Weekly Round-Up - IRINCEA-336: 23-Jun-06
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
Tel: +254 2 622147
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e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org
CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 336
17 - 23 June 2006
CONTENTS:
RWANDA: Tribunal seeks Ireland's help in tracking down genocide
suspects
DRC: Military operations in Ituri counter productive - report
BURUNDI: Rebel group, government sign peace agreement
BURUNDI: Refugee agency begins 'promoted' repatriation
BURUNDI: Gov't reallocates hunger funds
ROC-SUDAN: China gives $3.5m for AU mission in Darfur
TANZANIA: Plan to solve shortage of secondary-school teachers
ALSO SEE:
DRC: A vote for a piece of soap
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54013 ]
RWANDA: Tribunal seeks Ireland's help in tracking down genocide suspects
The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has sought
Ireland's assistance in tracking down suspects who remain on the run in
Europe and Africa and who are wanted in relation to the 1994 genocide in
Rwanda.
At least 10 "most-wanted" genocide suspects are on the tribunal's list,
including Felicien Kabuga, said to have been the main financier of the
April-June 1994 killings, estimated by the Rwandan government to have
claimed 937,000 lives. ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Jallow made the appeal on
Tuesday in the northern Tanzania town of Arusha, the tribunal's
headquarters, during a tour of the UN court by visiting Irish President
Mary McAleese. The Irish leader promised to look into the request. [Full
story: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=54092 ]
DRC: Military operations in Ituri counter productive - report
Military operations conducted in the troubled northeastern district of
Ituri by the Congolese army, with the support of the UN Mission in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), are counter productive as they
have contributed to the worsening of the security situation in the
district, according to a report by the Forum on early Warning and Early
Response (FEWER-Africa).
"Just recently in northeastern DRC, one UN peacekeeper was killed and
three wounded during a firefight with a local militia, with seven other
peacekeepers still missing," FEWER said in a statement issued on
Tuesday. However, MONUC said FEWER's report did not take into account
the reality on the field, "because to this day there are only 2,000
local militia in the interior of the all the country and some 1,500 to
2,000 foreign combatants after the voluntary demobilisation efforts led
by MONUC," Jean-Tobbie Okala, the deputy spokesperson for MONUC, said on
Wednesday.
[Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=54089]
BURUNDI: Rebel group, government sign peace agreement
Burundi's remaining active rebel group, the Forces Nationales de
Liberation (FNL), and the Burundian government signed an agreement on
Sunday to end hostilities, effective immediately.
Rebel leader Agathon Rwasa signed the agreement for the FNL, while the
minister for home affairs, Evariste Ndayishimiye, represented the
government in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, where both
sides had been engaged in talks facilitated by South Africa for the past
three weeks.
The accord is expected to end 13 years of civil war in the Central
African nation, during which at least 300,000 lives have been lost and
hundreds of thousands of people displaced.
Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54027]
[On the Net: Peace talks at preliminary stage, FNL official says:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53783]
BURUNDI: Refugee agency begins 'promoted' repatriation
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has started what it commonly
calls a process of 'promoted repatriation,' this time of Burundian
refugees from camps in western Tanzania.
The agency launches campaigns of 'promoted repatriation' to encourage
refugees to go home when security in the countries they originally fled
is seen to improve. In Tanzania, the process began on Tuesday and
involves teams of refugees being taken on "go and see" visits to see
conditions back home in Burundi for themselves. UNHCR estimates close to
one million Burundian refugees are still living in Tanzania - 354,000 in
UNHCR camps, some 300,000 scattered in villages with relatives or
friends, and 170,000 in old settlements not managed by UNHCR. [Full
story: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=54091
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio
Guterres, and the European Union Commissioner for Development and
Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, ended a two-day visit to Burundi with a
pledge to help the country reintegrate internally displaced people and
repatriate refugees living outside the country "voluntarily and in
dignity".
They made their pledge on Saturday, when they met senior government
officials after visiting a camp hosting Congolese refugees at Kinama in
Gasorwe commune, in the northeastern province of Muyinga.
[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54032]
[On the Net: EU, UNHCR commissioners visit
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53998]
BURUNDI: Gov't reallocates hunger funds
The Burundian government has decided to use US $10 million initially
intended to contain food shortages in northern and eastern provinces to
fund other needy sectors, a government official said on Tuesday.
"The food situation is improving now that people have started harvesting
crops for the current farming season," Pierre-Claver Rurakamvye, the
permanent secretary of the National Commission for the Coordination of
Aid, said. "We are going to focus on the health and education sectors."
In February, President Pierre Nkurunziza declared the northern provinces
of Kirundo and Muyinga and the eastern provinces of Rutana, Ruyigi and
Rutana "famine-stricken
[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54057]
[On the Net: Plan to combat desertification
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54051]
ROC-SUDAN: China gives $3.5m for AU mission in Darfur
The Chinese government has granted the African Union peacekeeping
mission in Sudan's Darfur region US $3.5 million in budgetary support
and humanitarian emergency aid, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said on
Monday.
Making the announcement in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of
Congo, during a two-day visit, Jiabao said the aid was to support the
AU's efforts to resolve conflicts quickly.
$1 million will be for budgetary support of the AU mission with $2.5
million for humanitarian emergency, Jiabao added.
Conflict has raged in Darfur, in western Sudan, in the past three years
in a civil war pitting rebels against government-supported militia
groups. An estimated 1.8 million Sudanese civilians have been displaced
and 200,000 have fled across the border to Chad, to escape the violence.
[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54075]
TANZANIA: Plan to solve shortage of secondary-school teachers
The Tanzanian government will recruit almost 6,000 teachers in the next
two months to address an acute shortage in its secondary schools, a
minister said on Monday.
The minister for education and vocational training, Margareth Sitta,
told parliament the country needed 9,500 teachers to staff its 1,699
public secondary schools but currently suffers a deficit of 5,793
teachers.
Following the implementation of the education initiative in 2004, there
was a 49.3 percent increase in secondary-school enrolment, which was
above the year's target of 40 percent.
[Full Story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54029]
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