U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

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e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 335
10 - 16 June 2006


CONTENTS:

BURUNDI: Bubanza flood victims receive food aid
BURUNDI-RWANDA: Thousands more asylum seekers repatriated
CAR: Aid official urges donors to help 50,000 displaced civilians
CONGO: Polio vaccination campaign begins
DRC: Plague kills 20 in Ituri District
DRC: New disarmament deadline, amnesty offer for militiamen
DRC: Demo over polls as UN team visits Kinshasa
TANZANIA: Zanzibar tightens import controls over bird flu threat
UGANDA-SUDAN: Prospects for peace talks between gov't and LRA uncertain


ALSO SEE:

DRC: Interview with Apollinaire Malumalu, president of Independent
Electoral Commission
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53917]

DRC: Interview with Valentin Mubake, representative of the opposition
UDPS
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53893]

DRC: Interview with William Swing, UN Secretary-General's Special
Representative
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53858]

UGANDA: Interview with Radhika Coomaraswamy, SR for children and armed
conflict
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53895]


BURUNDI: Bubanza flood victims receive food aid

The Burundian government began the distribution of 18 tonnes of food aid
to thousands of people in the northwestern province of Bubanza who were
displaced by floods in late April.

Beneficiaries of the aid included 327 households in the communes of
Gihanga and Mpanda, the two most-affected areas. The nation's first
vice-president, Martin Nduwimana, presided over the first distribution
in Gihanga commune on Friday. "Since the catastrophe occurred, the
government has been collecting relief from its own funds and from donor
organisations," he said.

In mid-May, heavy rains caused two rivers to burst their banks in
Bubanza, killing nine people and displacing thousands of others. The
floods also destroyed a cemetery. In the central province of Muramvya,
floods killed 11 people, destroyed 200 homes and damaged at least 1,800
acres of crops.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53938]

[On the Net: Rains displace thousands, destroy crops and cemetery
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53397]


BURUNDI-RWANDA: Thousands more asylum seekers repatriated

The Burundian government has repatriated 5,206 Rwandans from its
northern provinces of Ngozi and Kirundo since 12 April, an official of
the United Nations (UN) refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Monday.

"About 2,000 refugees are repatriated per week," said Catherine-Lune
Grayson, UNHCR's public relations officer in the Burundian capital of
Bujumbura. "There is a convoy tomorrow [Tuesday] and another one later
in the week."

"All the Rwandans will have been repatriated by August," said Didace
Nzikoruriho, an official in charge of refugees in Burundi's Ministry of
the Interior.

Between April 2005 and March 2006, some 19,000 Rwandan asylum seekers
arrived in Burundi's northern provinces reportedly fleeing persecution
under Rwanda's traditional 'gacaca' justice system, which the government
introduced to expedite trials for thousands of suspects held in
connection with the 1994 genocide.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53896]

[On the Net: Bujumbura hands over 571 Rwandans
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53288]


CAR: Aid official urges donors to help 50,000 displaced civilians

A humanitarian official appealed to the international community, on
Monday, to help some 50,000 people in the Central African Republic (CAR)
who were forced to flee into the bush by fighting between insurgents and
the national forces in the northwest of the country.

Mario Baldin, head of the Italian nongovernmental organisation
Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), said that a relief operation
launched on 11 April in Markounda, in the CAR's Ouham Prefecture, had
been forced to shut down because of lack of funding. The operation had
provided food and non-food items to civilians displaced by an insurgency
in the region.

"The humanitarian situation in the northwest region is difficult," he
said. "The situation is bad in the town of Markounda and worst in the
town of Paoua." Fighting in the northwest has disrupted all social
activities. Schools have closed, and health facilities lack medicine or
have been shut down for lack of personnel and supplies. Food is scarce,
as displaced farmers were unable to harvest their crops before they
fled.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53902]


CONGO: Polio vaccination campaign begins

In response to an outbreak of polio in the neighbouring Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), the Republic of Congo (ROC) launched the first
phase of a vaccination campaign against the disease on 9 June.

"The threat is serious," said Edouard Ndinga, ROC's national officer in
charge of the immunisation programme, as he urged the population to
comply with the campaign.

