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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 175
10 - 16 January 2004


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Moves in progress to resolve border impasse, says UNMEE
ETHIOPIA: Gov't involved in Gambella attack, says rights group
ETHIOPIA: Bumper harvest but food aid still needed
ETHIOPIA: Situation in drought-stricken region improves, but fears remain
ETHIOPIA: Gov't hits back at critics of resettlement schemes
SOMALIA: UN releases first socioeconomic survey
SOMALIA: War of words continues between Puntland and Somaliland
SOMALIA: Peace talks get new lease of life
SUDAN: Progress at peace talks, says gov't
SUDAN: Humanitarian access blocked in Darfur
SUDAN: Authorities forcibly close IDP camps in Darfur

ALSO SEE: 

ETHIOPIA: Interview with director of HIV/AIDS film Hidden Tears at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38940

ETHIOPIA: IRIN interview with Sahlu Haile, population expert, at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38905

ETHIOPIA:  Focus: Archeology and paleontology to boost tourism revenue at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38868


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Moves in progress to resolve border impasse, says UNMEE

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Ethiopia and Eritrea has welcomed
intensified diplomatic efforts to resolve the deadlock in the stalled
peace process.

George Somerwill, the deputy spokesman for the UN Mission in Ethiopia and
Eritrea (UNMEE) peacekeepers, told journalists on Thursday that the
political moves were vital to "resolve the block" that has stalled the
peace process. "There seems to be a focusing of the efforts of all of the
international community, focusing very tightly on trying to get some kind
of a movement on this impasse," he said at a weekly video-linked press
briefing between Asmara and Addis Ababa. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38943]


ETHIOPIA: Gov't involved in Gambella attack, says rights group

Government defence forces helped attack an ethnic group in Gambella,
western Ethiopia, where least 93 people were killed, the country’s human
rights council claimed. Addressing a press conference in the capital,
Addis Ababa, on Wednesday, Prof Mesfin Wolde-Mariam, the president of the
Ethiopian Human Rights Council (ERCHO), said local forces were involved in
the attacks. The government has dismissed the allegations as unfounded.

The fighting erupted after eight people, including three government
officials, were murdered when the UN-plated vehicle they were travelling
in was ambushed in mid-December. The bodies of the men were badly
mutilated, but the defence forces later paraded them them through Gambella
town, thereby provoking even greater outrage, ERCHO said.

A local community, the Anyuak, was blamed for the ambush, which, Mesfin
said, was the spark that had ignited the current tensions in Gambella
town. In its wake, local groups bent on revenge started attacking the
Anyuak. He noted that tensions already existing prior to the ambush
between ethnic groups over land and political rights were serving to
exacerbate the fighting.  [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38939]

Earlier, on Monday, a government spokesman said police were investigating
the disappearance of the president of Gambella State, Okelo Akuai, who had
vanished along with his driver and two bodyguards. The spokesman, Zemedkun
Teckle, said Akuai had disappeared on 9 January. "We do not know why he
has disappeared," he said, adding that Akuai's abandoned four-wheel-drive
vehicle had been found in Gambella town, but no word had been heard from
him since, he added. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38865]

Meanwhile, humanitarian sources said that since the killings in Gambella
began, about 15,000 Anyuaks had fled to neighbouring Sudan. Between 100
and 300 Anyuaks were arriving every day in Pachala County in the Upper
Nile region, Myron Jesperson, the director of World Relief, told IRIN.

"They're not in a desperate condition, but the question is what is going
to happen to them long-term," said Jesperson. If the refugees stay in
Pachala, it will result in a 30 percent to 50 percent increase in the
county's population, according to World Relief. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38864]


ETHIOPIA: Bumper harvest but food aid still needed
 
Ethiopia has recorded one of its largest harvests in five years, after
good rains, but 7 million people will still need food aid to survive, the
UN said in a report on Wednesday.

However, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) also noted that
the 13-million-mt bumper harvest of cereals and pulses raised fears that
crop prices could collapse, thereby adversely affecting rural farmers. It
added that providing farmers with seeds and fertiliser had helped boost
the harvest, but that action to stabilise prices being affected by
oversupply was now vital. The FAO called on the international community to
use "local purchase as the main tool for securing cereals and pulses for
food aid programmes" as a means of forestalling a collapse in prices.

It went on to state that some 980,000 mt of food aid would be needed for
7.2 million people in 2004 – half the quantity which had been required to
combat the emergency in 2003, when 13 million people had been in need. So
far, confirmed food aid for Ethiopia stood at 160,000 mt, FAO said in its
report, released in Rome and copied to IRIN. The report's findings are
based on a joint assessment of the harvest by the FAO and the UN’s World
Food Programme carried out between November and December. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38944]


ETHIOPIA: Situation in drought-stricken region improves, but fears remain
 
Rains have improved the situation in eastern Ethiopia’s drought-stricken
Somali region, but fears remain of major water and food shortages, the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its
monthly report, issued on Tuesday. It warned that a "critical situation
seems imminent" during the early months of 2004. "The problem of water
will be critical in many parts of the region, particularly during the
forthcoming Jilaal [dry period before the onset of the rainy] season,"
OCHA Ethiopia said.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said recently that unseasonable rains
in December had "depressed the anticipated severity of the drought
situation" and helped to improve pasture. In its weekly emergency
bulletin, issued on 10 January, WFP said that birkeds (concrete-lined
underground water reservoirs) had been replenished by virtue of the rains.
It also stated that the "usually very difficult dry season" preceding the
onset of rains due in March or April would be shorter than usual because
of the unseasonable rains.

