OCHA Situation Report
Eritrea
Report for May 2006
23 June 2006


Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

HIGHLIGHTS

The Advisory Group on the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund 
(CERF) held its inaugural session on 23 May at United Nations 
Headquarters in New York. The twelve members of the Advisory Group (of 
whom Marika Fahlen, Special Envoy/Advisor on the Horn of Africa for the 
Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as Chairperson; Barbara Carby, 
Director General of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency 
Management of Jamaica, and Sipho George Nene, Deputy Director-General of 
the Multilateral Branch of the Department for Foreign Affairs of South 
Africa, were elected Vice-Chairs) were appointed by the 
Secretary-General in conformity with General Assembly resolution 60/124 
of 15 December 2005. The Advisory Group provides periodic policy 
guidance and expert advice on the use and impact of the CERF to the 
Secretary-General, through the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian 
Affairs.

Mr. Jan Egeland, Under Secretary General and Emergency Relief 
Coordinator briefed the members on how the CERF has been used since its 
launch on 8 March 2006. To date, more than $261 million has been pledged 
to the CERF by 41 Member States and two private sector organizations. 
Allocations have been or are being considered for fifteen emergencies, 
including the use of rapid response funds for Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, 
Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Sudan, Suriname, and the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, 
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia), as well as the use of resources 
set aside for under funded emergencies in Burundi, Central African 
Republic, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, 
Haiti, Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia.

The CERF will save lives by providing quick initial funding for 
life-saving assistance and rapid response in sudden onset emergencies, 
rapid deteriorations, and neglected emergencies by redressing the 
existing imbalance in global aid distribution.

3,000 war-displaced families from Molki sub-zone in Gash Barka region 
have begun returning to their villages. The IDPs have been living in 
makeshift camps for seven years in Dembe-Doran. The head of 
infrastructure of Gash-Barka region, Mr. Tekie Keleta, said that the 
regional administration has made the necessary arrangements so as the 
returnees could begin managing their lives.

The Ministry of Health supported by UNICEF and WHO has wrapped up the 
preparations for implementing the national vitamin A + measles 
vaccination campaign scheduled to take place from 28 June-2 July 2006. 
The target group is approximately half a million 6-59 month children. 
All zobas have received their share of vitamin A capsules, measles 
vaccines, syringes and other logistics. Dates of zoba micro-planning and 
pre-campaign assessments have been decided and already started in two 
zobas.

Supplemental measles immunization activities are necessary to reach 
children who have never been vaccinated against the disease. This 
measure will reduce any build up of susceptible individuals born since 
the last "catch up campaign" in 2003 and will pave the way for Measles 
Elimination. To control vitamin A deficiency in children under 5 years, 
vitamin A supplementation is part of the campaign and will be 
distributed a second time later this year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in its weekly bulletin reports that 
the drought situation in the Horn of Africa is a major source of concern 
to the world. The Northern and Southern Red Seas regions of Eritrea are 
the areas likely to be affected by the consequences of this natural 
disaster. It is in this view that a special intervention supported by 
United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has targeted these 
areas. The fund approved a grant of US $1.34 million to improve 
information for humanitarian response, fill critical gaps to save lives 
and build local capacity. So far, WHO has procured emergency kits with 
the UN CERF grant, which include three New Emergency Health Kits, 2 
Diarrhoea kits, 40 UNFPA kits and 1 Trauma kits.

The kits could be used to treat 30,000 people for three months for 
common disease, manage 200 cases of diarrhea including cholera, attend 
to 100 interventions cases of trauma and conduct 8,000 deliveries. These 
kits will contribute to filling the critical gaps identified in 
responding to emergencies.

UNICEF Supports in Establishing Community Based Therapeutic Feeding

To contribute to the reduction of child malnutrition, the Ministry of 
Health supported by UNICEF is conducting an assessment of the 
supplementary and therapeutic feeding activities in the high risk Zobas 
such as Northern and Southern Red Sea. All the procured foods will be 
received and directly distributed by MoH. A community based therapeutic 
feeding plan has been developed to complement the facility based 
therapeutic feeding project.

UNICEF provided support for water trucking for 26 schools (3200 school 
children) in droughtaffected areas in Zoba Southern Red Sea and for 20 
schools in Anseba for the benefit of 8,700 school children.

Child protection

To increase the coverage of community based mine awareness, especially 
in Debub and Gash Barka regions, UNICEF supported the training of 4 Mine 
Risk Education (MRE) teams consisting of 40 members of the Eritrea 
De-mining Authority.

There are now ten teams whose major role is to provide information and 
to sensitize the 665,000 people living in highly landmine and Explosives 
Remnants of War (ERW) affected areas of the country.

Mine Risk Education in schools focused on child-to-child activities to 
promote children and youth participation in MRE efforts are underway. 
UNICEF supported a MRE Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop that was 
conducted for 115 teachers, directors, supervisors and 3 journalists to 
strengthen school-based MRE programmes and mass media MRE awareness 
productions. This increases the number of MRE trainers to a total of 455 
teachers and enhances the capacity of the Ministry of Education to 
provide MRE at schools.

UNMEE MACC Highlights

The Route Clearance teams of Mine Action Coordination Centre (MACC) 
carried out clearance operations at a dam site in the Mai Aini area of 
Sector Center. The operation was conducted in response to a request from 
UNMEE's Indian Battalion. Integrated demining operations were also 
conducted on the Deda - Lalay, Badme and Gedamu roads in Sector West. 
The Teams cleared 263,468 sq.m. of area and 29 kms of road.

The MACC Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Team based in Asmara was 
deployed to Tsorena Area in Sector Center. The Team conducted a mine 
impact survey on 21 villages contaminated with landmines and UXOs, where 
IDPs have started to return to recently. The EOD Team also disposed 
unexploded ordnance items that it discovered during its deployment. The 
Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Team of the MACC based in Ethiopia 
also carried out reconnaissance tasks on roads in the Rama area in 
Sector Center. The two EOD Teams disposed of 224 unexploded ordnance 
items.

The Mine Risk Education (MRE) Teams of MACC carried out MRE to 1,870 
people in the sub zoba of Senafe in Sector Center and in the sub zoba of 
Shambiko in Sector West.

The MACC held an Open Day on 5 May 2006 to present the activities of its 
different sectors. Representatives from UN agencies, members of 
diplomatic missions, government officials and representatives from NGOs 
in Asmara attended the open day.

In addition, MACC, along with the other sections of UNMEE, also 
participated in activities organized to commemorate the International 
Day of UN Peace keepers on 29 May 2006.

Mine/UXO Accidents

The MACC received a report of a UXO incident, which occurred on 11 May 
2006. The incident involving a six-year-old boy took place 2.3 km south 
west of the Berqanene village in the Tsorena area of Sector Center. The 
MACC investigated the incident and released the Preliminary 
Investigation Report on 23 May 2006.

For further Information related to the Humanitarian Update, Please 
contact:

OCHA - Eritrea Public Information Section at 291-1-151666/151888, Fax- 
291-1-151999, e-mail: gebrehiwots@un.org

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