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 108
28 September - 04 October 2002


CONTENTS:

SOMALIA: Baidoa falls to Shatigadud rivals
SOMALIA: President sends back controversial media law
SOMALIA: Puntland leader "alive and well"
ETHIOPIA: Over 60 reported dead in clashes
ETHIOPIA: Warning over food needs as UN official visits region
ETHIOPIA: Govt criticised for hampering foreign investment
ERITREA: Renewed warning over drought threat
ERITREA: Ruling party slams Eritrean opposition meeting in Ethiopia
ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: UN to appoint new force commander
SUDAN: No halt in oil flows - government
SUDAN: Fighting rages amid humanitarian ban

ALSO SEE:

ETHIOPIA: Focus on FGM at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30200

ETHIOPIA: Interview with Mohammed Ayli, Vice-President of Oromiya Region
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30172

SOMALIA: Baidoa falls to Shatigadud rivals

The southwestern Somali town of Baidoa on Thursday fell to the rivals of
the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) chairman, Col Hasan Muhammad Nur
Shatigadud, who has been in control of the town since July, a local
business source told IRIN. Forces loyal to Shatigadud's two deputies and
rivals for power - Shaykh Adan Madobe, the RRA first vice-chairman, and
the second vice-chairman, Muhammad Ibrahim Habsade - seized control of the
town at 06:00 local (0300 GMT), the source said. The whereabouts of
Shatigadud and his forces are unknown. The source added that there was
"minimal fighting" and businesses resumed their activities later in the
morning. Fighting first broke out in Baidoa on 1 July between the rival
forces in an apparent power struggle. On 31 July, Shatigadud's forces
drove his deputies and their troops out of Baidoa and seized control of
the town.

SOMALIA: President sends back controversial media law

The president of the Transitional National Government (TNG), Abdiqassim
Salad Hassan, has declined to sign a controversial media law passed by the
Transitional National Assembly, TNG Information Minister Abdirahman Ibbi
told IRIN. Muhammad Haji Ingriis of the daily Ayaamaha newspaper said that
"90 percent of print and broadcast journalists downed their tools today
[Wednesday] to express their displeasure with this law". The so-called
Press Law restricting the activities of the press was passed three days
ago, he told IRIN on Wednesday. Ibbi said the president had set up a
committee of lawyers, journalists and senior officials to meet with the
journalists "and address their grievances". [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30202]

SOMALIA: Puntland leader "alive and well"

Col Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad, leader of the self-declared autonomous region
of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, who travelled to London for medical
reasons, has been given a clean bill of health, a source close to
Abdullahi told IRIN on Tuesday. The source said that persistent local
media reports that Abdullahi Yusuf was either seriously ill or had died
"were malignant and irresponsible". Abdullahi, who arrived in London about
a week ago, is "alive and well", he added.  "He was in London for a
routine medical checkup and was given a clean bill of health by his
doctors", said the source.  Abdullahi Yusuf was temporarily admitted to
hospital in London for a liver condition in November 2000 and "has to
submit to checkups every now and then", the source noted. "The president
is fine and will return to Puntland in the next 36 hours," he told IRIN.
[Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30176]

ETHIOPIA: Over 60 reported dead in clashes

Fierce clashes between rival ethnic groups in western Ethiopia have left
more than 60 people dead and forced thousands to flee their homes, an
Ethiopian human rights organisation said. According to the Ethiopian Human
Rights Council (EHRCO), the fighting broke out in July between the Anuak
and Nuer communities who live in Gambela National Regional State,
bordering Sudan. It is one of the most remote parts of Ethiopia. "During
the conflict, great destruction was caused to both human life and
property," EHRCO’s head office in the capital, Addis Ababa, said. The
Nuers claim that the Anuak have deliberately prevented them from gaining
political representation after their vice-president died last year. He
still has not been replaced. According to EHRCO, the Nuers attacked the
Anuak, burning down dozens of houses in eight local districts. Some 8,700
people were forced to flee their homes. EHRCO says the fighting has still
not subsided. [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/prin!
t.asp?ReportID=30223]

ETHIOPIA: Warning over food needs as UN official visits region

Ethiopia could be facing an unprecedented drought with up to 14 million
people in desperate need of food aid next year, according to USAID’S
Famine Early Warning System (FEWS). In a report, it said additional food
aid was "urgently required" to prevent a disaster and "widespread
starvation" in Ethiopia. Failed rains in many parts of the country mean
that harvests could be down some 15 percent on previous years. Delayed
rains have also shortened the crop-growing season. It quoted figures from
the Ethiopian government's Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission
(DPPC) which said a likely scenario next year would be 10.2 million people
requiring more than 1.5 million mt of food aid. "Under a worst-case
scenario, 11-14 million beneficiaries would require 2.2 million mt of food
aid for 2003," FEWS said, quoting the DPPC figures. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30173]

