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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 117
30 November - 06 December 2002


CONTENTS:

SOMALIA: Mogadishu ceasefire declaration signed
SOMALIA: WFP condemns obstacles to food deliveries
ETHIOPIA: UNICEF head visits drought-stricken Afar
ETHIOPIA: British donation for drought emergency
ETHIOPIA: UN urges controlling population growth
ETHIOPIA: UNHCR, gov't pledge to track down refugee camp killers
ETHIOPIA: Airline suspends flights to Israel
ERITREA: Orthodox church anoints second patriarch
ERITREA: Possible visit by US Defence Secretary
ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Military leaders to meet in Nairobi
ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Freed detainees return to Eritrea
SUDAN: Sides accuse each other of supporting LRA
SUDAN: Anti-LRA pact with Uganda extended


ALSO SEE:

ERITREA: Feature - Plight of the Kunama refugees at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31192

SOMALIA: Mogadishu ceasefire declaration signed

Somalia's Transitional National Government and five Mogadishu-based
factions have signed a joint ceasefire declaration committing themselves
to ending violence in the Somali capital. The breakthrough came on Monday
as the Somali peace talks, under way in the Kenyan town of Eldoret,
entered a crucial second phase, which could lead to an all-inclusive
government. Under the declaration, the sides agreed "to cease all kinds of
hostilities now and in the future". They also committed themselves to
"fighting bandits and armed militias who have been killing and abducting
innocent people". They agreed to resolve existing political differences
"through dialogue and goodwill". Furthermore, the Somali leaders condemned
"in the strongest terms possible all forms of terrorism" and expressed
shock and sadness over the terrorist acts in Mombasa, Kenya, the
declaration said. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31212]

SOMALIA: WFP condemns obstacles to food deliveries

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has condemned Somali groups for
obstructing its efforts to deliver relief food to southern Somalia. In a
statement issued on Tuesday, the agency said various local authorities and
militiamen had imposed "major obstacles" while it was recently
transporting some 700 mt of food by road. According to WFP, it took a
24-truck convoy three weeks - normally a three-day journey - to move from
the southern port of Marka, to its destination in the town of Wajid in the
southwestern region of Bakol, because it was held up at 40 checkpoints.
"What should have been a quick and hassle-free operation, has instead
taken three weeks of long and painstaking negotiations," Robert Hauser,
the WFP country representative in Somalia, said. "It is indicative of the
extreme difficulties in conducting relief work in this part of Somalia."
[Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31236]

ETHIOPIA: UNICEF head visits drought-stricken Afar

The head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Carol Bellamy, flew into the
drought-stricken northeastern Afar Regional State on Thursday to see at
first hand the scale of the food crisis in Ethiopia. Bellamy is due to
meet the president of the state, Ismael Ali Sirro. She is also expected to
administer measles vaccinations to children, as well as giving them
vitamin A supplements. The agenda includes a visit to a primary school in
the state, which has one of the lowest literacy rates in a country where
seven million children are not in school. Bellamy, on her third visit to
Ethiopia since 2000, will witness the distribution of anti-malaria bed
nets aimed at preventing the disease. UNICEF, which is providing the
insecticide-treated mosquito nets, is aiming to cut the death rate by 25
percent by 2005. Malaria is the biggest killer in the country. Afar - one
of the most inhospitable and remote areas of Ethiopia - has seen
malnutrition rates of 30 percent, and tens of thousands of cattle have
died in the drought. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31263]

ETHIOPIA: British donation for drought emergency

Britain donated GBP 5 million (about $7.5 million) to the emergency
drought in Ethiopia on Wednesday, but warned aid organisations not to take
their eyes off long term development. In a statement released by the
British embassy in Addis Ababa, the British government's Department for
International Development expressed concern over the "escalating crisis"
in Ethiopia. But it praised the country's early warning system for
alerting the international community to the drought. "The current
situation in Ethiopia is a matter of deep concern," the department's
junior minister, Sally Keeble, said in the statement. "We have been
providing support and monitoring developments in Ethiopia since the
beginning of the year," the statement went on. "We will continue to play
our part while at the same time focusing on a long term partnership to
help tackle the poverty which makes four million people dependent on food
aid every year in Ethiopia." [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31258]

ETHIOPIA: UN urges controlling population growth

Ethiopia could fight poverty and boost development by controlling its
rapid population growth, the UN's Population Fund (UNFPA) said in Addis
Ababa on Tuesday. Saad Raheem Sheikh, acting head of UNFPA in Ethiopia,
said slowing the population growth could achieve higher productivity. The
population of Ethiopia - some 67 million - is growing at around 2.7
percent, outstripping many other African countries. Massive population
growth in the country has been blamed by aid organisations on the dramatic
drop in income over the past two decades. Almost half the population lives
below the national poverty line - around US $1 a day and the annual per
capita income is just $100. Mekonen Manyazewal, Ethiopia's Minister of
State for Finance and Economic Development, said the huge growth in the
number of young people and the increasing elderly population were a
serious challenge to the country. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31239]

ETHIOPIA: UNHCR, gov't pledge to track down refugee camp killers

The Ethiopian government and the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) pledged on Tuesday to bring to justice
the perpetrators of a massacre of Sudanese refugees. In a statement
released after the killings at Fugnido refugee camp at Gambela in western
Ethiopia, they agreed to set up a joint body aimed at bringing the guilty
to book. The move came after the death toll from the shooting rose to 41.
Violence flared on 27 November at the camp when gunmen from the minority
Anuak tribe reportedly attacked a group of Dinka refugees, killing 33 and
leaving nine wounded. "The UN refugee agency's representative for Ethiopia
met with his counterpart from the government's Administration for Refugee
and Returnee Affairs immediately once reports of the massacre reached
Addis Ababa," UNHCR said in a statement. "They agreed to set up a joint
government/UNHCR body to help ensure that the perpetrators of Wednesday's
[27 November] massacre are brought to justice." [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31213]

