For years, the Ivory Coast was one of Africa’s most stable countries until war broke out between northern-based insurgents and southern-based government troops in 2002. Fighting was mostly concentrated in the rebel-held north, and thousands of civilians including up to 90 per cent of doctors fled the region.
Public services were brought to a standstill as staff fled clinics, hospitals and schools. Currently 700,000 people are displaced and large parts of the population do not have access to essential health and education services. Although the fighting has stopped, Ivory Coast remains tense and divided. The north’s infrastructure remains in a state of disrepair, and many qualified staff who were displaced during the war have not to return to their former workplaces.
In the rebel-held northern Korhogo and Bouake Districts where Merlin works, the staffing shortage is so acute that just half of the clinics are run by qualified nurses and around two-thirds of facilities have no midwives. Nearly one in five children die before their fifth birthday and an estimated 570,000 people are living with HIV.
HOW MERLIN IS HELPING
Merlin began working in the Ivory Coast in 2002, providing emergency health care to around 26,000 people displaced by the conflict.
Severe malnutrition in the North
Merlin is implementing a nutrition programme in Mankono (west of Bouake) targeting 2,500 children up to five years old with five outpatient therapeutic feeding centres, which provide regular check-ups and treatment, and one stabilisation centre.
Key achievements
• Benefiting 1,085,731 people indirectly and 120,958 people directly to date
Donors supporting Merlin's work
The government of Sweden (SIDA).
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