[Full story at:  http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38911]


ETHIOPIA: Gov't hits back at critics of resettlement schemes

The Ethiopian government has hit back at critics of its controversial
resettlement scheme, saying that inasmuch as resettled farmers have been
producing surplus harvests, the programme will be intensified. It declared
in a statement that the first year of the resettlement scheme had been a
"success" and would continue.

The massive resettlement scheme - under which 2.2 million people will be
moved over a three-year period - has drawn criticism from the
international community. But the government says the US $220-million
programme, which is a central plank of its effort to slash dependency on
foreign aid, has already achieved success. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38858]


SOMALIA: UN releases first socioeconomic survey

The UN has launched a new socioeconomic survey for Somalia, the first
since the civil war broke out in 1991. Launched on Wednesday in the Kenyan
capital, Nairobi, it is the product of a joint initiative between the
World Bank, the UN Development Programme and several other UN agencies.

Speaking at the launch, Muktar Diop, the World Bank director in charge of
Somalia, Kenya, and Eritrea, said reliable data had been missing in
Somalia since the civil war broke out, destroying long-established
government institutions. "We didn't have any data to start with," Diop
said.  [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38914]


SOMALIA: War of words continues between Puntland and Somaliland

The authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland have warned
neighbouring Puntland to "stop playing with fire" and withdraw its forces
from the disputed region of Sool, a senior Somaliland official told IRIN
on Wednesday. Tension has been rising between the two sides ever since
forces of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland took total
control of the Sool regional capital, Las Anod, late last month.

Abdillahi Muhammad Du'ale, the Somaliland information minister, told IRIN
on Tuesday that Somaliland had been patient and had ignored numerous
provocations from Puntland with a view to averting destabilising
confrontations, but the situation had now "reached a point at which we can
no longer ignore their actions". [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38889]


SOMALIA: Peace talks get new lease of life

The stalled Somali peace talks, which were being held in the Kenyan
capital, Nairobi, have been given a new lease of life after Ugandan
President Yoweri Museveni saved them from collapse.

After arriving in Nairobi on 8 January, Museveni, the current chairman of
the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), immediately held
talks with the Somali leaders who were due to take part the next day in a
retreat designed to revive the peace talks. He then went on to launch the
retreat itself on 9 January, an IGAD official told IRIN.  [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38856]


SUDAN: Progress at peace talks, says gov't

Progress has been made at peace talks between the Sudanese government and
the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army on the future status of two
key contested areas, according to the government. "We have achieved quite
good progress on southern Blue Nile and the Nuba mountains, but the
question of Abyei is still difficult," said Sa'id Khatib, a government
spokesman. "The points of difference are not easy."

He said both sides had reached agreement in principle on the division of
powers between the national and state governments in southern Blue Nile
and the Nuba mountains, which would remain part of northern Sudan.
"Anything that logically is a matter that concerns more than one state"
would be controlled by the national government, while education and other
services would fall under the state government's powers. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38917]


SUDAN: Humanitarian access blocked in Darfur

Humanitarian needs in Sudan's war-torn region of Darfur are not being met
primarily due to insecurity, according to humanitarian sources. "Only 15
percent of people are in areas that are accessible by the UN," said Ben
Parker, the spokesman for the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in
Sudan. "And even access to these continues to be hampered by difficulties
obtaining travel permits."

The Sudanese government said in a recent statement that "assistance to the
needy is being rendered satisfactorily" in Darfur, but humanitarian
workers say they are unable to operate. [Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38860]


SUDAN: Authorities forcibly close IDP camps in Darfur

Authorities in Nyala, southern Darfur, closed two camps housing 10,000
internally displaced persons (IDPs) on Thursday, following a failed
attempt to relocate them to new camps without their consent, according to
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). The new camps were located about 20 km
outside of Nyala "in an area considered unsafe" due to ongoing fighting,
and where there was neither shelter, nor food, nor sufficient access to
water and latrines, said MSF.

On Wednesday, the authorities had arrived at the camps and begun the
"forced transfer" of people by trucks to the new sites, the agency
reported, after which a number of the IDPs fled in panic. Some of these
families have severely malnourished children.

By Thursday morning, when police and other authorities arrived in the
camps, they were up to 90 percent empty, most of the population having
fled. MSF teams were being prevented from distributing drinking water to
those who were left and, for the second consecutive day, malnourished
children were prevented from receiving the vital care they needed, said
MSF. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=38962]


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


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