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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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 317
4 - 10 February 2006


CONTENTS:

BURUNDI: Gov't in aid plea for the drought-stricken
BURUNDI: France grants 5.1 million euros to support education, security
DRC: Fighting in the Kivus displaces 55,000
DRC: Rape on the rise in North Kivu, as fighting displaces 70,000
DRC: MSF-Spain reduces activities in Nyunzu Territory
CAR: Agencies plan food aid to bandit-prone areas
CAR: Thousands of civilians flee as army fights bandits
KENYA: Gov't appeals for $245m to assist the drought-affected
UGANDA: Rebel Joseph Kony now in DRC, military says
UGANDA: Environmentalists blame dams for draining L. Victoria
RWANDA: Appeals court confirms ex-minister's acquittal
BURUNDI: Gov't in aid plea for the drought-stricken


The Burundian government has appealed for international food aid for
430,000 families facing drought in the north and west of the country, a
senior government official said on Tuesday in the capital, Bujumbura.

The private secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Stockbreeding,
Adelin Ntungumburanye, said the families facing serious food shortages,
due to the prevailing drought, represent 30 percent of Burundi's seven
million people. He added that some US $75 million would be needed to
feed the needy.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51610]


BURUNDI: France grants 5.1 million euros to support education, security

France has granted Burundi 5.1 million euros (US $6.1 million) for
education projects and to strengthen security, French Foreign Minister
Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Sunday official said in Bujumbura, at the
end of a two-day visit to the country.

France, through the UN World Food Programme, would also give another
500,000 euros ($600,180) as its contribution toward an emergency food
operation, he said.

For the education sector, Douste-Blazy said 2.1 million euros ($2.5
million) would be disbursed for primary and secondary school teacher
training. Another one million euros ($1.2 million) would be used to
build permanent schools nationwide.

Under its security support provision, he said two million euros ($2.4
million) would be disbursed to buy army and police equipment and provide
training of personnel.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51589]


DRC: Fighting in the Kivus displaces 55,000

At least 55,000 people have been displaced in the North and South Kivu
provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo as a result of fighting
between the army and armed groups, according to humanitarian agencies.

"Since fighting started on the 20th of January in the territory of
Rutshuru [North Kivu], tens of thousands of people have fled," Medecines
Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

It said at least 40,000 people had reached the towns of Kanyabayonga,
Kayna and Kirumba in the North Kivu territory of Lubero.

In South Kivu, fighting between the army and the Rwandan Hutu Forces
democratique de liberation du Rwanda in Burhyni, Mwenga Territory, has
displaced nearly 15,000 people, according to humanitarian workers.

Jean-Marc Cordaro, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs in South Kivu's capital, Bukavu, said of the 15,500
displaced in the province, close to 12,500 people were in Burhyni, 95 km
southwest of Bukavu.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51625]


DRC: Rape on the rise in North Kivu, as fighting displaces 70,000

Incidents of rape have risen sharply along the 12-kilometre
Kanyabayonga-Kayna road in North Kivu Province, where fighting between
the army and renegade soldiers has displaced at least 70,000 people,
humanitarian workers said on Thursday.

"We are witnessing a quadruple increase in rape cases in the
Kanyabayonga-Kayna axis this week, where victims have been treated by
[Medecines Sans Frontieres] MSF-France," Patrick Lavand'homme, the head
of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in
Goma, the provincial capital, said.

Kanyabayonga, Kibirizi and Kayna are towns in North Kivu's Lubero
Territory. Those blamed for the rapes are suspected to members of the
army and the renegades. Fighting erupted in mid-January, displacing tens
of thousands of civilians.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51637]


DRC: MSF-Spain reduces activities in Nyunzu Territory

Medicos Sin Fronteras-Espana (MSF) has reduced its activities in Nyunzu
Territory, in the north of the Katanga Province, because of the poor
care local medical staffs are providing patients, the head of the NGO's
mission in the provincial town of Lubumbashi said on Monday.

The official, Cameno Diego, said from Lubumbashi that MSF had started
reducing support to 14 of the 17 health centres in Nyunzu and would, by
the end of March, halt medical drug deliveries in all but the three
hospitals in the northern, southern and western parts of the territory.

