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
Fax: +254 2 622129
e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 363
23 - 29 December 2006


CONTENTS:

DRC: Clashes, displacement in the east
UGANDA: IDPs unlikely to meet deadline to vacate camps
TANZANIA: Plea for aid after villagers cut off by floods
KENYA: Rift Valley fever to hurt pastoralist livelihoods
SUDAN: Violence displaces more civilians in Darfur


ALSO SEE:
EGYPT-SUDAN: Sudanese refugees - little hope on the horizon
[http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56845]


DRC: Clashes, displacement in the east

Thousands of people have been displaced from their homes in eastern DRC 
due to renewed clashes between the regular army, and forces allied to 
renegade commander Laurent Nkunda, according to military sources and the 
UN peacekeeping mission, MONUC.

The fighting was quelled on Thursday with the intervention of MONUC 
patrols "to protect civilians and stop the fighting", MONUC spokesperson 
Lt-Col Didier Rancher said. At least 18 of Nkunda's forces, and one 
civilian, were killed in clashes on Wednesday near the village of Jomba, 
eight kilometres north of Goma, capital of North Kivu province, said 
Rancher.

[Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56868]


UGANDA: IDPs unlikely to meet deadline to vacate camps

An end of year deadline set by the Ugandan government for all internally 
displaced persons (IDPs) in war-ravaged northern Uganda to return home 
looks unlikely to be met, both IDPs and aid workers have said.

Continued uncertainty over security in the region is causing IDPs to 
delay their return to their original villages. Earlier this year, the 
government set a deadline of 31 December for all IDPs to vacate the 
camps that have been set up during the 20-year period of unrest caused 
by hostilities by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

[Full story: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56841]


TANZANIA: Plea for aid after villagers cut off by floods

Some 650 flood-affected Tanzanians are in need of urgent aid, officials 
said on Wednesday. The victims have been cut off from the rest of the 
country after floods destroyed bridges on roads connecting their 
communities in the central region of Shinyanga.

"They need food, medicine, blankets and other relief supplies," 
Shing'wela Limbakise, the executive director of Kishapu district in the 
region, told IRIN. "You can only reach these people by helicopter."

He said the worst-affected villages were Ilebelebe and Ilindilo in 
Shinyanga, which were totally cut off by the floodwaters after heavy 
rains pounded the area over the past four days.

[Full story: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56856]


KENYA: Rift Valley fever to hurt pastoralist livelihoods

The Rift Valley Fever outbreak that has killed dozens of people in 
northeastern Kenya could threaten the livelihoods of pastoralists living 
in the semi-arid province, after the government imposed quarantine on 
local livestock.

The ban on movement of livestock - aimed at containing the spread of the 
disease - comes just days before celebrations to mark the New Year and 
Eid-Ul-Adha, a religious occasion marking the end of the Hajj, in which 
Muslims are expected to slaughter animals. On Wednesday, local leaders 
in the provincial capital, Garissa, appealed to the government to 
declare the RVF outbreak and recent floods in the region a national 
disaster, saying the disease had negatively affected the welfare of the 
province's residents.

They said the quarantine would affect their revenue because they could 
not collect on livestock sales.

[Full story: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56866]


SUDAN: Violence displaces more civilians in Darfur

Thousands of people have gone into hiding in hills near the North Darfur 
village of Abu Sakin after Arab militias continued their destructive 
rampage across parts of the western Sudanese region, aid workers said. A 
United Nations assessment mission on Saturday found the village of Abu 
Sakin completely deserted and looted. More than 50 houses had been burnt 
to the ground to discourage the villagers from returning there.

Meanwhile, government security forces have increased the number of 
roadblocks in the North Darfur capital of El Fasher following Saturday's 
shooting of a police officer and an increase in car-jackings.

[Full story:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56851]


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