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 365
6 - 12 January 2007


CONTENTS:

UGANDA: Rebel delegation quits talks, seeks "neutral" venue
KENYA: Fleeing families stuck near closed border
KENYA: Schools disrupted as deadly fever hits incomes
UGANDA: Thousands of IDPs go home, 1.2 million still in camps
DRC-RWANDA: Mediation to ease tension in North Kivu


UGANDA: Rebel delegation quits talks, seeks "neutral" venue

The Lord's Resistance Army has "disengaged" from peace negotiations with
the Ugandan government and will not continue the process until a neutral
host country is found, a spokesman for the rebel group said on Friday.

"In the circumstances and due to security considerations, [the] LRA
delegation is not going back to Juba but would prefer that the talks
resume in a neutral venue, preferably Kenya, South Africa," Obonyo Olweny,
the LRA spokesman, said at a news conference in the Kenyan capital,
Nairobi.

The talks had been in progress in the southern Sudan capital since July
2006. Olweny said the rebels' decision followed recent comments by
Sudanese President Omar El Bashir and South Sudan President Salva Kiir
Mayardit that the LRA was no longer welcome in southern Sudan.

The Ugandan government said the LRA had misunderstood the Sudanese
position. "I am very disappointed with the announcement by the LRA,"
Okello Oryem, minister of state for international relations and deputy
leader of the Ugandan delegation to the talks, told IRIN in Kampala.


KENYA: Fleeing families stuck near closed border

A week after Kenya closed its border with Somalia, hundreds of Somali
families who fled fighting between the Union of Islamic Courts and the
Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces were still trapped in an area
that could not be reached by aid agencies, sources said on Wednesday.

Civil-so ciety groups in Somalia said between 4,000 and 7,000
asylum-seekers had gathered around the town of Dobley, close to the
border, hoping to enter Kenya.

An aid worker with a local NGO, who requested anonymity, also said many
families had also left Dobley when Ethiopian and Somali government forces
entered the town, "for fear of being accused of being pro-Islamic Courts".

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said it was discussing with the
Kenyan government permission for genuine Somali asylum-seekers to enter
Kenya, which already hosts at least 160,000 Somali refugees. Kenya closed
its border on 3 January, citing security concerns.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57023]


KENYA: Schools disrupted as deadly fever hits incomes

The closure of livestock markets in Northeastern Province after an
outbreak of Rift Valley Fever has hit livelihoods and the economy, which
is almost entirely dependent on livestock, local residents said.

Most affected, they added, were secondary schools because many parents had
found it hard to raise fees for their children to resume classes this
week.

The head teacher of Modogashe Secondary School in the provincial capital
of Garissa, Abdullahi Ibrahim, said more than 100 parents had asked him to
allow their children to remain in school until they were able to raise the
fees.

Garissa District Commissioner Joseph Imbwaga said the issue had been
brought to the attention of the district Disaster Management Committee,
but could not immediately say what was being done about it.

The Kenyan government introduced free primary-school education in 2003,
but parents still have to bear the financial burden of secondary school.

[On the Net: Fighting halts effort to verify deadly fever:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56968]


UGANDA: Thousands of IDPs go home, 1.2 million still in camps

An estimated 230,000 internally displaced persons returned to their
northern Ugandan villa ges in 2006 as a result of improved security, but
up to 1.2 million others remain in camps in a region ravaged by two
decades of conflict, the United Nations World Food Programme said on 5
January.

The agency's deputy director for Uganda, Alix Loriston, said some of the
displaced in the Acholi and Lango subregions had established satellite
camps nearer to their original villages in order to access their farms for
cultivation.

Relative calm has returned to northern Uganda as a result of a truce
agreed in August, 2006 between the government and the Lord's Resistance
Army rebel group whose violent campaign mostly against civilians forced an
estimated 1.6 million people to seek shelter in squalid and crowded camps
where the government promised better protection from rebel attacks. [Full
story on: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56956 ]

[On the Net: LRA rebels should leave Sudanese territory - Bashir:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57024 ]


DRC-RWANDA: Mediation to ease tension in North Kivu

Rwandan authorities are mediating between the DRC governments at its
dissident army commander, Gen Laurent Nkunda, whose forces have been
involved in fighting that displaced thousands of civilians in North Kivu
Province, Rwandan Defence Forces spokeswoman Maj Jill Rutaremara said in
Kigali on 5 January.

"The two parties have agreed to respect a ceasefire agreement," he said.

A spokesman for Nkunda, Rene Abandi, confirmed the Rwanda talks. He said
their rebel movement - le Congrees national pour la defense du peuple -
was willing to collaborate with the government in resolving the conflict,
but only if the process was conducted openly. "We need everything to be
done in a clear and transparent way," he told IRIN.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56948]


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