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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 295
3 - 9 September 2005


CONTENTS:

KENYA: One million still in need of food aid
CAR: Additional aid to Bangui's flood victims
DRC: Rwanda begins extraditing Congolese dissidents
DRC: Army to start expelling foreign fighters on 30 September
DRC: UN enlarges its mission during election period
DRC: Hundreds protest their eviction from Virunga National Park
DRC: Third plane crashes in four days
UGANDA-SUDAN: Salva Kiir pledges support against the LRA
TANZANIA: Election campaign kicks off in troubled Zanzibar


ASLO SEE:

SOUTH AFRICA : VIP protection troops in Burundi to be withdrawn, says govt
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48952 ]


KENYA: One million still in need of food aid

Some one million Kenyans will need food aid until February 2006 despite 
an improvement in food security in some of the areas that had been hit 
by drought, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in its latest food 
emergency report.

The number of people experiencing shortages was estimated at 1.6 million 
in July, according to WFP.

The agency said a joint assessment it carried out in July with the 
government in 26 districts had shown that some areas in the northwest 
had significantly recovered from drought.

"However, there has been significant deterioration in household food 
security in most parts of northeastern Kenya (Wajir, Garissa, and Tana 
River districts) and in a few localized areas (Kajiado, Moyale, Marsabit 
and Turkana districts) and farming households in the southeastern and 
coastal marginal districts," WFP said in the report released on Friday.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48902]


CAR: Additional aid to Bangui's flood victims

The UN says its Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has 
authorised an emergency grant of almost US $18,000 for nearly 20,000 
people affected by August's flooding in the Central African Republic 
(CAR)'s capital, Bangui.

"UN agencies have already provided therapeutic high-nutrition biscuits, 
water purification tablets, jerry cans for clean water, and petrol 
lamps, which have been distributed through the national Red Cross," UN 
News reported on Wednesday.

The Red Cross and the government have asked for UN aid in providing 
food, medicines, kitchen utensils, mosquito nets, clothing, blankets, 
sanitation materials, as well as construction materials for emergency 
rehabilitation, UN news said.

It said over 2,500 homes have been ruined by the floods.

CAR Red Cross Coordinator Alphonse Zarambaud said in August that the 
situation could worsen further with more rainfall expected in September 
and October.

[Full story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48956]


DRC: Rwanda begins extraditing Congolese dissidents

The Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) announced on Saturday that Rwanda 
had begun extraditing dissidents associated with a breakaway army 
general in eastern Congo, Laurent Nkunda.

"We see this as an evolution in our relations with Rwanda," Adolphe 
Onusumba, the Congolese defence minister, said at a news conference on 
Saturday in Kinshasa, the nation's capital. "Some of these dissidents 
were in the process of destabilising the DRC government."

The dissidents were transferred to the Congolese border where 
authorities there then took them to a prison in Goma, Obusumba said. He 
added that one of the dissidents who left Rwanda - for Belgium - was 
South Kivu Provincial Governor Patient Mwendanga.

[Full story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48906]


DRC: Army to start expelling foreign fighters on 30 September

The army will on 30 September begin using force to expel all foreign 
rebel fighters in the country, a spokesman for President Joseph Kabila 
said on Thursday.

"To do this we need logistics support from [the UN Mission in the DRC] 
MONUC and the international community," Kasongo Kudura, the spokesman, 
said.

MONUC spokeswomen Rachel Eklou said on Thursday UN troops would support 
the army operation.

The deadline for the rebels to leave voluntarily or face expulsion was 
set during a meeting on Tuesday with President Joseph Kabila, 
representatives of the country's Independent Electoral Commission, and 
those of the International Committee in Support of the Transition; known 
as CIAT. The committee includes ambassadors from Angola, Belgium, 
Britain, Canada, China, France, Russia, South Africa, the United States, 
Zambia, the African Union, the European Union, and MONUC.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48962]


DRC: UN enlarges its mission during election period

The UN Security Council on Monday authorised the temporary deployment of 
additional personnel and equipment to the UN Mission in the DRC for the 
country's general elections due in 2006.

The Council authorises an increase of 841 personnel, which would include 
up to five formed police units each with 125 officers and additional 
police personnel.

The Council also authorised MONUC, "acting in close coordination with 
the UN Development Programme, to provide additional support to the 
Independent Electoral Commission for the transport of electoral 
materials."

[Full story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48944]


DRC: Hundreds protest their eviction from Virunga National Park

Police fired shots into the air on Wednesday in the town Beni in 
northeast DRC's North Kivu Province to disperse three hundred people 
protesting their eviction from Virunga National Park.

"These people have been homeless for the last week sleeping under the 
stars and at the mercy of nature," Julien Paluku, the mayor of Beni, 
said on Thursday.

The protestors were among hundreds of people evicted by police and 
soldiers last week from the 790,000 hectares park, Paluku said. 
Thousands fled there during the 1990s to escape various armed conflicts 
in the region.

Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda the park, which straddles Rwanda 
Uganda and DRC, was occupied by some 30,000 refugees and displaced 
people. Conservationists estimate they cleared 15,000 hectares of forest 
for farming

The eviction occurred during an international conference in Kinshasa on 
saving primates from extinction. Virungu Park is home to more than half 
of the world's mountain gorillas.


DRC: Third plane crashes in four days

The third air crash in DRC in less than a week occurred on Thursday when 
a Twin Otter turboprop aircraft owned TMK airlines slammed into a 
cemetery two kilometres west of Goma, the provincial capital of North 
Kivu Province.

"All 19 passengers survived, including a baby," Lussi Kambale, the 
doctor in charge of Docs Hospital told IRIN, "but seven people are 
seriously injured."

In another incident on Monday, all 11 passengers and crew died when an 
Antonov 26 aircraft crashed 1,500 metres short of Isiro airstrip in the 
northeastern province of Orientale.

On Tuesday a plane belonging to Flying Air Service caught fire at the 
end of the runway of Goma International Airport. The French pilot later 
died of his injures. [DRC: 11 die in Isiro plane crash: 
http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48926 ]


UGANDA-SUDAN: Salva Kiir pledges support against the LRA

Sudanese First Vice-President Salva Kiir assured Uganda on Wednesday of 
his cooperation in the fight against the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance 
Army (LRA), which operates from bases in both countries.

A statement from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's office said Kiir 
told the Ugandan leader that the government in Khartoum and his Sudan 
People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) were "willing to have joint 
operations with the UPDF (the Ugandan army) against rebels remnants".

Museveni's office said Kiir's pledge followed a proposal by Museveni for 
a joint operation involving the SPLM/A, the Sudanese army and the 
Ugandan military as a way to completely wipe out the LRA and its leader, 
Joseph Kony.

[Full story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48945]


TZ: Election campaign kicks off in troubled Zanzibar

Election campaigning began on Monday in Tanzania's semi-autonomous 
islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, with the main opposition expressing 
renewed concerns that the vote may be rigged.

"We shall explore all avenues to see that this year's polls are free, 
fair, transparent and peaceful," Seif Shariff Hamad, the presidential 
candidate for the main opposition Civic United Front party, told a 
campaign rally in Zanzibar's capital Stone Town.

Opposition concerns that Zanzibar's electoral commission and the ruling 
party are plotting to rig the 30 October legislative and presidential 
increased in August when the commission cancelled a contract with a 
South African firm, Waymark Infotech, to cross check the registration of 
voters.

[Full story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48929]


[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 
2005


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