Liberia: ECOWAS donates $100,000

  1. Posted on Tuesday 3 February 2009 - 06:58
    Murtala
    Image of Murtala
    Murtala Mohamed Kamara, AfricaNews reporter in Freetown, Sierra Leone
    The Economic Community of West African States has donated the sum of USD$100,000 to the Liberian Government to help fight devastating insects which ravaged farms in Liberia and neighboring Guinea. The World Health Organization in a statement said the insects are not armyworms but were uncommon.
    armyworm
    The $100, 000 was presented to the Liberian President by Olusseini Salifou, ECOWAS Commissioner for Agriculture, Environment and Water Resources and also head of the visiting assessment mission.

    According to media report the visiting ECOWAS assessment mission to Liberia will determine further aid in the area of medical supplies, spray machines, insecticides and medical supplies.

    Tim Vaessen, FAO emergency coordinator told the BBC that "Our experts in the field spoke to villagers who said they'd seen this type of caterpillar before. They said they'd put leaves under trees and burned them to suffocate the caterpillar with smoke. But the villagers said they've never seen it in such large numbers before, they're really flabbergasted."

    The FAO has sent pictures of the new species to experts at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Germany as part of an effort to identify the species.

    Other members of the ECOWAS team also include representative from ECOWAS Emergency Response Team (EERT), West African Health Organization (WAHO) and the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Humanitarian and Social Affairs of the ECOWAS commission.

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