U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

Tel: +254 2 622147
Fax: +254 2 622129
e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 125
01 - 07 June 2002


CONTENTS

ROC: UN aircraft delivers aid to beleaguered Kindamba
BURUNDI: CNDD-FDD "ready for ceasefire talks"
BURUNDI: Food deliveries begin to 33,790 in Ruyigi
BURUNDI: Banyamulenge refugees reject relocation
KENYA: Rights group deplores political violence, impunity
KENYA: Police crackdown on illegal aliens to continue
KENYA: Relief aid sent for 47,000 in flood-hit Tana River
TANZANIA: Child labour common in Zanzibar
TANZANIA: Funding agreed for Dar es Salaam water project
BURUNDI-DRC: 518 Congolese refugees transferred to northern Burundi
RWANDA: Parliament adopts media bill, excludes genocide clauses
UGANDA: Little Acholi gain from anti-LRA campaign
UGANDA: IDP policy in "last stages" of formulation


ROC: UN aircraft delivers aid to beleaguered Kindamba

A UN-chartered aircraft carrying 7.7 mt of food and non-food items landed
at Kindamba in Pool region on Sunday, bringing the first relief aid to
2,000 residents of the beleaguered town since fighting erupted two months
ago between government troops and so-called Ninja militiamen, the UN
Humanitarian Coordination Office in the Republic of Congo (ROC) capital,
Brazzaville has reported.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28126]

BURUNDI: CNDD-FDD "ready for ceasefire talks"

The Burundi rebel group Conseil national pour la defense de la
democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) has assured
Tanzania of its commitment to entering ceasefire talks with political and
military leaders in Burundi "as soon as possible", according to the
Tanzanian foreign ministry. The undertaking followed discussions between
the CNDD-FDD and Tanzanian officials in Dar es Salaam between 28 May and 3
June.

The FDD is one of two Hutu rebel groups fighting the government in
Burundi. The more active of the two, the Forces nationales pour de liberat
ion (FNL), has continued its war despite the existence of a
seven-month-old transitional power-sharing government of Hutus and Tutsis.
Up to now, both groups had dashed all hopes of peace in the country by
refusing to recognise the Burundi government. [Full story at
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28207]


BURUNDI: Food deliveries begin to 33,790 in Ruyigi

Deliveries of food and non-food items began on Tuesday to some 33,790
displaced people in Ruyigi, eastern Burundi, after government cleared
humanitarian bodies to start the operation, the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Burundi reported.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28133


BURUNDI: Banyamulenge refugees reject relocation

The Burundian human rights advocacy group, Iteka, reported on Monday that
about 1,000 Congolese refugees of Tutsi origin, known as the Banyamulenge,
were refusing transfer from transit camps in Bujumbura Rurale and Cibitoke
to a refugee camp in northeastern Burundi where Hutu rebels are active.

The Burundi government and the office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began transferring Congolese refugees to
a camp in Gasorwe Commune, Muyinga Province, on 27 May.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=2813

KENYA: Rights group deplores political violence, impunity

Perpetrators of armed violence during the last Kenyan general election
campaign, in 1997, have spoken out for the first time to say that they
were backed by ruling party officials, the US-based Human Rights Watch
(HRW) reported on Friday 31 May. http://www.hrw.org/africa/index.php

Lisa Misol, a senior researcher with HRW's arms division, told a news
conference in Nairobi that perpetrators of the violence had provided
information that "consistently" pointed to the involvement of the ruling
party in the clashes. "We were able to document the involvement of the
ruling party with evidence that the violence was orchestrated at very high
levels," she added.

The violence was organised in order to displace ethnic communities viewed
as likely opposition voters in general elections that were held at the end
of 1997, according to the rights group. More than 100 people were killed
and some 100,000 displaced, it said.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28100


KENYA: Police crackdown on illegal aliens to continue

The Kenyan police force has said it plans to continue with a "coordinated"
search operation in the Nairobi suburb of Eastleigh, as part of efforts to
crack down on "illegal aliens" and to ensure the removal of the refugee
population living there to refugee camps as required by law.

Police in Nairobi last week arrested over 843 aliens, mostly from Somalia
and Ethiopia, including women and children. The arrests followed the
recent mysterious landing of an aircraft at Wilson Airport, Nairobi, with
21 Somalis - allegedly being smuggled into Kenya for a fee - on board.
This sparked a political row about the possible violation of Kenyan
airspace and the need for increased control of aliens in Kenya.

Some 400 people who had no valid papers had been taken to court on 31 May,
and charged with being in the country illegally. Kenyan immigration
authorities and the UN refugee agency aim to transport hundreds more to
their assigned refugee camps in the north of the country. Kenyan laws only
permit refugees to stay out of camps under special circumstances, and only
at the request of UNHCR.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28128


KENYA: Relief aid sent for 47,000 in flood-hit Tana River

The Kenyan government and the World Food Programme (WFP) have jointly sent
emergency food aid to some 47,000 residents of Tana River District,
eastern Kenya, who have been cut off by heavy rains that have caused
flooding in western and eastern parts of the country in the past few
weeks.