The initiative is the result of a meeting between the governments of
ROC, Angola and the DRC following the polio outbreak in Boma, in the
Bas-Congo Province in western DRC, on the ROC-Angola border. The
operation will concentrate on ROC's southern departments of Brazzaville,
Pool, Lekoumou, Bouenza, Niari and Kouilou - all of which border the DRC
- in a bid to prevent an outbreak in these provinces.

[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53898]


DRC: Plague kills 20 in Ituri District

An outbreak of plague in the northeastern district of Ituri in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has killed 20 people out of 70 cases
identified in the last three weeks, health officials said on Friday.

"The figure is expected to rise as more reports arrive," said Lendunga
Wapayer, the medical director of the Centre for Surveillance and Control
of Plague in the northeast. Among those identified since mid-May were 44
cases of pulmonary plague, recorded in the Linga and Rethy health zones,
about 120km to 150km northeast of Bunia, the main town in Ituri.

[Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=54000]


DRC: New disarmament deadline, amnesty offer for militiamen

Militias active in Ituri District in northeastern DRC have until 30 June
to disarm, according to an ultimatum issued, on Thursday, by the
national army and the United Nations Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC.

The army has deployed Brig-Gen Mbuyamba Nsiona from the capital,
Kinshasa, to Ituri to take charge of the operation, which is aimed at
securing the district ahead of general elections set for 30 July.

"There will be no victimisation," he said, adding that government
soldiers who prevent or discourage militia from disarming would be
punished. Two disarmament sites would be opened from 19 June for those
who wish to surrender: one at Aveba, 70km south of Bunia, and one at
Kpandroma, 120km north of Bunia. [Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53961 ]


DRC: Demo over polls as UN team visits Kinshasa

Thousands of Congolese took to the streets of the capital, Kinshasa on
Monday demanding negotiations that would see the main opposition party
included in the country's electoral process.

At one point, police shot into the air to disperse the protestors when
they became violent, stoning vehicles and buildings. Most of the
demonstrators were supporters of the Union pour la democratie et le
progres social (UDPS), which is led by veteran politician Etienne
Tshisekedi and is boycotting the 30 July elections.

The demonstration was held as delegates of the UN Security Council
(UNSC), led by the French ambassador, Jean-Marc De La Sabliere, held
talks in Kinshasa with government officials and diplomats on the
country's preparations for the first elections in 45 years.

"We are [returning] satisfied with the organization of the elections and
are encouraging the Congolese to respect the planned election date," de
la Sabliere said in Kinshasa as the delegation concluded its two-day
visit. [Full Story: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53869 ]


TANZANIA: Zanzibar tightens import controls over bird flu threat

Authorities in Tanzania's semiautonomous island of Zanzibar, on Monday,
intensified efforts to control the importation of chicken in a bid to
check the threat of bird flu on the island.

"Over the past three weeks, we have confiscated more than 400 chickens
in total, smuggled into Zanzibar, and successfully ordered the sending
back of about 120 chickens to where they were imported from," said
Kassim Gharib of Zanzibar's bird-flu taskforce. "We are prosecuting two
people for illegally importing about 340 chickens."

Hundreds of chickens smuggled onto Zanzibar from mainland Tanzania were
burned last week after importers failed to send them back. The deadly
H5N1 strain of avian flu has already been reported in several African
countries. [Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53870 ]


UGANDA-SUDAN: Prospects for peace talks between gov't and LRA uncertain

Efforts by authorities in southern Sudan to mediate in the conflict
between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army
(LRA) appeared to be stalling at the weekend after Kampala refused to
meet the insurgency's leadership because it had been indicted by the
International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.

"Nobody can meet with those who are indicted," Okello Oryem, Uganda's
junior foreign minister, said on Saturday. "As far as we are concerned,
the LRA is a regional problem now - not a Uganda problem.

South Sudan vice-president Riek Machar has been trying to arrange talks
between the Ugandan government and the LRA, which is headed by Joseph
Kony. The rebel leader said in video footage last month that he was
willing to engage the government in talks to end two decades of violence
that has claimed the lives of thousands of civilians and displaced close
to two million people in the country's north.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53867]

[On the Net: New peace bid with LRA won't deter quest for justice - ICC
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53941]


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