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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 194
15 - 21 May 2004


CONTENTS:

SUDAN: Malnutrition and mortality very high in Darfur - MSF survey
SUDAN: Cut bureaucracy to allow aid to Darfur, says US 
SUDAN: Conflict in the south escalates ahead of peace deal
SUDAN: Church leaders urge probe into violence in Upper Nile
ETHIOPIA: Twenty "bandits" killed in Gambela shoot-out, says government
ETHIOPIA: Amnesty International awards prize to senior journalist
SOMALIA: Final phase of peace talks expected to be launched
SOMALIA: Journalist detained for a month in Puntland

ALSO SEE:

CHAD-SUDAN: Refugee influx puts strain on local population at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41160

SUDAN: Tens of thousands could die of hunger and disease in Darfur at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=4111
 
SUDAN: Malnutrition and mortality very high in Darfur - MSF survey

The threat of famine is looming in the Darfur region of western Sudan as
the whole population is "teetering on the verge of mass starvation",
according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). A study, conducted in Mukjar
(town) and Wadi Salih Province (of Western Darfur State) had revealed
"dangerously high levels of malnutrition and mortality" with a rapidly
deteriorating food-security situation, said MSF. No less than 21.5 percent
of children under five years of age in the area were found to be suffering
from acute malnutrition.

Worse still, the study found that about 5 percent of the children under
five (in families surveyed) had died in the last three months. "These
levels of mortality are well in excess of emergency definitions. Most of
the children died from simple causes such as hunger, diarrhoea and
malaria," said MSF. Sixty percent of deaths among children over five years
of age were found to be due to war injuries.

MSF warned that the situation was set to further deteriorate unless urgent
action was taken. The whole population of Darfur (estimated to be several
million) faced food shortages and the threat of starvation in the very
near future unless substantial food distributions were organised, it said.
As the entire population was weakened by hunger, it would also become more
vulnerable to diseases. Malaria and diarrhoeal diseases increased anyway
during the rainy season, it noted. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41177 ]

 
SUDAN: Cut bureaucracy to allow aid to Darfur, says US, government
responds

The US government has called on Sudan to allow aid workers into the
Darfur, where it said aid was being effectively blocked by bureaucracy.
"By delaying access to humanitarian relief organisations and the
international community, the government of Sudan is preventing assistance
from reaching their own citizens, many of whom are in desperate need," the
US State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, told reporters on Tuesday.

He said US aid workers were continuing to have problems getting into
Darfur, currently considered to be the scene of the world's worst
humanitarian crisis. "The government has continued to play games with
travel permits while the humanitarian situation in Darfur has
deteriorated," he said. Three-day permits had been issued to some US aid
workers, but after the three days had expired, he added.

Three levels of bureaucracy have to be surmounted before staff can reach
their projects, leading to weeks of delay, according to Roger Winter, the
assistant director of the US Agency for International Development:
Firstly, NGO workers have to obtain visas to enter Sudan; secondly, they
have to obtain travel permits, which are frequently delayed or denied;
thirdly, aid workers need daily travel permits to leave the regional
capitals to visit project sites. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41140 ]

On Thursday, the government said it would issue visas within 48 hours and
waive the requirement for travel permits to the region. It added that with
effect from 24 May it would grant aid workers from the UN, NGOs, and the
International Committee of the Red Cross "direct entry visas" from abroad
within 48 hours of application, and that the visas would be valid for
three months.

Aid workers were only required to hold a visa and provide the Ministry for
Humanitarian Affairs with their names and itineraries, said a joint
communique from the foreign and humanitarian affairs ministries in
Khartoum. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41192]


SUDAN: Conflict in the south escalates ahead of peace deal

A number of conflicts in the lakes area of Bahr al-Ghazal, southern Sudan,
escalated this year in advance of a likely peace agreement between the
government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, according to
an NGO organising peace initiatives in the region.

"In February and March everything escalated... There is a general feeling
that people have to settle scores before a peace deal," said Keer Bol
Weet, a community development officer with Pact Kenya, "because after
Anyanya I [the rebels who launched Sudan's first civil war which ended in
1972] there was a general amnesty for everyone."

