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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 238
30 July - 6 August 2004


CONTENTS:

KENYA: Agencies in US $85.6-million appeal for drought victims
BURUNDI: First Nepalese peacekeepers arrive
BURUNDI: Army repels Interahamwe militiamen
BURUNDI: Cabinet nominates five to electoral commission
DRC: Militiamen escape army custody
DRC: Government distributes donated schoolbooks
UGANDA: Kony wives, children flown home from Sudan


Also see:

DRC: Special Report on War and peace in the Kivus:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=42551

KENYA: Agencies in US $85.6-million appeal for drought victims

Two United Nations agencies appealed on Thursday for $85.6 million to help
some 2.3 million Kenyans facing food shortages because of a prolonged
drought.

The World Food Programme launched an emergency appeal for $82 million,
while the Food and Agriculture Organization said it needed $3.6 million.
Relief operations during the next six months will be directed at farmers
and livestock keepers.

This follows President Mwai Kibaki's appeal on 14 July for emergency aid
for people in the Coast, Eastern, Northeastern and Rift Valley provinces.
[http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=42530 ]


BURUNDI: First Nepalese peacekeepers arrive

The first 170 Nepalese peacekeeping troops for the UN Operation in Burundi
arrived in the capital Bujumbura on Friday, ONUB military spokesman Maj
Modisane Masebe said at a weekly news conference.

They are part of the 900-man Nepalese contingent expected to join the
mission next week. They are also the first non-African troops to arrive
but will be joined by Pakistanis in a few days. Masebe said equipment for
a Pakistani second level hospital had already reached Burundi.

ONUB Chief of Public Information Isabelle Abric said these contingents
would join the 2,900 UN African troops already in Burundi. Those troops -
from Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa - had previously served in the
African Mission in Burundi until 1 June, when they began operating under a
UN mandate. [Full item on http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=42563
]


BURUNDI: Army repels Interahamwe militiamen

Burundian government troops have succeeded in repelling an unknown number
of Rwandan militiamen who crossed into Burundi from neighbouring
Democratic Republic of the Congo, army spokesman Maj Adolphe Manirakiza
said on Tuesday.

He said the Interahamwe militiamen had fled across the River Rusizi at the
Buganda Commune of Burundi's northwestern Cibitoke Province, bordering
Congo. He said the invaders were flushed out after security forces
prevented them from getting food supplies from the Congo.

The army engaged the Interahamwe on Sunday after local residents reported
the rebel presence in the area, he said. The army seized a rocket
launcher, three sacks of ammunition, and cooking materials. [Full item on
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=42515 ]


BURUNDI: Cabinet nominates five to electoral commission

In a bid to prepare for Burundi's upcoming general elections, the cabinet
has nominated five members to form the National Independent Electoral
Commission, government spokesman Onesime Nduwimana said on Tuesday.

Their names will be sent to the national assembly for endorsement and then
to the head of state for promulgation. He said commission members were
chosen for their integrity and patriotism, as stipulated in the Arusha
Peace and Reconciliation Accord of August 2000.

The nominations follow the June session of the Implementation and
Monitoring Committee of the Arusha agreement that urged the government to
set up commission by 31 July.

[Full item on http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=42519 ]


DRC: Militiamen escape army custody

Twenty-five Rwandan Hutu militiamen have escaped army custody in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo, the spokesman for the 10th Military Region
in South Kivu Province said on Tuesday.

The spokesman, Lt Kasanda Wa Kasanda, said it was unclear how the
militiamen escaped without a shot being fired. The commander of government
forces in the region, Gen Mbuza Mabe, said 100 of his troops had been
guarding the militiamen who are all members of the Forces democratiques
pour la liberation du Rwanda (FDLR). They had been captured on 30 July in
the commune of Buegera, South Kivu, as they tried to cross the border into
Rwanda.

Congo is under treaty obligation to track down and disarm all armed FDLR
forces on its soil, in accordance with the Lusaka Cease-Fire Agreement
signed with Rwanda in 1999.


DRC: Government distributes donated schoolbooks

Authorities began distributing mathematics and French language textbooks
on Tuesday worth =805 million (about US $6 million) to some 1.3 million
schoolchildren.

Students of 18,344 public schools will receive the books during the
2004-2005 school year. Copies of a teacher's manual were also distributed
to 43,229 primary school teachers, according to the Congolese minister of
primary, secondary and professional education, Constant Ndom Nda Ombel.

The Belgian government made the donation. Textbooks had become rare in
Congo's schools and many parents cannot afford to buy them.

[Full item in French on
http://www.irinnews.org/FrenchReport.asp?ReportID=5532&SelectRegion=Grands_lacs&SelectCountry=RDC]


UGANDA: Kony wives, children flown home from Sudan

Seventy-seven former fighters of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), most of
them child soldiers, were flown from Sudan on Wednesday to the northern
Ugandan town of Gulu, together with four ex-wives of LRA rebel leader
Joseph Kony.

Ugandan northern army spokesman Lt Paddy Ankunda told IRIN that 13 of
Kony's children were on the flight. The repatriation, he added, was
organised by the Ugandan government and aid agencies.

[Full item on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=42513 ]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


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