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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 192
1 - 7 May 2004


CONTENTS:

CHAD-SUDAN: WFP launches aid appeal for Darfur refugees as crisis worsens
SUDAN: Peace agreement could be signed "within days" - officials
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN Security Council urges full cooperation with UNMEE
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Media watchdog deplores constraints on journalists
SOMALIA: New approach needed to save peace talks, says ICG
DJIBOUTI: Fears of cholera outbreak following flash floods


CHAD-SUDAN: WFP launches aid appeal for Darfur refugees as crisis worsens

The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), James Morris, appealed to the
international community on Monday to help more than 100,000 refugees from
Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, after touring some of their camps in the
semi-desert of eastern Chad. "This is just one of the most awful
humanitarian crises in the world. When this many people in the most
belligerent, mean-spirited way are chased from their homes. They are
scared to death," Morris told IRIN.

He particularly appealed for aid to continue airlifting food to the
refugees once the onset of the rainy season in June makes the unpaved
roads to eastern Chad impassable. "Everything has been taken away from
these people. This is tragic," Morris said.

The Tolom camp is overcrowded, with nearly twice as many refugees as it
was originally intended for. "The Tolom camp was originally planned for
7,500 people. It is now hosting more than 12,000," said Vincent Dupin of
Norwegian Church Aid, which is building wells, latrines and other
facilities at Tolom. More refugees continue to arrive at Tolom daily.
"Every day new people are coming on foot, on donkeys, in convoys," Alfred
Demotibaye, the Tolom camp manager, who works for the Chadian branch of
Caritas, told IRIN.


The UN said that the Darfur crisis would worsen dramatically unless the
security situation there improved immediately and relief workers could
reach needy people in the region more easily. "I visited Mornei [Western
Darfur], which has been overwhelmed by over 60,000 displaced people, who
are almost completely reliant on outside assistance," Morris was quoted as
saying in a UN statement. "Living conditions are abysmal. Malnutrition
rates among children are soaring, and few if any are going to school. This
pattern appears to be repeated across Darfur."

The UN team led by Morris visited Darfur from 28 to 30 April. It called on
the Sudanese government to accelerate its efforts to control armed
militias, provide security and protection for displaced people and
facilitate humanitarian access. In its statement issued from the capital,
Khartoum, on 1 May, the UN added that despite the ceasefire signed on 8
April, the humanitarian crisis had continued.

"We received numerous reports of sexual abuse and harassment that has
limited people's access to water, food and firewood. We also witnessed
first hand how volatile the security situation is, and the massive human
suffering that has been inflicted," Morris said. "People want to go home,
and some have attempted to do so, but often they end up fleeing again as a
result of renewed attacks."


The continuing conflict was having a devastating effect on women and
girls, according to Pamela Delargy, the chief of the humanitarian response
unit of the UN Population Fund, who was part of the team led by Morris.
Women and girls were vulnerable both during attacks and when they left
camps for internally displaced persons to do chores such as to collect
water, fuel or fodder, she said. "As in many other recent conflicts, rape
has become a weapon of war in western Sudan, with disastrous consequences
for women and girls," she added.


SUDAN: Peace agreement could be signed "within days" - officials

The Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation
Movement/Army (SPLM/A) are on the brink of reaching an agreement on the
contentious issues of power-sharing and the legal status of the capital,
Khartoum, a Sudanese official told IRIN on Friday. Peace negotiations
between the two sides had hit a deadlock over power-sharing and the
application of shari'ah in Khartoum. But the regional Inter-Governmental
Authority on Development (IGAD) which is coordinating the talks, has been
trying to find a basis for compromise.

"We are much closer than we were before. I expect we will sign an
agreement on these issues within the next few days," Ahmad Dirdiery, the
Sudanese deputy ambassador to Kenya, where the talks are being held, told
IRIN.

The two sides were broadly in agreement on power-sharing and the future
status of three disputed areas, namely the Nuba mountains, southern Blue
Nile and oil-rich Abyei. "I expect we will sign protocols on these soon,"
Samson Kwaje, an SPLM/A spokesman, told IRIN on Friday. "Our positions are
much closer than they have been in a long time. I am encouraged by the way
things are moving," Kwaje added. "We are very close but not there yet."


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN Security Council urges full cooperation with UNMEE

The UN Security Council has expressed deep concern over the "continued
lack of progress" in resolving the border dispute between neighbouring
Ethiopia and Eritrea. Munir Akram, the current Council president, called
on both countries to "cooperate fully and promptly" with the independent
body trying to resolve the dispute. He urged Eritrea to end restrictions
imposed on UN peacekeepers in the region - including limits on their
freedom of movement.

