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


HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 77
16 - 22 February 2002


CONTENTS:

SUDAN: MSF worker and four civilians killed in Bentiu area
SUDAN: EU envoys call for Nuba confidence-building
SUDAN: Peace talks suspended after "alarming" gunship attack
SOMALIA: Hundreds flee fighting in southwest
SOMALIA: New cabinet named
SOMALIA: Liberian diplomat to head UN Political Office
ETHIOPIA: Debt relief aimed at fighting poverty
ETHIOPIA: Millions at risk from meningitis
ETHIOPIA: Uncleared mines hampering recovery
ERITREA: Government slams European Parliament resolution
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Security Council mission arrives
ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Prisoners of war exchanged
DJIBOUTI: FAO warns of environmental crisis

ALSO SEE:

ERITREA: Special report on returnees at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22233

ETHIOPIA: FOCUS on new early warning system for pastoralists at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22009

ETHIOPIA: FOCUS on economic impact of AIDS at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22218]




SUDAN: MSF worker and four civilians killed in Bentiu area

A Sudanese health worker from the international medical aid organisation
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was killed last week along with four other
civilians, when at least three bombs were dropped in Nimne in the oil-rich
area of western Upper Nile (Wahdah, or Unity State), southern Sudan. An
MSF team which visited the site on 14 February received confirmation of 20
year-old James Koang's death, and confirmed that the village had been
almost completely deserted. Only 19 people remained in Nimne, Arjan
Hehenkamp, MSF head of mission, told IRIN on Monday.

"What is happening in western Upper Nile is unacceptable... We don’t even
know where our patients have gone, and a young health worker has been
killed, in total violation of the laws of war," MSF said in a press
statement released on 15 February. "It's a tragedy for his family, MSF and
the community, which can ill afford to lose a health care worker," the MSF
project coordinator, Jan van't Land, said.

MSF staff had been running a health care unit in Nimne, treating between
1,700 and 2,000 patients per month, but were forced to evacuate the area
after reports were received that soldiers were heading towards the
village, prompting the residents to flee. Hehenkamp confirmed to IRIN that
he did not expect villagers to return in the near future due to continuing
insecurity, and that MSF would be forced to look for an alternative
location to establish a clinic. Since the merger between the rebel Sudan
People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) led by John Garang and Sudan
People's Defence Force led by Riek Machar - announced in early January -
the area surrounding Nimne had been targeted, Hehenkamp said. Whereas
before it had been unclear which side in the Sudanese conflict the area
belonged to, it was now clearly perceived to belong to the rebel side, or
those fighting against the Khartoum government, he said. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21330]

SUDAN: EU envoys call for Nuba confidence-building

European envoys in Sudan on Monday called for the creation of
confidence-building measures in the Nuba Mountains to capitalise on the
current, localised cease-fire in the region. "EU Heads of Mission agreed
that there was an urgent need for confidence-building measures, such as
direct talks between political leaders and contacts at grass-root levels,"
the envoys said in a statement released by the German embassy in the
Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on 18 February.

An agreement to implement a cease-fire in the Nuba Mountains region of
Southern Kordofan, south-central Sudan, was signed by representatives of
the Sudanese government and the SPLM/A in Burgenstock, Switzerland, on 19
January, and came into force 72 hours later. The cease-fire agreement, set
to run for an initial period of six months, is due to be supervised by a
Joint Military Commission (JMC) and an International Monitoring Unit
(IMU), the latter comprising 10 to 15 military and civilian personnel from
Western Europe and North America. Although neither the JMC nor the IMU
have yet been deployed, the EU Heads of Missions said the cease-fire had
"so far, on the whole, been respected by both sides." They added that
support should now be focused on "moving the cease-fire into a
comprehensive and sustainable peace with [community] ownership."

The EU Heads of Missions called for a rapid response from the
international community to "cope with the urgent needs of the most
vulnerable parts of the population" in the region. This, they said, should
include delivery of food aid, tools and seeds, water pumps and medicine,
as well as the deployment of the JMC to "preserve the positive development
following the signing of the Cease-Fire Agreement for the Nuba Mountains."
[Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21882]

SUDAN: Peace talks suspended after "alarming" gunship attack

The US government on Thursday suspended peace discussions with the
Sudanese government after forces loyal to it attacked a relief centre in
southern Sudan, killing 17 people. "We have demanded from the Sudanese
government a full and complete explanation of what happened," US State
Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement. "Until we
receive a full and complete response from the Government of Sudan, the
United States is suspending all discussions with Khartoum about the peace
process." Sudanese government officials were unavailable for comment
because of the Muslim religious festival Id-al-Adha.