ETHIOPIA: Govt criticised for hampering foreign investment

The UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) criticised the Ethiopian
government on Thursday for stifling foreign investment in the country.
Patrick Asea, the director of economic policy within the ECA, said that by
failing to introduce widespread market reforms, the government was
hampering development. "At the ECA we have been very concerned about large
sections of the economy which are excluded from foreign direct
investment," he said at the launch of the World Investment Report 2002 in
Addis Ababa. He said it was crucial for the banking and insurance sectors
within the Ethiopian economy to be opened up to foreign investment. Only
Ethiopians are allowed to invest within the banking and insurance sectors,
which are largely owned by the government. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30224]

ERITREA: Renewed warning over drought threat

Two UN agencies have warned that the lives of over one million people in
Eritrea are under threat due to a prolonged drought. In a joint report,
the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme
(WFP) noted that rainfall had been poor since October 2001 "with almost
total failure of the March-June azmera rains and the late onset of
June-September kremti rains".

The cereal harvest - forecast at 74,000 mt - is expected to be 60 percent
below the average of the last 10 years, the report said. It will cover
only about 15 percent of Eritrea's food requirement instead of the average
40-50 percent. The agencies warned that international assistance will be
needed to cover a shortfall of 283,000 mt. The report is based on a
two-week joint crop and food supply assessment mission conducted in late
August, a month after the Eritrean government declared a national drought
emergency. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30218]

ERITREA: Ruling party slams Eritrean opposition meeting in Ethiopia

Eritrea's ruling party has criticised the planned convening of an Eritrean
opposition conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The Shaebia
website - mouthpiece of the ruling People's Front for Democracy and
Justice (PFDJ) - accused the opposition Alliance of Eritrean National
Forces (AENF) of "throwing itself openly into the arms" of the Tigray
People's Liberation Front, the dominant party in Ethiopia's ruling
coalition. The AENF - which includes several exiled groups - was
established in 1999. According to its charter, it says it "will use all
necessary means to overthrow the regime of People's Front [for Democracy
and Justice]" and set up a "government of national unity". An Eritrean
opposition website, Awate, said the conference - which should have taken
place in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum - would be held on 2 October in
Addis Ababa. Awate noted that a prominent Eritrean opposition figure,
Hiruy Tedla, the son of Eritrea's first head of state during the feder!
ation with Ethiopia, was currently in Addis Ababa in a "consultative
role". [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30151]

ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: UN to appoint new force commander

The UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) is to appoint a new force
commander for its peacekeeping mission along the border of the two
countries, UN sources told IRIN on Thursday. The current commander,
Maj-Gen Patrick Cammaert, is leaving the region as his contract has come
to an end, the sources said. Cammaert, who has served with the mission for
two years, was the military head of the 4,200-strong peacekeeping force.
They arrived in the region in September 2000 to monitor a ceasefire
between the two countries following a bitter war triggered by a border
dispute in 1998. The Ethiopian government has accused Cammaert of bias
towards Eritrea, but senior UNMEE sources denied the UN had bowed to
pressure from Ethiopia to remove him. "His contract has come to an end," a
UN source said. "If we had bowed down he would not have served out his
contract, would he?"

SUDAN: No halt in oil flows - government

The Sudanese government on Thursday denied claims by southern rebels to
have attacked a major oil rig in southern Sudan, cutting off the flow of
oil to the north. "This is a figment of someone's imagination," Muhammad
Ahmad Dirdeiry, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Kenya, told
IRIN. "There was a very minor attack, which has been repulsed." A
statement from the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A)
office in Cairo claimed that rebel forces had penetrated the oil
production and pumping complex at Heglig early on Monday and "destroyed
the main station for pumping crude oil from the south to the north". The
installation at Heglig, western Upper Nile (Wahdah State), accounts for
the bulk of Sudan's oil production, currently running at around 240,000
barrels per day, and is operated by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating
Company, a consortium of Chinese, Malaysian, Sudanese and Canadian
companies, according to AFP. [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.o!
rg/print.asp?ReportID=30225]

SUDAN: Fighting rages amid humanitarian ban

Intensified fighting in southern Sudan has raised humanitarian concerns
for an estimated three million civilians who are also affected by a recent
government ban on relief flights. The Sudanese government on 26 September
banned all UN humanitarian flights from Kenya over the Eastern and Western
Equatoria regions in south Sudan for an indefinite period, following weeks
of intense fighting between its troops and those of the SPLM/A. The New
York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a statement urged the Sudanese
government to lift the ban to prevent "a humanitarian crisis from becoming
a famine". "Coming at the same time that the government is stepping up its
bombings of civilian areas in southern Sudan, the relief ban heaps one
abuse on another," said Jemera Rone, a researcher with HRW. [Full report
at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30154]


IRIN-CEA
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Fax: +254 2 622129
Email: IRIN@ocha.unon.org

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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002


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