By Solomon T. Gaye, Sr.
Several of the World Food Program’s (WFP) covid-19 Warehouses have been allegedly looted by some nearby towns’ residents leaving one person reportedly dead in Gbedin Town, Camp 3 in Nimba County.
The Gbedin Town Chief, Robert N. Zarwolo, who is suspecting that the looters came from the towns and villages around the Bain-Garr District on motorcycles, explained how the looters broke into three of the WFP food warehouses after attacking the residents of Camp 3.
According to Town Chief Zawolo, the attackers comprising of a group of young men entered the town at night by throwing stones and other deadly objects over the buildings thereby leaving one person reportedly dead and that he also got wounded in the process.
Chief Zawolo added that though the police was informed about the attackers who got in the town at about 7:30 P.M, the attackers over powered the police who escaped and went back to Sanniquellie thereby causing many of the residents including women to escape with their babies in nearby villages for fear of being killed.
Another warehouse that was also looted in Nimba
Chief Robert N. Zawolo reported that the man who allegedly died was bitten by a snake in the warehouse during the looting exercise and he died in less than 30 minutes after the incident and has since been buried by family members
The WFP trucks arrived with the food in the Town on December 4, 2020 after carrying on registration targeted for 270 households, but during the distribution, 15 of the registered members were served leaving about 255 not served and without explanation as to what led to a halt in the process.
The food looted from the three WFP warehouses were 11, 157 25 Kg bags of rice; 6, 307 gallons of vegetable oil; 11, 05 bags of beans.
When the LNP in Sanniquellie was contacted via mobile phone, it confirmed the incident.
The WFP head of program in Liberia, Amos Ballayan, explained that the distribution team assigned on the field was expecting 67, 000 vulnerable family in Nimba, but 138, 000 families registered creating serious hardship on the team to carry out the distribution smoothly in Nimba County.
Ballayan said the lack of information dissemination regarding the food distribution is another factor that contributed to the looting of the WFP warehouses.
Ballayan assured that plans are underway by the WFP to create awareness on how the food will be distributed and those who are supposed to benefit and therefore regretted the situation.
Bain-Garr District Commissioner Amos Gbatu confirmed the incident in Gbedin Town camp and added that people should expect those things to happen because the local authority was left out in the exercise by the NGO that brought the food and the people who were doing the registration in the towns and communities in Ganta and other cities in the county.