According to Boucher, a Sudanese government helicopter gunship on
Wednesday fired six to eight rockets during an attack on a food aid
distribution in the village of Bieh, western Upper Nile (Wahdah State),
killing 17 people and injuring many others. The Sudanese authorities had
given prior approval to the distribution by the United Nations World Food
Programme (WFP) of some 76 mt of food aid for 10,000 people, and people
had gathered in the village to receive humanitarian relief, WFP said in a
statement. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22273]

SOMALIA: Hundreds flee fighting in southwest

Hundreds of families are fleeing their homes in the southwestern regions
of Somalia for fear of renewed fighting, local sources told IRIN on
Wednesday. The exodus follows two outbreaks of heavy fighting within a
week between opposing militias in the town of Bardhere. The fighting, in
which over 50 people were killed and many more wounded, occurred on 12
February and again on 18 February. It pitted forces of the Juba Valley
Alliance, which supports the Transitional National Government (TNG),
against those of the opposition Somali Reconciliation and Restoration
Council (SRRC). Families were leaving Bardhere town and the surrounding
villages to the east, which bore the brunt of the fighting, and were
moving in response to reports of renewed fighting and a fear that "the
fighting will go on for some time", Abdi Gesey, a Bardhere businessman,
told IRIN. The two militias were reportedly receiving reinforcements and
preparing to renew hostilities, he said.

Humanitarian sources told IRIN that people were also leaving the town of
Baidoa, about 200 km northwest of Mogadishu, for fear that the fighting
might spread from Bardhere. "We have had reports of families coming from
Baidoa to Buur Hakaba [about 80 km to the southeast of Baidoa] in the last
two days," one source said. Attempts by IRIN to contact Baidoa have been
unsuccessful due a continuing telecommunications blackout. The town has
been cut off from the rest of Somalia and the world since Monday.

According to a regional expert, if the fighting in Gedo Region is not
contained quickly, "it could dramatically worsen an already precarious
humanitarian situation, not only in Gedo but also in neighbouring Bakol
and Bay regions". Somali political observers have predicted that the
fighting in Gedo "will probably get worse before it gets better", due to
"various political interests". [Also see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21512]

SOMALIA: New cabinet named

The prime minister of the TNG of Somalia, Hasan Abshir Farah, has named
the members of his cabinet. The 31-member cabinet included a former member
of the SRRC, and a woman, a TNG senior official told IRIN. Abshir made his
announcement at the presidential palace in the capital, Mogadishu, on 16
February, the new information minister, Abdirahman Adan Ibrahim Ibbi,
said. The cabinet, which was sworn in before President Abdiqassim Salad
Hassan, would have to win a vote of confidence in the Transitional
National Assembly, he said. "The government will soon have to present its
political and economic programme for the country to the parliament -
before the vote," a source close to government told IRIN on Monday. The
government was likely to win the vote of confidence, he predicted.

Also included in the cabinet was Dr Saynab Aways Husayn, as the minister
of women's and family affairs, Ibbi told IRIN. This was the first such
appointment in Somalia, Somali political observers told IRIN. "Women had
been appointed to minor cabinet positions before, but not to a fully
fledged cabinet post," one of them said. Missing from the list, however,
are members of factions who signed a peace deal with the TNG in December
last year in Nakuru, Kenya. They had been excluded because they requested
that their names be withheld until a parliamentary committee set up to
look into ways of increasing the number of parliamentary seats so as to
accommodate them released its recommendations, said Ibbi. "They basically
want to know how many parliamentary seats they will be allocated before
their names are announced," he said.

"Their cabinet posts will be filled when they are ready to take them up,"
he added. Other sources told IRIN that some of the factions were also
"engaged in an internal reconciliation process" and wanted more time to
resolve their differences. According to Ibbi, this cabinet is
all-inclusive, "with clan equilibrium". "I am confident that we will learn
from past mistakes and forge ahead in giving this country good
government," he said. [Full report, including list of cabinet members, at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21294]

SOMALIA: Liberian diplomat to head UN Political Office

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed a senior Liberian diplomat
as his new representative and head of the UN Political Office for Somalia.
According to a UN report, the new incumbent is Winston Tubman, formerly a
senior adviser to the chief of the UN Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission
(UNIKOM). He replaces David Stephen, "who did excellent work in Somalia
before taking up his new assignment in Guinea-Bissau recently", Annan
said.

The UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Carolyn McAskie, who recently
returned to New York from a visit to Somalia, reiterated that the
international community should support grass-roots efforts in Somalia to
rebuild the shattered nation. "At the level of communities, the reality of
Somalia is very different from the image of what it was a few years ago,"
she told reporters in New York. Stressing that she was "not trying to
pretend" that the country had suddenly transformed itself, now was however
the right time for investment at grass-roots level. She warned that the
international community's emphasis on the political process in Somalia
posed "the very serious risk of putting in place a political structure
that has nothing to anchor itself in".

ETHIOPIA: Debt relief aimed at fighting poverty

The African Development Bank (ADB) has approved over US $200 million to
Ethiopia to help the country fight its spiralling debt. The money will be
used to wipe out up to 80 percent of Ethiopia's annual debt service to the
bank, according to an ADB spokesman. In press release issued on Wednesday,
the spokesman said this meant that Ethiopia - one of the poorest countries
in the world - would have the resources to fight poverty reduction. The
debt relief, which totals US $216.47 million, is part of the help given to
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). Ethiopia's debt is estimated at
around US $5.5 billion. More than 13 percent of the country's budget is
spent on debt service - twice the amount it spends on health care.

Critics of the HIPC claim that the debt cancellation for Ethiopia - where
almost half the population lives below the poverty line - is likely to
amount to US $1 billion over 20 years. But the bank said its help would
mean Ethiopia could improve food security for the population and develop
agriculture and roads. Empowerment of women and the poor are also top
priorities for the bank, as well as "policy-based operations" to meet the
country's rehabilitation and construction needs. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21981]

ETHIOPIA: Millions at risk from meningitis

Millions of people in Ethiopia are still at risk from a meningitis
epidemic which broke out last September, the International Federation of
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warned this week. It said
nearly 39 million people were at risk, particularly in the North Omo zone
in the south of the country. The meningococcal meningitis disease has hit
densely populated areas of the country, and although vaccination campaigns
have begun in the worst-affected districts, concern is growing that the
epidemic could spread to other areas. The International Federation has
appealed for US $857,000 to procure vaccines which the Ethiopian ministry
of health, with the assistance of the Ethiopian Red Cross, will use in
mass vaccination campaigns.  [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22272]

ETHIOPIA: Uncleared mines hampering recovery

Thousands of mines remaining uncleared after the war with Eritrea are
blighting families' hopes of recovery, according to a United Nations
report published on Tuesday. Families forced from their homes by the
warfare have been unable to rebuild their shattered lives, it said. The
study, carried out by the UN's Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia (UN-EUE),
said that development and recovery programmes were being hindered by the
delay.

The report's authors, Yves Guinand and Benoit Raymakers, argue that the
delay in mine-clearing activities "slows down" the recovery of internally
displaced people (IDPs) who fled the fighting. "Eighteen months after the
signed peace agreement, mines in reported minefields on the Ethiopian side
have not yet been cleared," they said." Clearing the minefields is
imperative in order to create a conductive environment for IDPs that have
returned home to rebuild their lives."

More than 300,000 people fled their homes when fighting - which cost
thousands of lives - broke out with Eritrea in May 1998. The heavily mined
areas in Tigray - which borders Eritrea - are also claiming hundreds of
lives. Three hundred and thirty-six victims were registered by September
2001, many of them children. Fears are also mounting that if the mines are
not removed by the start of the main agricultural season in Ethiopia -
known as the Meher - farmers will not be able to grow their crops. "Hence,
once more, part of the land will remain fallow and all those people who
are unable to return home due to mine danger will have to be assisted
through an emergency programme instead of receiving development and
recovery support," the report stated. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21848]

ERITREA: Government slams European Parliament resolution

Eritrea has strongly criticised a resolution adopted by the European
Parliament which accuses Asmara of human rights violations and says
President Isayas Afewerki is ruling the country "with an iron grip". The
resolution, adopted on 7 February, expressed concern over the
"authoritarian trend" in the country, highlighting the arrests of
prominent dissidents, the ban on the private press, non-implementation of
the constitution, and failure to hold parliamentary elections. It also
condemned Eritrea's expulsion of the Italian ambassador last September and
demanded his "immediate reinstatement". The resolution also called for an
"inter-Eritrean national conference" bringing together political leaders
and civil society representatives "with a view to finding a solution to
the current crisis and to setting the country on the path to democracy and
sustainable development".

