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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 323
18 - 24 March 2006


CONTENTS:

KENYA: EC provides five million euros for drought relief
KENYA: Food imports planned as drought bites
DRC: EU military mission gets the go ahead
DRC: Ituri warlord faces first trial at ICC in The Hague
DRC: Army retakes Ituri village
DRC: Tshisekedi supporters demand inclusion into electoral bodies
DRC: New UN fund could soon ease country's humanitarian crisis
BURUNDI: Dar invites Bujumbura for FNL peace talks
CONGO: Contract awarded to rebuild Brazzaville-Kinkala road
CONGO: Child soldiers begin rehab
TANZANIA: Zanzibar severely drought-hit, assessment team says
UGANDA: Safe water, sanitation unavailable to many children


KENYA: EC provides five million euros for drought relief

The European Commission (EC) is to provide five million euros (US $6.1
million) to help feed up to 3.5 million drought-affected Kenyans,
including 500,000 school children, EC Commissioner for Development and
Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel said on Monday in Nairobi, the Kenyan
capital.

He was speaking at the 11th summit of Heads of State and Government from
the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development countries.

In February, the Kenyan government, UN agencies and NGOs appealed for $245
million to help the country's drought-affected populations.

Some 11 million people in several East Africa and the Horn of Africa
countries are suffering from the effects of a severe drought brought on by
several consecutive seasons of failed rains.


KENYA: Food imports planned as drought bites

Kenya is making arrangements to import grain to offset food shortages that
are affecting some five million people in the country, President Mwai
Kibaki said on Tuesday when he opened a new session of parliament.

Food stocks distributed so far to those in need had been bought from local
farmers, but domestically produced grain reserves would be exhausted by
June, making it necessary to import food. "We are, therefore, making
urgent arrangements to import additional grains to bridge the gap," he
said.

The United Nations World Food Programme said it was trying to feed 3.5
million Kenyans threatened with starvation because of a prevailing drought
in the region.


DRC: EU military mission gets the go ahead

The Council of the European Union announced on Thursday that it had
approved "the concept" of EU troops supporting MONUC, the UN Mission in
the DRC during the presidential and legislative elections process this
year.

The council said in a statement issued from Brussels, Belgium, that the
concept included deployment of an advanced team to Kinshasa of 400-450
military personnel. The EU would also make a battalion-size force (around
800 troops) available as an "on-call" unit. The battalion would be "over
the horizon outside the count ry, but quickly deployable," the EU said.
Planning for police support will also be pursued, it added.

The council said the EU's German Armed Forces Operations Command in
Potsdam, Germany, would be available for planning and command of the
military operation.


DRC: Ituri warlord faces first trial at ICC in The Hague

Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo made his first appearance at the
International Criminal Court in The Hague on Monday, on charges of
conscripting children and using them to participate in hostilities during
2002 and 2003.

Lubanga, the founder and leader of the Union des patriotes congolais, was
handed over to the court on 17 March and sent to the Netherlands in a
French military aircraft.

He is being held in the court~Rs detention unit outside The Hague where
the court has 12 cells available for accused persons. Lubanga has been in
detention in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
since August 2005.


Also on Monday, A Congolese military tribunal condemned a leader of a
former armed group, called Mudundu 40, to five years imprisonment for
crimes including the illegal detention of children, the UN Mission in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) said on Monday.

The condemned man, who is reportedly named Kanyanga Biyoyo, was found
guilty of illegally detaining children in South Kivu Province in April
2004. The trail was conducted in the provincial cap ital, Bukavu.


DRC: Army retakes Ituri village

Some 280 militiamen have withdrawn from the village of Katoto, in the
northeastern district of Ituri, in the face of advancing government
troops, a senior military officer said on Friday.

The officer, who asked not to be identified, said the militiamen withdrew
to the village of Loga, about 5 km southwest of Katoto, as a company of
government infantrymen entered the village. The government troops were
backed by a platoon of UN Pakistani troops and armoured cars.

The militiamen, thought to be former demobilised militiamen from the
community, had attacked Katoto on Wednesday armed with AK-47 assault
rifles and antitank rockets. Another military officer said some young
residents of Katoto had joined the militiamen in attacking the small army
garrison at the village.