ETHIOPIA: Airline suspends flights to Israel

Ethiopian Airlines (EA) has suspended its biweekly flight to Israel in a
tit for tat row over airport security. In a statement on Monday, the
airline said it was forced to take the action after Israel urged its
citizens not to travel to Ethiopia. The airline also blamed negative
publicity in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks against Israeli
targets in Kenya which called into question airport security in the
Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Israel had forced an EA flight, bound for
Tel Aviv, to land at a military airbase after questions were raised over
safety precautions at Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport. Israeli
security experts have also requested permission to check security at the
airport. The Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority is currently processing
their request. "Under the circumstances, therefore, Ethiopian [Airlines]
regrets to inform its customers that the airline is suspending its flights
to Tel Aviv effective immediately," it said. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31237]

ERITREA: Orthodox church anoints second patriarch

By unanimous vote of its holy synod, the Eritrean Orthodox Church has
anointed Abune Yacob as its second patriarch. Yacob's coronation as
patriarch comes two and a half months after the death of the first
patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, Abune Filipos, who died at the
age of 102 of natural causes following a brief illness in September.
Filipos was widely regarded as the spiritual father of the country, and
was highly respected for his outspoken criticism of Italian, British, and
Ethiopian control of Eritrea prior to its independence. With his
coronation as patriarch, 76-year old Yacob is now the spiritual leader of
more than a million Eritrean Orthodox Christians, who constitute slightly
less than half of this tiny Horn of Africa nation's 3.5 million people.
[Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31261]

ERITREA: Possible visit by US Defence Secretary

The US embassy in the capital, Asmara, has confirmed that a visit by US
Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld to East Africa and the Horn is being
planned by the Defence Department, and that a visit to Eritrea is
possible. A spokesman for the embassy said the Defence Department had
communicated to embassies in the region the secretary's intention to
travel to East Africa and the Horn later this month. However, he stressed,
it was not yet 100 percent certain. "At the moment all we know is that the
secretary is indeed thinking of coming to our neck of the woods," said the
spokesman, Ilya Levin. "However the dates are not certain yet." According
to Levin, Rumsfeld's potential visit to the region had been in the
planning stages well before the terrorist attack on an Israeli-owned hotel
on the Kenyan coast last week. Levin said that to the best of his
knowledge, plans for the possible visit had not been altered in any way by
the attack. He could not comment on the purpose, nature or duration of the
visit.

ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Military leaders to meet in Nairobi

Military leaders from Ethiopia and Eritrea are to meet in Nairobi, next
week - the first armed forces summit for seven months, the UN said on
Thursday. The Military Coordination Commission talks will take place in
the Kenyan capital next Wednesday, and are expected to address cattle
rustling along the border, informed sources said. Legwaila Joseph
Legwaila, the head of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) will
attend the talks, along with the UN's new force commander Maj-Gen Robert
Gordon. It is also expected that Brig-Gen Yohanes Gebremeskel from
Ethiopia and Eritrea's Brig-Gen Abrahaley Kifle will meet in Nairobi. The
UNMEE spokeswoman, Gail Bindley-Taylor Sainte, said Gordon would use the
meetings to "get to know each other" and "restart" military talks. She
added that security at the talks was an issue in the wake of terrorist
attacks in Kenya last week. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31262]

ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Freed detainees return to Eritrea

Hundreds of Eritrean detainees released by the Ethiopian government
arrived at the border bridge of Mereb, near the southern town of Adi
Quala, on 29 November. Officials from the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) said about 1,225 of the freed prisoners of war and
civilian internees had chosen to return to the country. However, it said
it could not give an exact count until every returnee was registered. The
Ethiopian government released what it said were all remaining 1,568
Eritrean detainees on Tuesday. ICRC officials said approximately 240
Eritreans had opted to stay in Ethiopia however. On the Ethiopian side of
the border, the former detainees were released to several dozen delegates
of the ICRC, who then handed them over to Eritrean authorities once they
crossed the border. [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31189]

SUDAN: Sides accuse each other of supporting LRA

Sudan's warring parties have accused each other of arming and supporting
the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), an insurgent group which is waging war
against the Ugandan government from hideouts inside Sudan. On Monday, the
Sudanese government said it had information that the rebel Sudan People's
Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) was supplying weapons to the LRA,
Uganda's independent Monitor newspaper reported. "SPLA is actually
providing LRA with arms. This is not an allegation. We have evidence. We
are compiling the information and a report will be out very soon," the
paper quoted Siraj al-Din Hamid, the Sudanese ambassador to Uganda, as
saying. However, the SPLM/A denied the accusations. "That is
preposterous," its spokesman, George Garang, told IRIN on Wednesday. "What
people know is that it is Sudan which is arming, harbouring and supplying
assistance to the LRA." [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31244]

SUDAN: Anti-LRA pact with Uganda extended

Uganda and Sudan this week agreed to extend by two months the military
protocol authorising the Ugandan army to flush the rebel Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA) from its hideouts in southern Sudan. The Sudanese ambassador to
Uganda, Siraj al-Din Hamid, told IRIN on Tuesday that his government had
agreed to extend the protocol for a further 60 days to the end of January.
He said the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF) would be allowed access
to Sudanese territory as far as "four degrees latitude north", thereby
defining a region which is also subject to agreements on humanitarian
access between the Khartoum government and the United Nations. Any
military operation north of this area could only be mounted in close
coordination with the Sudanese army, Hamid said. "If there need be [such
an operation], it will require very close coordination between the
Sudanese and the Ugandan governments." [Full report at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=31218]


IRIN-CEA
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