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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 103
08 - 14 December 2001


CONTENTS:

DRC: 13,000 affected by flooding in Mbandaka
DRC: ICRC aids some 20,000 in northern Katanga province
DRC: RCD-Goma sets conditions for Kisangani withdrawal
DRC: Respiratory infection, not haemorrhagic fever, in Kasai
KENYA: Over 3,000 displaced by Tana River clashes
KENYA: Focus on clashes in Kibera slum, Nairobi
UGANDA: ICRC activities to remain restricted in 2002
UGANDA: Government welcomes terror listing of LRA, ADF
RWANDA: UN budgetary committee reviews needs for Rwanda Tribunal
RWANDA: Six genocide suspects begin sentences in Mali
RWANDA: WFP food stocks enough for next two and a half months

DRC: 13,000 affected by flooding in Mbandaka

An estimated 13,000 people have been affected by heavy rains and flooding
in Mbandaka, in the northwestern province of Equateur in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) reported on Wednesday.

Local authorities have set up a crisis response team to evaluate the
extent of the damage, and have contacted humanitarian organisations for
aid, particularly for those left homeless.

"Families have lost their belongings, including crops, livestock and
household goods," an OCHA field officer reported. "Houses have been
destroyed, entire villages have been evacuated, and people are living in
the open," she added.

In addition to those left homeless, OCHA expressed concern about
deteriorating sanitary conditions in the region, as toilets have been
flooded and drinking water wells have been contaminated.

DRC: ICRC aids some 20,000 in northern Katanga province

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has begun a
humanitarian distribution effort to benefit some 20,000 inhabitants of 39
villages around Kilunga, in northern Katanga province of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, near the Zambian border, the ICRC reported on
Wednesday.

Some 3,350 families will each receive a large sack containing seeds,
farming implements, cooking pots, cups, a resettlement kit and blankets,
as part of the ICRC's "Operation Pepa". An ICRC-operated DC-3 aircraft
will be transporting goods between Kalemie and Pepa, a short distance from
Kilunga.

DRC: RCD-Goma sets conditions for Kisangani withdrawal

The Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma)
armed opposition movement has set conditions for the withdrawal of its
forces from the city of Kisangani in northeastern Democratic Republic of
the Congo (DRC), an RCD official told the BBC on Wednesday.

The conditions were outlined by RCD-Goma Secretary-General Azarias Ruberwa
following a meeting on Wednesday with an international diplomatic
delegation visiting the eastern town of Goma.

"There are a million people in that town," Ruberwa said, referring to
Kisangani. "Therefore we cannot just withdraw our troops and leave the
town unprotected. That is why we asked that they [the UN peacekeeping
mission] train about 4,000 armed policemen to protect the citizens. They
accepted the proposal. However, we shall not withdraw our troops before
that is implemented."

He added that an agreement was reached for the RCD-Goma to keep a few
soldiers to protect Kisangani airport and roads leading to the facility.

RCD-Goma also called for the demilitarisation of Kinshasa. "At the end of
the talks we shall not go to Kinshasa where there are Angolan, Zimbabwean
and even Kinshasa troops," Ruberwa said. "As you know, they distributed
weapons to citizens."

The international delegation included the UN Secretary-General's Special
Representative to the DRC, Amos Namanga Ngongi; the commander of UN
peacekeeping forces in the DRC, Gen. Mountaga Diallo; and the ambassadors
of China, France, the UK and the US, all Permanent Security Council
members.

DRC: Respiratory infection, not haemorrhagic fever, in Kasai

Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have
determined that an outbreak of acute respiratory infection, and not
haemorrhagic fever as was earlier speculated, is at the root of an
epidemic in the central province of Kasai Occidental.

Following an evaluation mission conducted by a team of representatives the
DRC Ministry of Health, the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF and
international medical aid NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres, WHO reported on
Thursday that 17 deaths from 205 cases reported in the health zone of
Dekese, centred in the villages of Mbisangandu and Bongondo, appear to
have resulted from an as yet unidentified respiratory infection. Blood
samples taken from patients have been sent to Kinshasa and South Africa
for analysis. The majority of deaths have occurred in children under five
years and adults over 60 years. However, WHO reported that treatment with
antibiotics is proving effective.

KENYA: Over 3,000 displaced by Tana River clashes

Food insecurity for over 3,000 people displaced by two weeks of violent
clashes in Tana River District, eastern Kenya, was increasing as the
threat of further violence meant they were unable to access their farms or
find pasture for their cattle, UNOCHA Kenya reported on Tuesday.

Many of the 3,405 displaced persons, particularly members of the
agriculturalist Pokomo community, were in urgent need of food aid,
emergency healthcare, clothes and cooking utensils, and at least three
months food rationing was needed for the populations of Chara, Ngao, Oda,
Ozi and Kilelengwani locations, OCHA said in its situation report for
November.

More than 50 people have been killed over the last week in clashes between
the Pokomo and pastoralist Ormas, resulting from competing claims over
land and water resources. [Full report at
www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17647]

KENYA: Focus on clashes in Kibera slum, Nairobi

After weeks marked by tension, violent clashes, killings, rioting and
looting, residents of Kenya's biggest slum, Kibera, have slowly begun
rebuilding their lives. But even as an anxious calm returned this week,
deep-rooted tensions remain in the sprawling suburb, home to hundreds of
thousands of people.

