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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 267
19 - 25 February 2005


CONTENTS:

AFRICA: Continent-wide polio immunisation drive begins
BURUNDI: Tutsi dominated parties call for a 'no' vote in referendum
DRC: Pneumonic plague kills 43
DRC: Kinshasa to deploy police brigade to protect civilians in Ituri
UGANDA: Government ends ceasefire, but says talks "remain open"
UGANDA: EC funds projects in conflict-affected region
UGANDA: World Bank extends $177 million for roads, other projects
UGANDA: 6,000 homeless as fires destroy huts in northern IDP camps
GREAT LAKES: WFP warns of food shortage affecting 50,000 refugees
RWANDA: Kigali pleased with UN tribunal's handing over of 15 genocide
   files


AFRICA: Continent-wide polio immunisation drive begins

A mass polio immunisation campaign began on Friday across Africa,
targeting 100 million children, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF)
reported.

The 22-nation synchronised campaign, dubbed the Coast-to-Coast Polio
Drive, comes as reports from Ethiopia indicated that a child there had
contracted polio, the first case in the country in four years. UNICEF
said the drive was the first in a series of 2005 campaigns to stamp out
polio in Africa, "which saw a fierce resurgence last year, endangering
global eradication efforts".

To finance this year's immunisation rounds, US $75 million would be
needed by July and some $200 million would be required in 2006, UNICEF
said. It said further mass polio vaccination campaigns in Africa were
scheduled for April and May and again in late 2005.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45777]
[On the Net: For more information, see: http://www.polioeradication.org/]


BURUNDI: Tutsi dominated parties call for a 'no' vote in referendum

Three Tutsi dominated parties in Burundi, including the main Union pour
le progress national (UPRONA), have called on Burundians to vote against
the country's proposed post-transitional constitution during a
referendum due on Monday, terming it exclusionist and dictatorial.

UPRONA holds that the post-transition constitution was drafted and
adopted by Hutu-dominated parties, to the exclusion of the
Tutsi-dominated ones. UPRONA Chairman Jean Baptiste Manwangari said on
Saturday that the party's Central Committee believed the "no vote" was a
call to dialogue and reconciliation, and would act as a warning that
political debate had not ended.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45686]


DRC: Pneumonic plague kills 43

Some 43 people have died and 13 others infected following an outbreak of
pneumonic plague in the mining area of Zobia, in the region of Bas-Uele
in Oriental Province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an
official in the Ministry of Health told IRIN on Monday.

The ministry's director of epidemiology, Dr Benoit Kebele Ilunga, said
the epidemic showed up three weeks ago in one of the mines in the
diamond rich area. He said the 13 infected survivors had responded well
to antibiotics. Samples from the infected people analysed at the Bio
Medical Research Institute in the capital, Kinshasa, confirmed the
plague.

Kebele said the major difficulty now was to find all the people who may
have contracted the infection and who may have left the Zobia mine while
the disease was still in its incubation period. Some 7,000 miners live
in Zobia. Medical officials are now looking for 2,000 of them who worked
in Zobia when the epidemic broke out.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45700]


DRC: Several UN peacekeepers wounded in militia ambush

Unidentified gunmen shot and wounded several UN peacekeepers in the
Democratic Republic of Congo in an ambush on Friday in the village of
Kafe, in the northeastern district of Ituri.

"According to military sources, there could be deaths among the UN
forces, but we are not able at this point to determine the number and
their nationalities," Mamadou Bah, a spokesman for MONUC, told IRIN in
the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.

Kafe is close to the village of Tche where Front nationaliste
integrationiste militiamen have been attacking and burning down rural
villages in the last two months. Tche is 60 km north of Bunia, the main
town in Ituri.

The UN-supported Radio Okapi reported that the head of MONUC and special
representative of the UN Secretary-General in the country, William
Swing, had decided to increase the number of peacekeepers in Ituri.

At the moment there is a UN brigade of peacekeepers stationed in Bunia.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45792]


DRC: Kinshasa to deploy police brigade to protect civilians in Ituri

The government plans to deploy a police brigade in the northeastern
district of Ituri to protect civilians from militias, Interior Minister
Theophile Mbemba told IRIN on Monday. One police brigade has at least
2,500 officers and men, he said.