But in a strongly worded statement, the Eritrean government said it was
dismayed by the "unfair and unjustified" resolution adopted by the
European Parliament. "The resolution, which is replete with gross
misrepresentation of facts, raises serious questions of intent," the
statement, issued by the foreign ministry, said. It rejected accusations
in the resolution which said the recently held Eritrean National Assembly
session had decided to prohibit the formation of political parties in the
country. The Eritrean statement said it was the "view of the population"
that ratification of the law on political parties should be postponed.
"The European Parliament has the liberty to disagree with the decision of
the National Assembly, but it cannot question the constitutionality of the
act," the government statement said. "The government of Eritrea is
extremely saddened by this behaviour [of the European Parliament] and
calls on the European Parliament to redress the damage done." [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21540]

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Security Council mission arrives

The head of the UN Security Council mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea said
on Thursday that the team would push forward the peace process between the
two countries. Ambassador Ole Peter Kolby of Norway was speaking on
arrival at Bole International Airport in Ethiopia. "We come here as
friends to be supportive," he told a press conference after arriving late
on Thursday night. "The mission will, among other things, also encourage
the parties to move forward with confidence building measures. That goes
for both parties."

"As you know the decision of the Boundary Commission [on border
delimitation] is imminent and we are here to help the parties with the
implementation of this decision," he added. "The Security Council has its
own issues and we have our own point of view that we want to put across to
both parties," Kolby stated.

This is the first time all 15 members of the Security Council have been to
Ethiopia. They are planning to boost confidence ahead of the delayed
announcement by the Boundary Commission, which was due to issue its
decision at the end of February. The commission, which is based in The
Hague, is now expected to reach a decision in March. Ambassador Kolby and
his team will spend two days in Ethiopia, before travelling to Eritrea at
the weekend. During the visit, they are due to meet Ethiopian Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi and President Isayas Afewerki of Eritrea. The
delegation is also expected to visit the symbolic Mereb River – a bridge
crossing that links both countries. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22134]

ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Prisoners of war exchanged

Sixty former prisoners of war (POWs) arrived back in Eritrea on Monday
after being released by the Ethiopian armed forces. The move coincided
with Eritrea also handing over 25 Ethiopian POWs. The event took place
more than a year after the fighting ended. The handover of the POWs was
effected in the presence of international observers on the symbolic Mereb
river crossing point between the two countries. The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who monitored the handover, urged both
sides to "promptly release and repatriate" all the remaining POWs.

A spokeswoman for the ICRC said: "All these persons had been registered
and regularly visited by ICRC delegates during the period of their
captivity in their interment camps. All [the] prisoners of war had
expressed their wish to return home to their country of origin." ICRC
accompanied all the POWs to the Mereb river, where it handed them over to
their respective authorities. The spokeswoman went on to say: "Since the
peace agreement was signed between Ethiopia and Eritrea... the ICRC has
organised the repatriation of 937 Eritreans and 703 Ethiopian Prisoners of
War. At the time of the agreement, the ICRC had registered and was
visiting some 2,600 Eritrean prisoners of war in Ethiopia and some 1,000
prisoners of war in Eritrea." The ICRC said that under the Geneva
Conventions all POWs and civilian internees should have been repatriated
without delay after the end of the war. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21326]

DJIBOUTI: FAO warns of environmental crisis

In the port of Djibouti, 10 shipping containers are leaking a toxic
pesticide which is causing serious human health and environmental
problems, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned. In a
statement issued on Tuesday, it said the present location of the
containers was already severely contaminated, with the worst-affected site
within 400 metres of a food aid store. The FAO called for immediate
emergency intervention to avoid further contamination of the port and its
workers. "The authorities in Djibouti should not be left alone with this
problem," said FAO expert Kevin Helps, who was asked by the Djibouti
ministry of agriculture to visit the site and make recommendations.

The pesticide - chromated copper arsenate - is primarily used as a wood
preservative for power and telegraph poles, Helps said. The chemical is
carcinogenic and dangerous to the environment. The FAO said over 200
tonnes of the chemical were shipped recently from the UK to be delivered
to the Ethiopian Power Corporation. The chemicals were packaged in plastic
containers. "All previous shipments of this chemical have used steel drums
for the product and no leakage occurred," Helps pointed out. "It appears
that the plastic containers have suffered a catastrophic failure resulting
in leakage from the container."

He said that as yet there was no danger to the entire port, but the
current storage site was a cause for concern. The FAO recommended that the
state of Djibouti pursue a "polluter pays" approach. "The final liability
for the cargo needs urgent clarification," Helps said. "The party
responsible for the leakage and contamination needs to be identified and
held responsible." [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21780]


IRIN-CEA
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