"Much as fighting has stopped, we are still afraid that violence might
rear its ugly neck again," Rajab Karim, one of the residents, told IRIN on
Wednesday. "The issue of house rents, which was at the centre of the
clashes, has not found a lasting solution."

The violence, in which at least 12 people were killed, was triggered by a
feud between landlords and tenants over uncontrolled rents for slum
dwellings. Up to 60 percent of the Nairobi population are estimated to
live in slums built on 5 percent of the city's land area, with few
services and amenities, and wholly inadequate water and sanitation. [Full
report at www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17688]

UGANDA: ICRC activities to remain restricted in 2002

The repercussions from the assassination of six staff members of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Ituri District,
northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on 26 April will continue
to be felt in Uganda through next year, the organisation reported this
week.

The effect of the killings, which led to the suspension of most of the
organisation's aid programmes in that region and in neighbouring Uganda,
would continue to affect its capacity to bring assistance and protection
to rural areas of Uganda in 2002, it said on Monday in a preview of
planned operations for the year.

In Uganda, except for special circumstances, "the ICRC will not be able to
have activities out in the field - in the north and in the west,
especially - until it gets information on what happened in Ituri," the
organisation's head of delegation in Uganda, Thomas Merkelbach, told IRIN.
"The same is true for detention visits outside the area of the capital,
Kampala."

Before resuming normal operations, the ICRC needed to receive sufficient
information on what happened in Ituri - to know who was involved and what
had led to the killings - in order to know if it needed to adapt security
arrangements and to avoid any repetition, Merkelbach added.

Until April, ICRC was providing aid to displaced people in northern and
western Uganda, as well as engaging in health interventions, but these
remain suspended as a result of the Ituri killings. A tracing service for
missing persons is continuing. Over 715,000 refugees, displaced persons
and victims of drought remain in camps throughout Uganda, but
predominantly in the north and west. [for full story, go to
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=17774]

UGANDA: Government welcomes terror listing of LRA, ADF

Ugandan Vice-President Speciosa Kazibwe praised the United States on
Tuesday for including the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and
the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) on its blacklist of international
terrorist organisations, the New Vision newspaper reported. The US State
Department on 5 December published an updated version of its "Terrorist
Exclusion List" under the US Patriot Act, designed to protect the safety
of the US and its citizens.

The LRA, led by Joseph Kony, has been fighting a guerilla-style war
against Ugandan government forces since the late 1980s, ostensibly in a
desire to have Uganda ruled according to the Ten Commandments of the
Bible. The ADF, operating from the Rwenzori Mountains in western Uganda
and from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is a combination of
rebels from the Tabliq Muslim sect and remnants of the National Army for
the Liberation of Uganda. It joins forces on occasion with the ex-Forces
Armees Rwandaises (ex-FAR) and Rwandan Hutu Interahamwe militias operating
from eastern DRC, which were also cited in the US terrorist listing. [For
more details, go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=East_Africa]

RWANDA: UN budgetary committee reviews needs for Rwanda Tribunal

A UN General Assembly budgetary committee has recommended that the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda be allotted US $196.4 million
for its 2002-2003 budget.

Several speakers of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary
Questions, who began their meeting on 7 December, also expressed concern
at the high vacancy rates at the Arusha-based Tribunal in Tanzania. On
behalf of the European Union, Belgium's Michel Tilemans said it was
necessary to fill the 150 vacant posts so that the tribunal could carry
out its mandate and "at least" complete the phase establishing all
indictments by 2004 or the following year. As of 31 October, 35 posts were
vacant in the Office of the Prosecutor alone: those of the Deputy
Prosecutor in Kigali and the Chief of Prosecution in Arusha.

RWANDA: Six genocide suspects begin sentences in Mali

Former Rwandan prime minister Jean Kambanda was among five other genocide
convicts transferred to Mali on Sunday to begin serving sentences of
between 15 years to life imprisonment, imposed by the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the UN body reported on Tuesday. He is the
first head of government to be convicted of and punished for such crimes.

The other convicts, who also got life terms, are former Bugomaster (chief
magistrate) of Taba commune Jean-Paul Akayesu, former prefect of Kibuye
province Clement Kayishema, and former director of a tea factory in
Kibuye, Alfred Musema. They are the first convicts transferred from the
tribunal's detention facility in Arusha, Tanzania, to serve sentences in
another country. The others are former Interahamwe militia leader Omar
Serushago who got 15 years, and former businessman Obed Ruzindana who
received a 25-year sentence. All lost their appeals against their
sentences at the Tribunal's Appeals Chamber. The tribunal has signed
agreements to imprison the convicts in Benin, Mali and Swaziland, whose
penitentiaries must meet international norms.

RWANDA: WFP food stocks enough for next two and a half months

Enough food stocks exist in Rwanda to meet the World Food Programme's
needs for the next two and a half months at the present monthly
requirement level of 2,005 mt, the UN food agency said in its situation
report for November. It reported having taken another delivery of 1,478 mt
of cereals, pulses and blended foods during November; and distributed
1,782 mt to 106,051 people.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001


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