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

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e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 233
26 June - 2 July 2004


CONTENTS:

DRC: UN agency leads humanitarian assessment missions to the east
DRC: UN mission arrests militia leaders in Ituri
DRC: 172 inmates escape from Lubumbashi prison
DRC-RWANDA: Kabila, Kagame agree on steps to end tensions
DRC-BURUNDI: Aid reaches Congolese refugees
UGANDA: 6,000 IDPs homeless after fire guts Pabbo camp
UGANDA: US to provide US $51 million for HIV/AIDS


DRC: UN agency leads humanitarian assessment missions to the east

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has led
two joint missions to eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to
evaluate the humanitarian situation in areas affected by recent fighting,
the agency reported on 25 June.

OCHA said it had, so far, led assessment teams to Walikale and Rutshuru,
both in North Kivu Province. Several NGOs had also begun their own
assessments of the area, OCHA reported.

It said 90 percent of the humanitarian organisations in the towns of
Bukavu, Goma, Kalemie and Kindu, as well as in the capital, Kinshasa, had
been affected either by looting, suspension of activities or lack of
access to vulnerable groups. It added that an estimated US $1.5-million
worth of humanitarian supplies, equipment and vehicles had been looted
during military operations and civilian demonstrations.

OCHA reported that humanitarian organisations were slowly starting to
resume their activities in the most affected areas of North and South
Kivu, Maniema and northern Katanga.

Full story

Meanwhile, according to a judicial official, some 300 inmates escaped from
a prison in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, during the 26 May-8 June
occupation by dissident soldiers, raising fears of an escalation in crime.

"As they entered Bukavu, the dissident forces destroyed the prison
allowing nearly 300 inmates to disappear into the bush," Jean-Pierre
Kalihira, a magistrate in Bukavu, said. "We are worried that the escapes
would have an impact on the crime rate within the city because some of
them had been convicted of murder and armed robbery, others were former
military."

Full story

On Wednesday, Save the Children-UK announced that it had resumed some of
its operations in South Kivu with the distribution of 1,000 emergency
household kits to vulnerable families in the rural communities of Kavumu,
Mudaka and Miti, north of Bukavu.

Full story


DRC: UN mission arrests militia leaders in Ituri

The UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) has arrested the leaders of two armed
groups in the northeastern district of Ituri, according to Rachel Eklou,
the MONUC spokeswoman in Bunia.

The men, who were arrested on Thursday, are Floribert Kisembo and Pitchou
Iribi. Kisembo leads a faction of the Union des patriotes congolais, an
armed group mainly composed of members of the Hema ethnic group. MONUC
said Kisembo was still recruiting child soldiers.

Iribi is the acting president of the Front des nationalistes
integrationnistes, made up mostly of the Lendu people. Eklou said on 25
June that Iribi was arrested at the request of the state prosecutor and
charged with criminal conspiracy.

Full story


DRC: 172 inmates escape from Lubumbashi prison

Some 172 inmates escaped on Monday from a prison in the southeastern town
of Lubumbashi after overpowering their guards, an official told IRIN.

The state prosecutor in Lubumbashi, Gregoire Munoko, said on Thursday the
escapees also burnt all the penitentiary files at Kasapa Prison in a bid
to conceal their identities.

"The escape took place at night after the prisoners refused to re-enter
their cells on the pretext that they didn't want to be locked up using the
new padlocks that we had purchased," he said. He said the guards, who were
outnumbered, were disarmed when a scuffle ensued between them and the
prisoners.

"I believe there is a danger to the city, because the administrative list
that we kept showed that the majority of the inmates were serving long
sentences or were dangerous militants," Munoko said. There were 269
inmates at the prison before Monday's escape.

Full story


DRC-RWANDA: Kabila, Kagame agree on steps to end tensions

DRC President Joseph Kabila and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame,
agreed on 25 June to take immediate steps to calm tension on their common
border that has sparked fears of another war in the Great Lakes.

