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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 324
25 - 31 March 2004


CONTENTS:

EAST AFRICA: UN relief coordinator to visit four countries
BURUNDI: UN team talks on truth and reconciliation commission
BURUNDI: Former ruling party pulls out of government
CAR: Food shortages increase as fighting intensifies in the northwest
DRC: Thousands displaced by fighting arrive at Lake Albert
KENYA: Food situation getting worse, warns FEWS Net
KENYA: Measles alert sounded as the disease claims 14 lives
SUDAN: Refugees urged to return home from Uganda
SUDAN: UNHCR staff member dies of wounds sustained in Yei attack
TANZANIA: Zanzibar sets up anti-cholera taskforce
UGANDA-DRC: Evicted Ugandans stranded at border in dire need


ALSO SEE:
BURUNDI: Drought drives thousands back to refugee life

Full report:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52517


EAST AFRICA: UN relief coordinator starts visit of four countries

The United Nations Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan
Egeland, arrived on Thursday in Uganda for the first leg of a mission to
four countries in the region that are suffering humanitarian crises.

Egeland is to meet officials from the government, the donor community
and NGOs and assess the humanitarian situation for people who have been
displaced by the 20-year conflict in northern Uganda between the rebel
Lord's Resistance Army and the national army.

The visit comes amid reports that 146 people die each week in the north.
According to "Counting the Cost: 20 years of war in northern Uganda", a
report prepared by 50 aid agencies, the region is one of the world's
worst war zones.

[Full report:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52526]


BURUNDI: UN team arrives for talks on truth and reconciliation
commission

A United Nations delegation, led by the Under-Secretary- General for
Legal Affairs, Nicolas Michel, is in Burundi for consultations on the
setting up of the country's truth and reconciliation commission and a
special court.

"We have been mandated to carry out negotiations with involved parties
to establish the necessary juridical framework for establishment of a
truth and reconciliation commission and a special court," Michel said on
Sunday on arrival in the capital, Bujumbura.

He said the UN Security Council had kept in mind the Arusha Peace and
Reconciliation of 2000, which was signed by Burundian parties and under
which a transitional government was set up, as well as the results of a
UN assessment mission that visited Burundi in 2005.

[Full report:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52439]


BURUNDI: Former ruling party pulls out of government

Three Burundian ministers representing the Front pour la democratie au
Burundi in President Pierre Nkurunziza's government reported to work
despite a directive by their party to pull out of government.

Health Minister Barnabe Mbonimpa, Agriculture Minister Elie Buzoya and
Environment Minister Odette Kayitesi had reportedly refused to comply
with FRODEBU's directive to boycott their duties.

On Saturday, FRODEBU Chairman Leonce Ngendakumana had announced the
party was withdrawing from the government to protest what he termed the
government's failure to abide by democratic principles.

[Full report:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52447]


CAR: Food shortages increase as fighting intensifies in the northwest

United Nations agencies have announced that as many as 50,000 people may
go hungry in the northwest of the Central African Republic (CAR) because
of fighting between armed groups and the national army.

"Thousands of people risk starvation if we do not act very fast,"
Jean-Charles Dei, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) representative in
Bangui, said in a statement made available by the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"People, including women, children and the elderly, live in the forest
and are forced to eat wild roots, often poisonous over the long term, to
stay alive," he said.

"We will need four and half million dollars to feed the target group of
50,000 people during six months and prevent humanitarian tragedy." [Full
report: http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52486]


DRC: Thousands displaced by fighting arrive at Lake Albert

Thousands of Congolese civilians in the northeastern district of Ituri
arrive at the port town of Kasenyi on Lake Albert, on the border with
Uganda, after they fled fighting between the national army and militia
groups, a local official said.

However, many of the displaced who had arrived at Kasenyi left again and
returned home, the chief of Bahema Sud Collective, Deogratias Rusoke,
said.

The civilians were displaced following fighting near their homes in
Tchomia, in the south of Ituri. Tchomia is 7 km north of Kasenyi and 62
km east of Bunia, the main town in the district.

