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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 244
11 - 17 September 2004


CONTENTS:

DRC: Government troops seize rebel stronghold, general says
DRC: Slow start to disarmament in Ituri
DRC: Belgium promises E20 million in development aid
DRC: The Twa now retract cannibalism charge
BURUNDI: President calls for referendum on constitution
BURUNDI: Evidence suggests Congolese refugees going home
RWANDA: Government official downplays food shortage forecast
KENYA: Poor rain prospects as food shortages worsen in pastoral areas


DRC: Government troops seize rebel stronghold, general says

Government troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) captured the
town of Minova on Monday, the last stronghold of dissident soldiers in the
eastern province of South Kivu, the commander of the 10th Military Region,
Gen Mbuza Mabe, told IRIN.

"I can confirm that my troops have regained control of the entire military
region," Mabe said on Tuesday.

He said troops seized Minova at 3 p.m. without a fight after dissidents
loyal to the renegade general, Laurent Nkunda, abandoned the town and
surrounding area of Numbi after government troops recaptured the
localities of Nybibwe and Dutu, close to Minova, on Thursday. Mabe said
civilians, who had fled their homes after Nkunda's men began raping and
pillaging, had started to return. [Full item on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=43167 ]


DRC: Slow start to disarmament in Ituri

A US $10.5-million disarmament and reintegration programme began on Monday
in Ituri, the war-ravaged district in the northeast of the DRC, the UN
Development Programme (UNDP) said.

Four of the five transit sites opened to combatants on Monday. The opening
of the site at Aveba was delayed due to security concerns. The UNDP said
there were 15,000 combatants in the district, 6,000 of them child
soldiers.

The joint UNDP/government disarmament and community reinsertion plan for
Ituri, known as 'The Plan DRC', was officially launched on 1 September
through funding from bilateral and multilateral donors with additional
support from national and international NGOs, as well as UNICEF and the UN
Mission in the DRC known as MONUC. [Full story on
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=43200 ]


DRC: Belgium promises =8020 million in development aid

Belgium has promised =8020 million in development aid to the DRC, the
Belgian minister for cooperation and development, Armand De Decker, said
on Wednesday after a three-day visit to the former colony.

Speaking in the capital, Kinshasa, he said part of the money would be
spent on institutional reform and that volunteers from the University of
Liege Law Faculty would help the Congolese Senate in the area of
constitutional law. He said Belgium would also help train personnel of the
Independent Electoral Commission with regard to the census law that
parliament would soon debate. [Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=43220 ]


DRC: The Twa now retract cannibalism charge

The Twa from the northeastern district of Ituri, in the DRC's Orientale
Province, retracted on Monday statements they made in 2003 of having
witnessed acts of cannibalism against their people by a former rebel
group, the MLC.

"That was a lie because we were pushed into saying things," Amzati Ndjeto
said in the capital, Kinshasa.

Ndjeto was among a group of Twa people, commonly known as pygmies, who in
January 2003 claimed in Kinshasa that their families had been killed and
eaten in the area of Mambasa by soldiers of the MLC, headed by Jean-Pierre
Bemba.

Ndjeto was speaking at a news conference called by the MLC to give its
version of events that supposedly occurred from October to December 2002.
[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=43161 ]


BURUNDI: President calls for referendum on constitution

With Burundian politicians unable to agree on the country's new
constitution, President Domitien Ndayizeye signed a decree on Wednesday
calling for a referendum.

The decree calls for the National Electoral Commission to organise the
constitutional referendum by 20 October, 10 days before national elections
are scheduled, after which, the current transitional government is
anticipated to hand over power. [Full report on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=43221 ]


BURUNDI: Evidence suggests Congolese refugees going home

Thousands of Congolese refugees appear to be returning home in recent
months from the Rugombo transit camp in Burundi's northwestern province of
Cibitoke although, after a while, many make the trip back to Burundi.

"This constitutes a major difficulty to know exactly how many refugees
have returned," Antoine Buzuguri, the governor of Cibitoke, told IRIN on
Thursday.

"What we do know is that the figures of refugees at Rugombo transit camp
have reduced tremendously," he added.

The number at Rugombo is now less than 10,000, he said, down from 20,000
in May when most of the refugees fled to Burundi to escape renewed
fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. [Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=43238 ]


RWANDA: Government official downplays food shortage forecast

A Rwandan official has downplayed predictions by the US government-funded
Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) that nearly 500,000
Rwandans could experience chronic hunger.

"We certainly do not need food assistance coming from outside because the
crisis is not alarming," an official in Rwanda's Ministry of Agriculture
told IRIN. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

The network of scientific institutions and private enterprise issued a
statement on 7 September saying, "There are districts that are chronically
food insecure, and 250,000 to 400,000 people in these districts will need
15,000 to 25,000 mt of food assistance between September and December."
[Full item on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=43162 ]


KENYA: Poor rain prospects as food shortages worsen in pastoral areas

Food shortages in the drought-hit pastoral areas of northern, northeastern
and northwestern regions of Kenya are worsening even as forecasts by the
country's meteorological department show that the October to December
short rains in those areas are likely to be poor.

The Kenya Meteorological Department, in its October-December rainfall
outlook published on Monday, predicted that drought conditions would
continue in the districts of Turkana, Marsabit, Samburu and Isiolo, while
Moyale, Mandera, Wajir and Garissa were likely to receive inadequate
rainfall.

Most of those pastoral districts, particularly those in the northwest,
would be facing the third successive season of poor precipitation. [Full
item on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=43144 ]


[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


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