After three hours of talks mediated by President Olusegun Obasanjo in the
Nigerian capital, Abuja, both countries resolved to set up "a joint
verification mechanism" to investigate activities on their frontiers and
adhere to the terms of the 2002 peace agreement signed in Pretoria, South
Africa.

"We agreed to take measures to carry out verification to prove or disprove
whatever may have been alleged," Kagame told reporters, referring to
recent outbreaks of fighting in eastern DRC allegedly involving Rwandan
militias.

Rwanda has denied assisting the dissident forces and has asked that the
African Union (AU) and UN to send monitors into the region.

No further details were given about the joint verification mechanism,
though Kagame did reiterate his call for international assistance in the
interests of finding a lasting solution.

"The most important thing is to address the problems, we don't want a
cosmetic solution," he said on behalf of the two presidents.

Full story


DRC-BURUNDI: Aid reaches Congolese refugees

Emergency aid has arrived for Congolese refugees in northwestern Burundi,
the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced on
25 June.

In a statement, the agency said some 34,000 Congolese refugees living in
three Burundian border camps had received non-food and food items,
including 15-day food rations, jerry cans, blankets, soap and other
hygiene materials.

The information assistant for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in
Burundi, Nteturuye Isidore, told IRIN on Monday that WFP had delivered 352
mt of food to the Congolese refugees last week, enabling those in all the
three camps to receive 15-day food rations.

A UNHCR protection officer, France Lau, told IRIN on Monday, that the
International Committee of the Red Cross, the UNHCR and other partners had
begun a programme to identify unaccompanied minors within the camps.

"We have been able to identify approximately 300 unaccompanied minors from
the information that refugees have provided themselves, we must now
conduct more thorough interviews to gather more accurate information," she
said.

Full story
also see: BURUNDI-DRC: UN
agency coping with Congolese refugee influx


UGANDA: 6,000 IDPs homeless after fire guts Pabbo camp

At least 6,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) were left homeless
after a fire gutted parts of the sprawling Pabbo camp in northern Uganda,
destroying hundreds of grass-thatched huts where the IDPs had been living,
local leaders and the army said.

The area chairman, Christopher Ojera, told IRIN that the fire, which
started at a corner of the camp, burnt down 547 huts. Another 705 huts,
however, had their roofs pulled down in an effort by the IDPs to halt the
spread of the fire. According to Ojera, the fire broke out on Monday
afternoon at a time when most of the camp residents had gone to the
gardens near the camp, hence the delay in containing it.

Pabbo is one of the largest IDP camps in northern Uganda, housing over
60,000 people. Many of the households had just received their monthly food
rations three days earlier, and all this was destroyed in the huts, Ojera
added. "People are scared but they are more concerned about the foodstuffs
that have been destroyed, because this is their survival meal for the
month and it is all gone," he said.

Full story


UGANDA: US to provide $51 million for HIV/AIDS

The United States has granted Uganda another US $51 million towards its
fight against HIV/AIDS and the provision of anti-retrovirals (ARVs) for
60,000 people under US President George Bush's emergency plan for AIDS
relief.

According to a statement issued over the weekend by the US Embassy in the
capital, Kampala, the grant to Uganda is part of the $500 million in
additional funding from Washington announced on 25 June by US Global AIDS
Coordinator Randall L. Tobias.

The statement said the emergency plan would ensure that, in its first
year, the number of people provided with access to AIDS drugs in Africa
would double. In Uganda, the plan has allocated $96 million so far. Apart
from providing ARVs for 60,000 people, another 300,000 persons living with
HIV, orphans and vulnerable children are to receive care and support. The
plan also aims to avert at least 165,000 new HIV infections.

"Of the $51 million, $3.5 million will be used to promote improved blood
safety in Uganda, including enhanced blood collection, screening, storage,
distribution, and transfusion capabilities" in the context of the US
government's five-year $15-billion commitment to fight global HIV/AIDS,
focusing on specific developing countries, the statement added.

Full story


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