"Members expressed their concern at the deterioration in the cooperation
of Eritrea with the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea
[UNMEE]," the Security Council said in a statement issued on Tuesday. It
demanded the immediate lifting of all restrictions on the 4,200
peacekeepers, stressing that further delays affecting progress "raised
serious questions about the long-term viability of this mission".

Under a peace deal signed in Algiers in December 2000, the two countries
agreed to establish an independent boundary commission. The
Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission was intended to demarcate an
internationally recognised frontier, but Ethiopia has since condemned its
ruling as flawed. The Council said Ethiopia's continuing rejection of
"significant" parts of the commission's ruling "heightens regional
tension".


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Media watchdog deplores constraints on journalists

Fourteen journalists are being held behind bars in Eritrea, making the
country the worst in Africa to work in as a journalist, the French-based
Reporters Without Frontiers (RWF) said on Monday. It noted in its 2004
annual report that "little has changed" in the country despite pressure
from the international community to improve conditions. "Nothing has
shifted in Eritrea, still Africa's biggest prison for journalists and one
of the last countries in the world without an independent, privately owned
press," it said.

The report also criticised Ethiopia and named four journalists who were
imprisoned in 2003. "The Ethiopian press still has to cope with great
difficulties," it said. "Several journalists were arrested in 2003, and
one was still being held at the end of the year. The government seems
determined to adopt a new press law that will impose draconian
restrictions on press freedom."

RWF condemned the recent ban imposed on the Ethiopian Free Press
Journalists Association (EFJA). "The EFJA's closure in November 2003 -
ostensibly for purely bureaucratic reasons - indicated a new toughening in
the attitude of the authorities," it said. "After allowing something of an
opening in recent years, the government seemed to be trying to reassert
control and step up pressure on independent news media," it added.


SOMALIA: New approach needed to save peace talks, says ICG

The Somali peace talks under way in Kenya are in danger of collapsing
unless the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), under whose
auspices they are being held, succeeds in ending internal divisions, and
the international community provides more support, the Brussels-based
think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG), warned. In a report
issued on Tuesday, the ICG said that "to save the talks, IGAD must first
overcome its own internal divisions", and the US and the EU "must
re-engage at a higher level in both helping to resolve regional
differences and supporting the process more directly".

The ICG report said that moving the process into the third and final phase
would result in "certain failure... unless fundamental flaws are addressed
first". "A successful strategy will have to allow time for harmonising
divergent approaches of neighbouring states, addressing structural issues,
bringing international leverage to bear on the relevant actors, dealing
with the debt incurred by the peace process, and creating a realistic
budget and time-line for the remainder of the conference," the report
said.

It made a number of recommendations, including the initiation of
preparations for implementing any agreement that may be reached.


Meanwhile, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU) called
on Somali leaders attending the talks in Kenya to show increased
commitment to make a successful conclusion possible. In a communiqué
adopted after a meeting last week, the AU said: "Africa and the
international community at large would not understand that the ongoing
efforts to reach an inclusive solution be yet thwarted by the lack of
cooperation of some leaders and factions."


On Friday, the foreign ministers of the member states of the
Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), ended a two-day
meeting by announcing a consultative meeting with all Somali leaders on 20
May in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to try and expedite ongoing peace
talks. The ministers declared that the Somali peace process "should come
to a successful conclusion latest by the end of July," a joint communiqué
issued at the end of the meeting said.

The ministers "solemnly declared their total and unreserved commitment to
unite in resolving the Somali problem once and for all", and decided to
meet again in Nairobi on 20 May "for consultations with all Somali
leaders", the communiqué said. They "appealed to all the absent leaders to
return to the conference" before that date.


DJIBOUTI: Fears of cholera outbreak following flash floods

A contingency plan to contain a possible outbreak of cholera in Djibouti
has been initiated and additional stocks of medicines and medical supplies
requested, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on 30 April.

In an assessment report, WHO said following torrential rains from 11 to 14
April, "sanitation problems continue, with many destroyed and clogged
sewage pipes and water stagnating in "lakes". Assessments highlight the
need for urgent stocks of medicines and supplies to ensure resumption of
health services in damaged centres and to be ready for possible outbreaks
of cholera and malaria."

Noting that cholera and diarrhoeal diseases were endemic in Djibouti, WHO
added: "At this stage, the health sector's main concern is to prevent,
detect as early as possible and respond quickly to any outbreak."


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