaboration in matters of common interest. The two Border post in Bakel © IOM Organizations will work in close partnership to further GUINEA enhancing and strengthening their actions related to In October, a field visit was conducted with the two specific migration issues (namely through promoting, supporting objectives of visiting the police station of Boundou and implementing capacity building in migration Fourdou, in Koundara, fully renovated by the project, and management programs) in the Mano River region covering implementing and testing the MIDAS software. The mission Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. was part of the project implementation entitled “Guinea's program to strengthen capacity in border management”, funded by the Canadian Government until February 2015. Three agents of the site and the Special Police Commissioner were introduced to the basics of the software by IOM IT Assistant.