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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN Weekly Round-up 11
11 - 17 November 2000



CONTENTS:

SUDAN: Relief agencies to leave Kassala
SUDAN: Narus bombing kills two
SUDAN: Livestock ban reportedly lifted
SUDAN: Former prime minister set to return
SUDAN: Internally displaced situation worsens
SOMALIA: MP assassinated
SOMALIA: Former soldiers enlist
SOMALIA: Somalia resumes IGAD seat
SOMALIA-ETHIOPIA: President arrives for official visit
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN envoy meets Meles
ETHIOPIA: Food aid tops one million tonnes - WFP
ETHIOPIA: Expansion of internet services
ERITREA: Officially online
DJIBOUTI: Minister calls for regional policy on landmines


SUDAN: Relief agencies to leave Kassala

The Sudanese government has asked nongovernmental relief organisations to
temporarily suspend activities in the eastern border town of Kassala. The
state minister of relief, Chol Deng, was reported by the state media as
saying the move was necessary for security reasons. A large number of
local, non-governmental and international aid agencies work in Kassala,
near the Eritrean border, providing assistance for thousands of refugees
at a number of camps. A UNHCR spokesman said in Geneva on 10 November that
the agency had relocated virtually all of its local and international
staff from Kassala to Showak. He said the agency was assisting an
estimated 27,000 Eritrean refugees in the Kassala area. 

Meanwhile, Sudanese authorities are investigating the attack on Kassala
last week, in which more than 130 people were killed in fighting between
government forces and rebels. The commissioner of Kassala Province,
Muhammad Yusuf, said on state television on 9 November that 52 civilians
and soldiers had been killed in the fighting. State media reports said 80
fighters from the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had also
been killed, and state television showed bodies of the rebels. The
commissioner said 433 civilians and soldiers had been wounded in the
battle for the town, but that it was now back in the hands of the
government.

A spokesman for the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) 
confirmed from the Eritrean capital, Asmara, that the Sudanese government
had regained control of Kassala. Spokesman Yasir Arman said NDA forces had
"withdrawn" on 9 November. More than 400 government soldiers had been
killed, and military garrisons and command posts around Kassala had been
"demolished", the spokesman claimed. He said NDA forces had shot down two
helicopter gunships and captured 13 tanks and more than 2,000 rifles. 

SUDAN: Narus bombing kills two

Two people were reportedly killed and 11 people injured in a renewed
bombing of Narus, southern Sudan, on 9 November. A statement issued by the
Diocese of Torit said two people were killed, and four women and seven men
seriously injured when an Antonov plane dropped 10 bombs on two locations
in Narus.  The injured people were immediately evacuated to ICRC Lopiding
Hospital in Lokichoggio, northern Kenya, by the African Medical Research
Educational Fund (AMREF), it said. 

SUDAN: Livestock ban reportedly lifted

Sudanese Animal Resources Minister Dr Abdullah Muhammad Sid Ahmad said
Qatar had lifted the sanctions imposed on Sudanese livestock and meat,
following an outbreak of Rift Valley fever in the Gulf states. According
to the Sudanese news agency Suna, the minister made the announcement after
returning from a tour of Arab states, including Qatar, the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. His mission had been to reassure the states
which had imposed the regional Rift Valley fever ban that Sudanese meat
was free of disease, Suna said. The lifting of the sanctions on Sudan by
Qatar has not been confirmed by other sources. 

SUDAN: Former prime minister set to return

Former Sudanese Prime Minister Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi plans to return to Sudan
next week. He announced his plans to foreign journalists in Cairo on
Wednesday. However, he said he would not participate in next month's
parliamentary and presidential elections, which he called "a one-team
football game", according to Reuters news agency. He told journalists the
elections were "a non-event" and that his opposition Ummah Party would
boycott them.  According to Mahdi, democracy should be restored to Sudan
through negotiations, while political mobilisation would serve to bring
pressure to bear on the government. His return would end four years of
exile. Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi was overthrown in 1989 in a military coup led by
the current president, Omar al-Bashir. He spent almost seven years either
in jail or under house arrest, then fled to Eritrea in December 1996. 

SUDAN: Internally displaced situation worsens

Sudan reportedly has the largest number of internally displaced people
(IDPs) in the world, with estimates of about 4 million. The Norwegian
Refugee Council (NRC) said in a report made available to IRIN that the
30-year old conflict in Sudan had gone through several phases and had
created a complex IDP situation with different causes of displacement in
different regions of the country. "People have become displaced both by
the armed conflict and by natural disasters, including temporary
displacement caused by flooding... Traditional nomadic migration patterns
and large groups of the general population on the move in search of
emergency assistance complicate assessments of the IDP situation," the
report said. The IDP situation has worsened since 1998 when a major
humanitarian disaster was coupled with fighting in and around the main
city of Wau, in Bahr al-Ghazal. The report also mentioned the
documentation of "gross human rights violations" in areas in which foreign
oil companies have exploration rights.

UN estimates for government-controlled areas suggested there were some 1.8
million IDPs in Khartoum State, 500,000 in the east and the transition
zone, and 300,000 in the southern states, the report said. [See the report
profile at: www.idpproject.org]

SOMALIA: MP assassinated

A funeral was held on Monday for the Somali parliamentarian Hasan Ahmed
Ilmi, assassinated on Sunday night. The funeral was attended by Prime
Minister Ali Khalif Galayr, members of the cabinet, Speaker of Parliament
Abdullah Derow Isak, and other MPs. The MP was killed in front of his
family, by unidentified gunmen, in Madina District of southwestern
Mogadishu. No one has claimed responsibility for the murder of Hasan Ahmad
Ilmi, known as Hasan Jalle. Faction leader Muse Sudi Yalahow, who controls
the area where the killing took place, has denied any responsibility for
the shooting. Yalahow, one of the main faction leaders in Mogadishu, is
openly opposed to the transitional government. "I don't think people in
our area were responsible for the killing of Ilmi", he told Agence France
Presse (AFP). 

