UN needs 43.5 million euros for 'vulnerable' in Ivory Coast

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the funds were needed to get food, drinking water and health care to "vulnerable people who have been identified and targeted" in the west African country.

"How are we to help in the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced people to their homes? How can we guarantee them access to drinking water, food and health care?" an OCHA statement asked.

The answer lay in the funding required from donor countries, the statement added, stressing that UN agencies had already worked out how to meet the most urgent needs on the ground efficiently.

The world's leading cocoa producer has been politically and military split in two between a government-held south and a rebel-held north since a foiled coup bid against President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002. 

Pierre Schori, the head of the UN Operation in Ivory Coast, which includes peacekeeping troops deployed with French soldiers on truce lines between the two sides, warned Tuesday that without a settlement, the country faces "an economic and social drama".

The poverty index has risen from 38 percent of the population in 2002 to 51 percent today, the OCHA said, urging assistance to "restore hope and a taste for life to more than half of Ivorians, who now live on less than 500 CFA francs (0.76 euros) a day".