DRC: Tshisekedi supporters demand inclusion into electoral bodies

Thousands of party supporters of veteran opposition politician Etienne
Tshisekedi marched through the streets of Kinshasa on Wednesday demanding
that their Union pour la democratie et le progres social (UDPS) be
integrated into the election organisational structures.

Waving tree branches and carrying Tshisekedi effigies some 5,000
demonstrators - a UDPS estimate - sang as they marched down one of the
city's major roads, the June 30 Boulevard, to the offices of the
Independent Electoral Commission.

The demonstrators demanded that the UDPS officials be allowed onto
the electoral commission and onto The High Media Authority, set up to
regulate equal access of all political parties to state broadcast
media during the polls.


DRC: New UN fund could soon ease country's humanitarian crisis

Hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting in central Katanga,
as well as in other parts of the DRC could soon benefit from a new fund
for humanitarian action launched on 9 March to help the organisation react
faster to such crises, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters on
Tuesday.

The fund, known as Central Emergency Response Fund, is expected to total
US $500 million. Its purpose is "to bring immediate relief in natural and
man-made disasters and save thousands of lives that would otherwise be
lost to delay", UN News reported.

By Wednesday, contributions to the fund totalled $254 million. The fund
will "ensure swifter responses to humanitarian emergencies, with adequate
funds made available within three to four days as opposed to up to four
months or more under current arrangements", UN News said.


BURUNDI: Dar invites Bujumbura for FNL peace talks

Burundi has received an invitation from Tanzania to attend peace
negotiations with the country's remaining rebel group, the Forces
nationales de liberation (FNL) led by Agathon Rwasa, the spokesman of the
Burundian government, Ramadhan Karenga, said on Wednesday.

"We will first send an exploratory team to go and listen to the Tanzanian
government as nothing has been mentioned as to the agenda of the talks,"
he said on national radio.

However, he said despite the government's wish to negotiate with the FNL,
its priority was national reconstruction after a 10-year civil war.


CONGO: Contract awarded to rebuild Brazzaville-Kinkala road

The government of the Republic of Congo has awarded a contract to rebuild
72 km of road from the capital, Brazzaville, to Kinkala, the main town in
the country's troubled southern Pool region, Planning Minister Pierre
Moussa said on Tuesday.

The road's condition deteriorated during the civil war in the ROC and had
since become almost impassable. It will now also be resurfaced.

"This road is a vital artery for the Pool but also for the country because
it is a segment of the road to Pointe-Noire," Moussa said on Tuesday.

Pointe-Noire is the country's main port while Brazzaville is some 250 km
to the east inland.


CONGO: Child soldiers begin rehab

The government launched a month-long pilot project on Thursday in
Brazzaville for 115 former child combatants, the first national effort
designed to help them return to civilian life.

"We will teach the children rudimentary reading writing and arithmetic
during the month," Daniel Mberi, a representative of the project, said.

Nobody knows how many former child soldiers there are in the country,
according to Christian Mounzeo, president of the local human rights NGO,
the Rencontre pour la paix et les droits de l'homme. Many, he said, were
still walking around with guns. In 2003 there were around 5,000, according
to a study by another NGO, the Union pour l'etude et la recherche sur la
population et le developpement, and financed by the United Nations
Children's Fund.


TANZANIA: Zanzibar severely drought-hit, assessment tea m says

At least 4,000 hectares of food crops have wilted and 50 heads of cattle
have died in Tanzania's semiautonomous Island of Zanzibar due to severe
drought that has hit parts of the island, according to a report by the
Rapid Vulnerable Assessment Task Force Committee.

The assessment team issued the report on Tuesday following its completion
of a two-week study.

"My team surveyed nine out of 10 districts of Unguja and Pemba islands,
finding that most of the food crops planted in September 2005, including
cereals, maize and potatoes, had wilted," Ali Hajji Ramadhani, the
chairman of the 14-member committee formed on 27 February, said.


UGANDA: Safe water, sanitation unavailable to many children

Some 5.4 million children in Uganda, especially those who have been
displaced by conflict in the north, do not have access to safe drinking
water, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.

In its statement to mark World Water Day, UNICEF said these children rely
mainly on unprotected surface water from rivers, ponds or dams. More than
two million children also lack access to any kind of toilet facility. The
lack of safe water and proper sanitation and generally poor hygiene
practices were among the major causes of childhood diseases in Uganda.



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