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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e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 424
22 - 28 Mar 2008


CONTENTS:

KENYA: Too scared to go home
UGANDA: LRA sticks to its guns, yet ready to sign peace deal
DRC: Fear, uncertainty deter North Kivu IDPs from going home
DRC: Victims of Bas-Congo violence in urgent need of medical care
CONGO: Arrest over abduction of indigenous family's child

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[http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77474 ]


KENYA: Too scared to go home

A month after clashes erupted in Kenya's Rift Valley district of
Laikipia West, calm has returned but internally displaced persons (IDPs)
are yet to return home, with leaders voicing concern over the
acquisition of guns by communities living in the area.

"Let us not confuse calmness for peace while ethnic animosity persists,"
Frederick Chisia, the new district commissioner for Rumuruti division,
told a peace and reconciliation workshop on 26 March in Nyahururu, the
district's headquarters.

"The truth be told, and let's be honest with one another: there is no
community which is not buying firearms now. Every community must
surrender these firearms during an upcoming planned disarmament."

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77494]


UGANDA: LRA sticks to its guns, yet ready to sign peace deal

A final peace agreement to end two decades of conflict in northern
Uganda is expected to be signed on 5 April, but the rebel Lord's
Resistance Army (LRA) said it would only disarm if indictments issued by
the International Criminal Court against its top leadership were
deferred.

"A signed copy will be given to (the Ugandan) government. Then the
government will have the obligation to take the copy to the UN Security
Council and ask for a 12-month suspension of the warrants before the LRA
could disarm," David Matsanga, the head of the LRA delegation at the
talks, told IRIN.

This represents a softening of the LRA's position. During the months of
peace talks in Juba, the rebel movement had insisted the indictments be
dropped altogether, but the ICC prosecutor dismissed the idea, even
though the Rome Statute that guides the court allows him to rule that
Ugandan courts are competent to handle the case themselves, and that one
of the agreements reached during the talks provided for a special
division of the Ugandan high court to be set up to try war crimes
committed during the conflict.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77481]


DRC: Fear, uncertainty deter North Kivu IDPs from going home

Hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in North
Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are reluctant to
go back to their villages for fear of attacks despite a truce signed in
January between the government and various armed groups.

"We fled our house because [armed groups] were attacking and raping
people and looting property," said Gina Kavira, 38, who fled with her
husband and eight children from the village of Bambou five months ago
and who has been living with a host family in three cramped rooms in
Vitshumbi on the shores of Lake Edward.

"There is not enough to eat here. I try and catch fish. Normally, I
catch three in a day. I sell two and feed my family on the other," she
told IRIN.

The UN Refugee Agency will build a new shelter on a 54-hectare site near
the town of Rutshuru to alleviate congestion in other IDP camps.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77463]


DRC: Victims of Bas-Congo violence in urgent need of medical care

A medical charity has expressed concerns that people wounded during
clashes between the police and supporters of a politico-religious sect
in the Bas-Congo province in southwest Democratic Republic of Congo are
not receiving any medical help.

"This is an emergency situation," said Philippe Havet, Medicins Sans
Frontieres (MSF) Coordinator in Bas-Congo, in a 21 March report. "There
are wounded - by bullet or bladed weapons - requiring emergency medical
treatment. For MSF, all wounded should be treated, whatever their
political or religious affiliations."

He said MSF's mobile medical teams had seen empty villages with razed
homes and that some of the wounded were forced to flee health centres.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77441]


CONGO: Arrest over abduction of indigenous family's child

The High Court in southwestern Congo has indicted a member of an
influential family on charges that he was responsible for the forced
disappearance 19 years ago of a child from a family of indigenous
people, a human rights organisation reported.

Omer Gapa, a former local council official in Sabiti district, was
detained by the police on 21 March after the court issued an arrest
warrant. He has been accused of taking a six-year-old girl in 1989
against the wishes of her parents. The child has not been heard of
since, the Observatoire Congolais des Droits de l'Homme said in a
statement.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77475]


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