SOMALIA: Former soldiers enlist

Some 10,000 former Somali soldiers have registered to serve the new
interim government. In Mogadishu, Defence Minister Abdullahi Boqor Muse
told the former soldiers, who gathered on 11 November in the main soccer
stadium, they must produce documents to prove rank and service, the
Associated Press agency (AP) reported. The minister told the former
soldiers they had the opportunity to "make the difference... You
understand weapons and the consequences of their misuse,"  the report
said. Last week the government appealed to all former Somali soldiers to
come forward and register for the new national army. There were believed
to be about 140,000 former soldiers, Reuters stated. 

SOMALIA: Somalia set to resume IGAD seat

Somalia will next week take up its seat on the regional Intergovernmental
Agency on Development (IGAD) for the first time in 11 years, according to
sources in the interim government. President Abdiqasim Salad Hasan had
been invited to attend an IGAD summit meeting in the Sudanese capital
Khartoum, sources close to the president told IRIN. Hasan planned to
attend the meeting alongside the other six regional IGAD leaders, said the
source. Hamad Bashir, IGAD's executive secretary, confirmed to the
Sudanese press that all seven member heads of state - those of Djibouti,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda - were expected to attend the
IGAD meeting on Thursday, 23 November.

SOMALIA-ETHIOPIA: President arrives for official visit

President Abdiqasim Salad Hasan arrived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis
Ababa, late on Wednesday night to begin his first official visit to the
neighbouring country. Hasan's talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi and other senior government officials centred on bilateral issues,
particularly security, according to Somali political sources. The Somali
president was then expected to leave for Yemen late on Friday afternoon.

Meanwhile, many of the Mogadishu faction leaders were in the Yemeni
capital, San'a, at the invitation of President Ali Abdullah Salih. Somali
political sources told IRIN that there were hopes that the faction leaders
would hold talks with President Hasan when he arrived in San'a on Friday.
The Yemeni president has been trying to mediate between the faction
leaders and the new government, but this is the first attempt to bring the
two sides together for direct talks.

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN envoy meets Meles

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Ethiopia and
Eritrea, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, met Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi in Addis Ababa on Tuesday to discuss the UN Mission for Ethiopia
and Eritrea (UNMEE). A UN statement described the meeting as "cordial and
productive". Legwaila had on 10 November met OAU Secretary-General Salim
Ahmed Salim in Addis Ababa to thank him for the part the organisation
played in the Ethiopian-Eritrean peace process. Legwaila said he hoped
that there would a be a peaceful resolution to the dispute between the two
countries "so that they can devote all their energies to development",
according to a statement released by UNMEE. During his conversation with
Salim, Legwaila said he hoped that the two sides would soon agree on the
delineation and demarcation of the disputed border, UN sources said. 

ETHIOPIA: Food aid tops one million tonnes - WFP

Ethiopia has received a total of 1,231,233 mt of food aid since January,
according to the latest WFP emergency report, issued on 10 November.
Meanwhile, an emergency needs assessment is expected to start in Tigray,
northern Ethiopia, and Borena, southern Ethiopia, involving 22 teams with
over 100 team members. An aerial livestock assessment of the Somali State
was also being considered in order to obtain better information on actual
livestock populations in the region, WFP stated. 

ETHIOPIA: Expansion of internet services

A three-year joint project will upgrade internet services in Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC) has signed an agreement with
UNDP and the United Nations Operation Service (UNOPS) to expand the
capacity of Ethiopian internet services and enhance the national
information infrastructure, the official Walta information website said. 
Joint financing of the partnership will require a total budget of over
$1.6 million, of which ETC has contributed $700,000, with the balance
provided by UNDP.

ERITREA: Officially online

Eritrea is the last African country to officially go online and provide
public internet services. Internet access has been given approval and four
companies are licensed Internet Service Providers (ISPs), a BBC report
said. Regional internet expert Ben Parker, Editor at Africaonline, said
Eritrea had had private e-mail service providers operating for at least
three years, but live internet would be a welcome addition, "particularly
as the Eritrean diaspora community are extremely active online and bring
in a lot of expertise". A US project called the USAID Leland project
initiative, which has been operating in 21 African countries with a budget
of $15 million, announced the formal launch of services in Eritrea on 15
November. The website can be found at www.leland-er.org. 

DJIBOUTI: Minister calls for regional policy on landmines

A three-day regional conference on landmines opened in Djibouti on
Thursday, with Djibouti Foreign Minister Ali Abdi Farah calling for a
common regional policy, assistance to landmine victims, and a demining
programme. Representatives from the Intergovernmental Authority on
Development (IGAD), Yemen and the Sultanate of Oman attended, as well as
delegates from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). In the
opening speech, Ali Abdi Farah warned that governments in the Horn of
Africa had weakened economies and would need assistance. The region had
"thousands of mutilated landmine victims" who needed post-operative care,
prosthetics and psychological counselling, Farah added. 


Nairobi, 17 November 2000
	
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