Since February this year, thousands of people had been displaced by a
series of concurrent conflicts between different ethnic groups and
sub-groups in the seven counties of lakes: Rumbek, Cheibet, Tonj South,
Tonj North, Tonj East, Yirol, Aweirial and Mvolo, Bol told IRIN. It was
unclear how many had been killed, wounded and subjected to looting. The
impact of the various conflicts had led to increased banditry around
Rumbek, to the extent that aid agencies were unable to travel freely and
conduct their work, he said. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41135 ]


SUDAN: Church leaders urge probe into violence in Upper Nile

The All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) called on Thursday for an
investigation into what it said were "reports of crimes against humanity"
in southern Sudan's Upper Nile State. It said attacks by armed militias
had led to the displacement of 150,000 people.

"While the graphic media reports have caused all of us, the world over to
focus attention primarily on the Darfur, we were informed that militias
are raiding villages in the Upper Nile around Malakal with equal zeal as
that of Darfur," AACC General Secretary Rev Dr Mvume Dandala told a news
conference in Nairobi. Mvume led a team of AACC officials who visited
Sudan last week. "The AACC believes there are strong grounds for
investigating and monitoring reports of crimes against humanity in Sudan,"
he said.

"Reports reaching us last evening [Wednesday] from our contacts in Sudan
said that within the last four days, homes of an estimated 23,000
villagers have been razed down in the Upper Nile," said Mvume. "We further
learned that the militias were moving towards the northern part of Upper
Nile causing thousands of helpless villagers to flee their homes," he
added. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41164 ]


ETHIOPIA: Twenty "bandits" killed in Gambela shoot-out, says government

Ethiopian security forces have killed 20 "bandits" alleged to have been
behind the recent violence that erupted in the west of the country, the
government said on Tuesday. The men had been responsible for attacks on
civilians and Sudanese refugees and for armed robberies in the troubled
Gambela region, it added. In a statement released by the ministry of
federal affairs, the government said the men had been killed in a
shoot-out after a tip-off from a member of the public.

"The National Defence Forces killed some 20 members of the anti-peace
forces, including its four ringleaders while they were located in a
locality called Jewe after a tip-off from the public," the statement said.
"Four of the members of the anti-people group are still at large. One
member of the gang was seized alive."

It said an escaped convict named by the ministry only as Maj Kut led the
gang. He was believed to be among those killed in the fighting. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41129 ]


ETHIOPIA: Amnesty International awards prize to senior journalist

The ousted president of Ethiopia’s free press association has won a human
rights prize for promoting the rights of journalists in his country. Kifle
Mulat, 51, who headed the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists' Association
for four years, was praised by Amnesty International (AI) for his fight
against repression.

In a statement released ahead of the award ceremony in London on 13 May,
AI said he had been awarded the Global Media Award for a Journalist at
Risk. AI noted that Kifle had been jailed six times as a "prisoner of
conscience" in the last 12 years after helping found the EFJA.

AI also described a new press law being introduced as "draconian", saying
that many journalists were working under fear of repression. "Amnesty
International is concerned that the proposed new press law includes
harsher conditions for the press than the previous one, and could lead to
more journalists being imprisoned as prisoners of conscience," it said.
[Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41077 ]


SOMALIA: Final phase of peace talks expected to be launched
 
The final phase of the Somali peace process is expected to be launched
during a meeting of foreign ministers from member countries of the
regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and leaders of
various Somali groups in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Thursday, a
source in IGAD said.

Most of the Somali leaders were expected to attend the meeting.
"Everything is on course. Most of them have indicated they will be there
for the meetings with ministers and other partners," the source said on
Wednesday. "We anticipate the launch of the final phase to go ahead."

The ministers called the meeting in an effort to expedite the talks.
Having met in Nairobi on 6 and 7 May, the ministers said in a joint
communiqué that the Somali peace process "should come to a successful
conclusion latest by the end of July". They "solemnly declared their total
and unreserved commitment to unite in resolving the Somali problem once
and for all", and "appealed to all the absent leaders to return to the
conference" before 20 May, the communiqué added. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41139 ]


SOMALIA: Journalist detained for a month in Puntland

Abdishakur Yusuf Ali, the editor of the independent weekly War-Ogaal, in
the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern, Somalia,
has been in detention without charge for over a month, the New-York based
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported. He was arrested on 21
April because the paper had published an article accusing a minister of
corruption.

Local journalists told the CPJ that Abdishakur was being held in an
overcrowded and unsanitary cell, and that he is being pressured to sign a
statement admitting to publishing false information.

"We are extremely concerned about our colleague, Abdishakur Yusuf Ali,"
CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said in a statement. "We call on
Puntland authorities to release him immediately." [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=41188 ]


IRIN-CEA
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


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