Mbemba announced that several battalions of the integrated police would
be deployed to Djugu, some 60 km north of Bunia, to quell militia
attacks against civilians. The integrated police would also support a
MONUC brigade already deployed to the area, but has difficulty in
preventing militias from ransacking villages.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45709]


UGANDA: Government ends ceasefire, but says talks "remain open"

Peace talks to end hostilities between the government and the rebel
Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) will continue despite the expiration of an
18-day truce called by the government, James Nsaba Buturo, Uganda's
minister for information, told IRIN.

The "limited ceasefire", which covered a stretch of land in the
districts of Gulu and Kitgum, ended at dawn on Tuesday.  The measure was
aimed at building trust between the government and the LRA in the
fragile peace process.

The LRA has been fighting the Uganda government since 1988, a war that
has seen tens of thousands killed and at least 1.6 million displaced.
The rebel group is renowned for its brutality against the civilian
population of the region, and relief agencies say the LRA has abducted
20,000 children for use as soldiers, porters and sex slaves.

[Full story
on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45711]


UGANDA: EC funds projects in conflict-affected region

The European Commission (EC) has announced an additional =8020.62 million
($27.28 million) to fund projects aimed at improving the lives of
conflict victims in the north of the country.

The donation is part of a series of humanitarian aid packages amounting
to =8080 million ($105.89 million) for several African countries affected
by various crises. The funding decision was adopted by the EC in
January. The money, to be managed by the EC's humanitarian organisation,
ECHO, will support vulnerable populations affected by insecurity and
climatic hazards, the EC said on Monday.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45730]


UGANDA: World Bank extends $177 million for roads, other projects

The government and the World Bank signed on Wednesday agreements under
which the global financial institution would fund development projects
to help the country's private sector growth.

"The project is intended to improve access to rural and economically
productive areas and to enhance road sector planning, design and
management capacity," Ezra Suruma, the finance minister who signed the
agreement on behalf of Uganda, said.

The funds, from the World Bank's International Development Association
(IDA), include $67.6 million in credit that matures in 40 years and $40
million as a grant. Another agreement was signed for the provision of
$70 million in credit to support the country's private sector
development. The money forms part of this financial year's IDA support
to the Ugandan government, which totals $327.6 million.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45776]


UGANDA: 6,000 homeless as fires destroy huts in northern IDP camps

At least 6,000 people were left homeless after fires broke out in
several camps for internally displaced persons, an official from the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. The
fires were still burning on Monday afternoon, he added.

"About 800 huts were burnt over the weekend at Parabongo Camp," Andrew
Timpson, the OCHA head of office in Gulu, 380 km north of the capital,
Kampala, told IRIN.

Timpson said the current hot and windy weather in the war-affected
region was to blame for the spread of the fires. Some relief food that
was due to be distributed to camp residents by relief agencies was also
destroyed.

Parabongo is 40 km north of Gulu, while Cope is 15 km north of the town.
Opit Camp is 22 km east of Gulu and Bobi 26 km south.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45701]


GREAT LAKES: WFP warns of food shortage affecting 50,000 refugees

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday that it would have
to cut rations for 50,000 Burundian and Congolese refugees in Rwanda
unless donors provided $2.6 million.

If made, the rations would be cut by 30 percent early in March, the
agency said in a statement issued in Kigali, capital of Rwanda. The
agency said, "Without new contributions from the international
community, we will no longer be able to provide a complete food ration,
putting the health and morale of these refugees in danger."

The WFP acting country director in Rwanda, Alix Loriston, was quoted as
saying that the agency was already providing food aid to 50,000
refugees, 15,000 more than originally targeted.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45753]


RWANDA: Kigali pleased with UN tribunal's handing over of 15 genocide
files

Rwanda is pleased with a move by the UN International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda to hand over the files of 15 genocide suspects, who are still
at large, to Kigali for prosecution, Deputy Prosecutor Martin Ngoga told
IRIN on Thursday.

"The 15 names are of some big fishes wanted for genocide," he said,
declining to identify the individuals.

He said once arrested, the suspects would face charges of genocide and
crimes against humanity in Rwandan courts. Some 937,000 Tutsis and
politically moderate Hutus died in the 1994 genocide, according to the
government's estimates.

The tribunal's prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, handed over the dossiers on
Wednesday to the Rwandan prosecutor, Jean de Dieu Mucyo, the spokesman
of the UN tribunal, Roland Amoussouga, told IRIN in Arusha, Tanzania,
the UN court's headquarters.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=45750]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
2005


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