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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 298
24 - 30 September 2005


CONTENTS:

UGANDA: Disarm LRA rebels or we invade, Museveni tells Kinshasa, MONUC
UGANDA: Government, UN destroy 3,000 small arms
UGANDA: IDP child death rates over emergency levels, reports say
DRC: Anti-polio drive overcomes logistics hitch
TANZANIA: 44,000 to receive ARVs by end of 2005
BURUNDI: Donor shortfall means basic needs not being met
CAR: EU grants 2.4 million euros for roads in the northeast


UGANDA: Disarm LRA rebels or we invade, Museveni tells Kinshasa, MONUC

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Thursday the Congolese
government and the UN mission there known as MONUC must, in two months,
disarm Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who recently crossed into
eastern Congo or his army would do so.

"If the international community does not come in to do it, we shall go
there," he said at a news conference in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

"We shall not wait for two months as [LRA Deputy Commander Vincent] Otti
and his group eats up the animals in Garamba National Park. We shall not
allow that."

Otti led some 400 rebels into Congo's Garamba National Park in early
September, fleeing Ugandan military operations in south Sudan.

On Monday, the Congolese vice-president in charge of security and
defence, Azarias Ruberwa, said in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, that
the army was planning operations to oust the LRA rebels and their
families. The government has given an ultimatum to all foreign groups to
leave the country by the end of Friday.

"We have no choice, we absolutely have to disarm them," Ruberwa said.
[Full story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49298 ]

[On the Net: DRC-UGANDA: Kampala demands rebels' extradition:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49251 ]


UGANDA: Government, UN destroy 3,000 small arms

An effort to rid Uganda of some 50,000 small arms began on Monday with
the burning of about 3,000 weapons at a ceremony in the capital,
Kampala.

Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda lit the pyre and said it was
time the country did so since it was "largely no longer at war".

"Weapons destruction is intended to ensure that weapons seized,
collected or deemed excess to national security requirements do not find
their way back into illegal circulation or recycled into neighbouring
conflict areas," Rugunda told the audience of mainly government
officials and diplomats. [Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49245 ]


UGANDA: IDP child death rates over emergency levels, reports say

The mortality rates for children in northern Uganda's internally
displaced persons' (IDP) camps are above emergency levels, a joint
survey by the Ugandan government and its partners has found.

Of the estimated 1.4 million IDPs in the conflict-ridden region, of whom
80 percent are women and children, the survey's preliminary findings
reveal that crude mortality rates and under-five mortality rates are
above the emergency thresholds of one death per 10,000 per day and two
deaths per 10,000 per day respectively.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is faced with a 46 percent funding
shortfall in the over US $40 million it requires to deal effectively
with the crisis, UN News reported.

The UNICEF spokesman in Uganda, Chulho Hyun, told IRIN on Friday that
the survey was jointly carried out by the Ministry of Health, the UN
World Health Organization, the International Rescue Committee, the
Norwegian Refugee Agency and local authorities in the northern districts
of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader. [Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49305 ]


DRC: Anti-polio drive overcomes logistics hitch

A polio vaccination campaign in remote areas of the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC), which was initially to start on 24 September, finally
got underway on Tuesday after the project overcame logistical problems.

The administrator of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) vaccination
project, Dr John Agbor, said the three-day campaign was aimed at some 10
million aged less than five years in six provinces in the northern and
southern parts of the country.

He said UNICEF was undertaking the project because a wild poliovirus had
been detected in Angola, the Central African Republic and Sudan, all
neighbouring countries. [Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49263 ]


TANZANIA: 44,000 to receive ARVs by end of 2005

The government of Tanzania plans to have at least 44,000 people infected
with HIV/AIDS on anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs) by the end of 2005,
President Benjamin Mkapa said on Sunday.

This figure, he said, represented some 10 percent of the actual number
of those in need of ARVs.

Speaking at the general meeting of Churches United Against HIV and AIDS
in Southern and Eastern Africa in Dar es Salaam, Mkapa however warned
that easy access to treatment and drugs should not encourage a jaded
mentality towards sex and AIDS.

He urged HIV-positive clerics and church workers to openly declare their
health status to reduce stigmatisation of those infected. [Full story
on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49228 ]


BURUNDI: Donor shortfall means basic needs not being met

UN agencies in Burundi said on Wednesday that even though the country
had now overcome many of its political problems, international donors
were not providing enough funds to meet people's basic humanitarian
needs.

Only 45 percent of the agencies' US $121 million 2005 Consolidated
Appeal has so far been funded, Jean Sebastian Munie, the programme
coordinator at UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),
said at a news briefing in Bujumbura, the capital.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization coordinator of agricultural
emergency operations Jean-Pierre Sanson, said Burundi was currently
facing a food deficit of around 280,000 tonnes.
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49292 ]


CAR: EU grants 2.4 million euros for roads in the northeast

The European Union has agreed to give 2.4 million euros (US $2.9
million) to repair damaged roads in two provinces northeast of the
Central African Republic's capital, Bangui, to help revitalise economic
activities in the area.

"The aim of the project is to open up the countryside in order to
facilitate the transportation of timber and agricultural products,"
Sergio Scuero, the EU desk officer for the country, told IRIN on Friday
from Brussels.

The roads to be repaired run from the towns of Bambari, Ippy and Bria in
the provinces of Ouaka and Haute-Kotto.

The project is part of a 100-million euro ($120.5 million) EU grant in
aid to the country that resumed on 1 July following the holding of
successful elections. The aid had been partially suspended in 2003 after
President Francois Bozize's came to power in a coup d'etat. Full story
on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49304 ]


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2005


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