A road convoy carrying relief food left the north eastern Kenyan town of
Garissa on Monday under military escort, heading for Ijara division, Tana
River District, where some 40,000 residents were in urgent need of
emergency relief. Tana River is the latest area to be affected by heavy
rains and flooding in recent weeks, considered the worst since the El Nino
phenomenon in 1998. About 60,000 people have been displaced and at least
175,000 affected countrywide.

Flooding was particularly serious in the Lake Victoria basin in western
Kenya, where floodwaters have largely receded now but left destruction of
homes, crops and infrastructure, the cost of which is as yet unknown.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28117


TANZANIA: Child labour common in Zanzibar

A recent rapid assessment by the International Labour Organisation (ILO)
has found that child labour is "common" in Zanzibar, with prostitution,
fisheries and seaweed farming among the "most hazardous" sectors in which
children are involved. The report also found evidence of child labour on
clove plantations in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous island chain within
Tanzania, and in the hotel and tourism sector, for which it is also
famous, although the levels of child labour in these sectors were
classified as "moderate".

Omar Shajak, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Employment, Youth
Women and Children, told IRIn that child labour, especially in the fishing
industry, was an issue which needed to be tackled immediately. "It is a
serious concern for the government, and it will continue if measures to
reduce it are not taken," he added.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28125


TANZANIA: Funding agreed for Dar es Salaam water project

The African Development Bank (ADB) has signed an agreement with the
Tanzanian government to provide a loan of over US $46.8 million and a
grant of over $1.6 million to finance a water supply and sanitation scheme
for the commercial capital and largest city, Dar es Salaam.

The rehabilitation initiative was intended to "improve the economic and
social wellbeing of the people... by providing them with better access to
clean water, thereby reducing the incidence of waterborne diseases among
vulnerable groups", according to the bank.

Many settlements in Dar es Salaam have been characterised by lack of basic
community services, including water supply, sewerage, access roads,
drainage and solid-waste management, according to a paper presented by the
Tanzanian government at the UN General Assembly's "Istanbul plus 5"
special session on human shelter in June 2001. Between 40 and 70 percent
of the urban residents currently live in informal settlements (many of
them slums), it said.

Urban growth in Dar es Salaam has come to be associated with unemployment,
low life expectancy, poor nutrition status and low levels of education.
Low-income households, which constitute more than 70 percent of urban
households in east Africa, have no adequate access to clean running water,
adequate shelter, garbage collection, sanitation and so on, and are
therefore exposed to all kinds of disease. [full story at
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28096]

BURUNDI-DRC: 518 Congolese refugees transferred to northern Burundi

A total of 518 of 3,000 refugees of Congolese origin have been transferred
from transit centres in Cibitoke and Bujumbura Rural to Muyinga Province
in a government-led move to establish a unified refugee camp in the north
of the country.

Some of the refugees had been living in the "transit centres" for up to
two and three years, an official from the office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees told IRIN.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28105

RWANDA: Parliament adopts media bill, excludes genocide clauses After
three years of heated debate, the Rwandan parliament has cleared a bill
that, if approved by the Supreme Court and President Paul Kagame, should
provide the country with greater media freedom. A major development was
exclusion from the bill of three controversial articles that would have
imposed long-term prison and death sentences for those found guilty of
inciting genocide.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28152


UGANDA: Little Acholi gain from anti-LRA campaign

The situation of relative stability obtaining in northern Uganda - boosted
by improved relations between Uganda and Sudan, and the Ugandan army's
subsequent assault on the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) inside Sudan
- has translated neither into reduced displacement in the troubled region
nor the return of children abducted by the rebel group, according to a new
donor update from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

"Those attacking villages and abducting people are small LRA groups in
northern Uganda," Mads Oyen, the UNICEF officer in charge of children in
conflict in Uganda, told IRIN on Wednesday. "The group in Sudan doesn't
have any immediate effect on villagers. LRA groups in Uganda are causing
all the trouble."

Meanwhile, religious leaders in northern Uganda have criticised the
government for sending the army to Sudan, saying it was against the spirit
of the amnesty which the government had offered the rebels and dissidents
last year. The Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative (ARLPI) has also
accused the UPDF of the forcible recruitment of young men, particularly in
Kitgum, for its anti-LRA campaign. The ARLPI said that "the heavy UPDF
deployment in Sudan and its all-out offensive against the LRA seems to
have silenced anybody advocating dialogue and reconciliation".

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28190


UGANDA: IDP policy in "last stages" of formulation

A new policy for internally displaced persons (IDPs), which the Ugandan
government is formulating with support from the United Nations Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has reached the last
stage of consultations and is expected to be ready for implementation by
the end of August, according to Martin Owuor, Assistant Commissioner for
Disaster Preparedness and Management in the Office of the Prime Minister
(OPM).

He said the original document, which was jointly drafted by OPM and OCHA,
based on the UN's Guiding Principles on IDPs, had been circulated to
stakeholders stakeholders (including NGOs, international humanitarian
agencies and relevant government departments) in April for comments. "It
is going according to plan," Owuor said.

Uganda has an estimated 550,000 IDPs, mainly in the north and west of the
country, where years of insurgency have created large population
displacements and severe humanitarian crises, according to aid officials.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28158


[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to
change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this
item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002


distributed by
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International Disaster Information
Volunteers in Technical Assistance
                                          web: www.cidi.org
                                     listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Central/East Africa             www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/ceafrica