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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 330
6 - 12 May 2006


CONTENTS:

DRC: Mayi-Mayi warlord surrenders in Katanga
DRC: 18 army brigades to provide security during polls
BURUNDI: Peace talk's facilitator ends visits
BURUNDI-RWANDA: Officials vow to resolve land disputes by June
BURUNDI-RWANDA: Bujumbura hands over 571 Rwandans
TANZANIA: Government to lift DDT ban to fight malaria
UGANDA: Debt relief frees up funds for poverty reduction
EAST AFRICA: Abuse of girls widespread - report


ALSO SEE: AFRICA: World's MPs told to put women and children first:
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53322]

DRC: Mayi-Mayi warlord surrenders in Katanga

Mayi-Mayi warlord Kyungu Mutanga, alias Gedeon, surrendered to UN
peacekeepers on Friday in Mitwaba, a town in southeastern province of
Katanga in Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UN military spokesman for the UN Mission in DRC, Lt-Col Frederic
Medard, said in Kinshasa, that Mutanga showed up at a disarmament,
demobilisation and rehabilitation registry office with 150 of his
fighters - most of whom were child soldiers.

Their surrender brings to 350 the total number of Mutanga's men now
under the government control. Two hundred of them had surrendered with
their weapons on 6 May. They had become a major source of insecurity in
the province, despite having once been allies of the central government.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53320]

[On the Net: DRC: Nearly 200 Mayi-Mayi combatants surrender in Katanga:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53208]


DRC: 18 army brigades to provide security during polls

Eighteen fully integrated army brigades whose mission will be to provide
security during Congo's general elections later this year will be fully
trained by 5 July, the spokesman of the army chief of staff, Jean-Willy
Mutombo, said on Monday.

The Higher Defence Council, chaired by President Joseph Kabila, had
given this assurance in a communique following a recent council meeting.
The council also comprises two of the nation's vice-presidents; the
chiefs of staff of the army and police; as well as the ministers for
Defence, the interior and foreign affairs.

Some of the security measures the government intends to apply include
the accelerated deployment of the already integrated army brigades and
to speed up the training of the remainder of the troops that will carry
out this mission. "Seven brigades have already been trained and there
are seven others due for completion, Mutombo said.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53233]

[On the Net: DRC-UGANDA: Call for regional effort to tackle LRA:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53222]


BURUNDI: Peace talk's facilitator ends visits

The newly appointed facilitator of planned peace talks between the
Burundian government and the country's remaining rebel group, Charles
Nqakula, who is the South African minister for safety and security,
ended a familiariSation visit to Burundi on Friday.

No date has been set for the talks, Nqakula said when he left the
capital, Bujumbura, after a two-day visit during which he met President
Pierre Nkurunziza as well as representatives of a faction of the rebel
Forces nationales de liberation (FNL), led by Jean Bosco Sindayigaya.

Nqakula said he also visited Kampala, Uganda, where he held talks with
President Yoweri Museveni. Uganda currently chairs the Great Lakes Peace
Initiative for Burundi, a forum established by the region's heads of
state to help bring lasting peace to the country now emerging from 12
years of civil war.

South Africa agreed to assume the role of peace mediator in the talks
between the Burundian government and the two FNL factions, following a
request from the Burundian government and Tanzanian President Jakaya
Kikwete.

[Full report on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53308]


BURUNDI-RWANDA: Officials vow to resolve land disputes by June

Burundian and Rwandan government officials agreed on Tuesday to resolve
by June border land disputes involving communities from the two
countries.

At the end of their two-day meeting in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura,
the officials agreed to hold another meeting in the Rwandan capital,
Kigali, by 30 June where an agreement on the proper border demarcation
would be signed.

This follows conflicts, caused by the natural diversion of rivers that
delineate the border, involving Burundian and Rwandan communities living
along the border. The most recent conflict was reported at Sabanerwa
Hill, in the commune of Mwumba, in Burundi's Ngozi Province. The
conflict followed the natural diversion of River Kanyaru to Burundian
territory.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=53258]


BURUNDI-RWANDA: Bujumbura hands over 571 Rwandans

Burundian officials handed over on Wednesday 571 Rwandan nationals whose
request for asylum had been rejected by the government of Burundi.

The handover was made at a meeting with Rwandan representatives at
Kanyuru River, a natural border between the two countries. It was the
second repatriation of Rwandans from Burundi since 8 May. Already at
least 1,200 Rwandans have returned home.

The repatriations follow the Burundian government's announcement on 10
April that it would expel all Rwandans who failed to meet conditions for
acceptance as refugees.

At least 18,000 Rwandans remain in Musasa and Songore camps in Burundi's
northern Ngozi Province and in Rwisuri, in Kirundo Province, also in the
north. Rwandans had started crossing into Burundi's northern provinces
in March 2005, having fled the traditional justice system known as
'gacaca', which their government had introduced to speed up trials for
thousands of people suspected of involvement in the 1994 genocide.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53288]


TANZANIA: Government to lift DDT ban to fight malaria

In its effort to reduce the number people contracting malaria in
Tanzania, the government said on Monday it planned to lift its ban on
the use of the pesticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, known as
DDT.

Though the chemical has been effective in killing the mosquitoes that
spread malaria; the lice that carries typhus; and other insect-borne
human diseases since the 1949s; many countries started banning its use
in the 1960s because of possible side effects to humans.

One-third of all out-patients at hospitals and health clinics in
Tanzania suffer from malaria. Worldwide, the disease kills around
100,000 people each year, including 70,000 children under five years
old.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53206]

[On the net: TANZANIA: Information gap challenges Zanzibar's antimalaria
campaign: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53310]


UGANDA: Debt relief frees up funds for poverty reduction

The World Bank multilateral debt-relief initiative slashed Uganda's
external debt by almost 90 percent reducing the $4.5 billion foreign
debt to only $500 million through the highly indented poor countries
initiative, Uganda's finance minister, Ezra Suruma, said on Thursday.

It had cost the East African nation some $200 million to service its
debt annually. By relaxing Uganda's debt, multilateral creditors -
including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the
African Development Bank - had freed the country from the "debt trap",
Suruma said.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53286]


EAST AFRICA: Abuse of girls widespread, report says

Nine out of 10 girls in eastern Africa have suffered physical or
psychological abuse, including rape at the hands of relatives, a
pan-African advocacy group said in a report released on Wednesday.

"In eastern Africa nine out of ten girls are abused on a regular basis
by the people they trust most," Assefa Bequele, head of the African
Child Policy Forum, a child-advocacy group, said in a report released in
the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to coincide with two-day conference
on violence against girls in Africa.

The group interviewed 1,500 women aged between 18 and 24 in Kenya,
Uganda and Ethiopia. Each of them was asked to testify about abuses that
might have happened during their childhoods.

[Full report on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53306]


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