He said MSF had decided to end its aid to most of the centres because
poorly trained medical staff had been misdiagnosing and administering
wrong medicines and at incorrect doses to patients, thereby putting
lives at risk.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51578]


CAR: Agencies plan food aid to bandit-prone areas

UN agencies in the Central African Republic (CAR) began a meeting on
Friday in the capital, Bangui, to put in place aid strategies for
thousands of people in the bandit-hit northwestern provinces of Ouham
and Ouham Pende.

Officials of the UN World Food Programme, the Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and OCHA as
well as those of several NGOs are attending the meeting chaired by Alika
Akrouf, the head of the UN Development Programme in CAR.

OCHA Public Information Officer Maurizio Giuliano told IRIN that the
NGOs represented included COOPI, CARITAS, MSF, MSF-Holland and
MSF-Spain, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the French Red
Cross, the national Red Cross Committee and Action Against Hunger.

The aid to be provided comprises food and non-food items. The first
consignment of the materials is due to arrive in Bangui later in the
day.  These will include tents, jerry cans, blankets and water
purification tablets, which NGOs will take to the affected people.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51644]


CAR: Thousands of civilians flee as army fights bandits

At least 2,000 villagers in two provinces in the northwest of the
country are hiding in the bush without food while an equal number has
fled to neighbouring Chad recently to avoid fighting between the army
and bandits, local sources said.

At the same time, humanitarian workers said on 3 February that displaced
villagers in Ouham and Ouham Pende were in dire need of relief aid as
insecurity had prevented humanitarian agencies from providing help.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51588]

[On the Net: CAR-SUDAN: First batch of Sudanese returnees arrive home:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51580]


KENYA: Gov't appeals for $245m to assist the drought-affected

Failure of the 2005 short rains in 25 Kenyan districts has left at least
3.5 million people, including 500,000 schoolchildren, in need of
emergency aid over the next year, the government said on Wednesday
citing a report by the Kenya Food Security Steering Group.

The group is made up of representatives of government ministries, UN
agencies and NGOs.

Speaking at the launch of an appeal for $245 million in the capital,
Nairobi, the minister of state for special programmes, John Munyes, said
the districts hardest hit by the drought were in the arid and semi-arid
northern, northeastern and eastern regions. He said 396,525 tonnes of
additional food aid would be required to avoid mass suffering over the
next 12 months.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51602]


UGANDA: Rebel Joseph Kony now in DRC, military says

The leader of the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph
Kony, has crossed into the DRC from his hideout in southern Sudan, the
Ugandan military has said.

"He crossed over from Sudan to the DRC, but he has moved farther from
Garamba National Park, where [LRA deputy commander-in-chief] Vincent
Otti is. He is now moving towards the Central African Republic," Lt
Chris Magezi, the army spokesman in northern Uganda, said.

Magezi said on Monday Kony had entered the DRC four days earlier and was
on the move with a band of about 15 fighters.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51568]


UGANDA: Environmentalists blame dams for draining L. Victoria

Uganda's hydroelectric dams are draining Lake Victoria, causing its
water levels to dwindle drastically, environmentalists have said.

Writing in the New Scientist magazine on Wednesday, Daniel Kull, a
hydrologist with the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster
Reduction in Nairobi, Kenya, said Uganda was using more of the lake's
water than was agreed upon 50 years ago under an international pact.

Kull said his calculations showed that the water level in the lake was
almost half a metre lower than it should be, with water releases at
Uganda's Owen Falls and Kiira dams at almost twice the permitted rates.

Ugandan authorities dismissed Kull's conclusions and blamed an ongoing
drought in the region for the lake's low water level.

Lake Victoria, Africa's largest fresh water lake, is shared by the East
African nations of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. It is one of the most
highly populated areas in the world, and the surrounding basin is
intensely cultivated. Water levels have plummeted since 2003 and are now
at an 80-year low.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51641]


RWANDA: Appeals court confirms ex-minister's acquittal

The Appeals Chamber of UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(ICTR) confirmed on Wednesday a lower court's decision to acquit a
former Rwandan transport minister and a former provincial governor of
genocide, a decision the Rwandan government received with reservations.

The men freed are former transport Minister Andre Ntagerura and former
governor of Cyangugu Province, Emmanuel Bagambiki.

On 25 February 2004, the lower ICTR court ordered the acquittals;
however it convicted Samuel Imanishimwe, a former paramilitary commander
in the province, to 27 years imprisonment. All three had been jointly
tried.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51600]


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