[Full report:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52518]


KENYA: Food situation getting worse, warns FEWS Net

The food situation, particularly among pastoralists in drought-affected
areas of Kenya, continues to deteriorate, with available food and
non-food resources falling short of growing demands, said a report
released by a famine early warning agency.

"The large number of livestock deaths, severe water shortages, the
upsurge in human and livestock diseases and declining nutrition among
pastoral households have cast a shadow over future prospects for
pastoral livelihood," said the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems
Network (FEWS Net) in its March update on Kenya.

Pre-famine conditions were already evident in Mandera, Wajir and Garissa
districts in the northeastern region, and Marsabit in the north, FEWS
Net said. It also found that the situation among marginal agricultural
households in the coastal and southeastern lowlands had worsened after a
succession of three to six poor rainy seasons.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52466]


KENYA: Measles alert sounded as the disease claims 14 lives

Kenya's health ministry issued a measles outbreak alert following an
upsurge of cases of the disease in various parts of the country,
including the capital, Nairobi, and the death of 14 children since
September 2005.

"The outbreak has now spread to all parts of the country, but is worst
in Northeastern province and Nairobi province," said James Nyikal, the
director of medical services.

He said the confirmed cases were of children who had never been
vaccinated against measles. Three siblings died of suspected measles in
a suburb of Nairobi this month.

Some 1,391 cases of measles had been identified in Kenya since September
2005, 60 percent of which were among children under age five, according
to Nyikal.

[Full report:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52506]


SUDAN: Refugees urged to return home from Uganda

Despite recent attacks targeting United Nations compounds in southern
Sudan, the Sudanese minister of state for the interior has said the
region is peaceful enough for refugees in neighbouring countries to
return home.

"I am here to convey a message that there is peace in Sudan," Brig Aleu
Avieny Aleu told Sudanese refugees in Uganda on Monday, adding that the
authorities would guarantee the security of the returnees.

"I am the biblical dove from the Noah's ark that went to Khartoum and
returned to tell you that the floods are over. Let us go home."

However, he admitted that it was not yet a time of "milk and honey" in
southern Sudan.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52467]


SUDAN: UNHCR staff member dies of wounds sustained in Yei attack

A staff member of the United Nations refugee agency who was shot and
wounded during an attack by raiders on a UN compound in south Sudan has
died, the UNHCR said.

Nabil Bahjat Abdulla, 48, succumbed to his injuries at Nairobi Hospital
in the Kenyan capital on Tuesday.

"Once again, the humanitarian community is mourning a friend and
colleague who died trying to help others in a place that has already
seen far too much sadness and violence," said Antonio Guterres, the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees, in a statement.

Abdulla was wounded in a 15 March attack in Yei that left one guard dead
and another wounded. One of the attackers was also killed. Six other
UNHCR international staff in the compound at the time escaped injury.

[Full report:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52483]


TANZANIA: Zanzibar sets up anti-cholera taskforce

Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar launched an anti-cholera
taskforce following an outbreak of the disease, which resulted in four
deaths in Unguja and Pemba, the two islands that make up Zanzibar.

At least 100 cases of severe diarrhoea had also been recorded in the
islands, Zanzibar's health and social welfare minister, Sultan Mohamed
Mugheiry, said when he launched the taskforce on Wednesday in the
capital, Stone Town.

Of the dead, three were from Mwambe, south of Pemba Island; and the
other one was from Uzi village, south of Unguja Island.

[Full report:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52505]


UGANDA-DRC: Evicted Ugandans stranded at border in dire need

Hundreds of Ugandans who were evicted from a national park in the east
of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are stranded at the border in
dire need of relief, a Ugandan minister said on Wednesday.

"They lack food, shelter and medicine. Already we have had reports of
many cases of diarrhoea and malaria where they are camped at the border
areas of Mpondwe [350 km west of Kampala]," said Christine Amongin
Aporu, junior minister in charge of refugees and disaster preparedness.
A team had been sent to Mpondwe to assess the conditions of those who
had been evicted.

As many as 800 of the estimated 6,000 evictees already had crossed over
to Uganda from areas surrounding the Virunga National Park in DRC with
about 3,000 heads of cattle, she said. Half of those expelled from the
park were women and children.

[Full report:
http://irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=52504]


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