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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 210
4 - 10 September 2004


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: No movement in stalled peace process - UNMEE
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Crucial supply route closed to UNMEE
ETHIOPIA: Sanitation facilities severely lacking - UNICEF
ETHIOPIA: Gambella families in need of support - Oxfam
SUDAN: Opposition leaders arrested in Khartoum
SUDAN: OCHA concerned about new displacement in North Darfur
SUDAN: Severe violations of children's rights in Darfur - SC UK
SOMALIA: Kismayo port city calm but tense
SOMALIA: IGAD warns warlord over reported plan to attack southern town
SOMALIA: Watchdog demands release of editor detained in Somaliland


See also:

SOMALIA: Focus: New parliament amidst enormous challenges at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43077 ]

SUDAN-UGANDA: IRIN interview with Dennis McNamara at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43046 ]


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: No movement in stalled peace process - UNMEE

The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said on 
Thursday there was "no light at the end of the tunnel" in the stalled 
peace process between the two countries. It added that there had been 
little movement over their contested 1,000-km border. "Nothing has 
changed," the UNMEE deputy spokesman, George Somerwill, told journalists 
ahead of a UN Security Council meeting to review and renew the mandate of 
the 4,000-strong force. The Council is expected to meet in mid-September. 
"The Security Council is extremely important to the issues involving 
Ethiopia and Eritrea," Somerwill told a video-linked briefing between 
Addis Ababa and Asmara, the capitals of the two countries.

The Council, he added, would remain "very actively involved" in trying to 
forge a permanent peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The spokesman said 
Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, the special representative of UN 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the region, had left for New York to brief 
the Council. He was accompanied by the new UNMEE Force Commander, Maj-Gen 
Rajender Singh.

In his last report to the Council on the region, Annan had warned that a 
"protracted stalemate" could cause instability, and urged the 
international community to remain committed.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43096 ]


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Crucial supply route closed to UNMEE

The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) expressed 
disappointment on Tuesday after the Eritrean government reimposed 
restrictions of movement along a crucial supply route for its 
peacekeepers. UNMEE said it had received a letter from the Eritrean 
authorities saying they could no longer use the Asmara-Keren-Barentu road. 
Deputy spokesman George Somerwill said the road had been closed for 
unknown reasons, considerably hampering the work of the peacekeepers.

"I would not necessarily call it unfair. I would just say that it simply 
is a situation which makes our work considerably harder," Somerwill said 
on Tuesday. The closure means key supplies to peacekeeping troops in 
western Eritrea would take an extra 10 to 12 hours to deliver. UNMEE might 
need to resort to using helicopters, the spokesman told IRIN. UNMEE 
arrived in Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2000 to help monitor a ceasefire 
between the two countries after their two-and-a-half-year border war, 
which is estimated to have claimed 70,000 lives. Around 4,000 peacekeepers 
and civilian staff monitor a 25-kilometre buffer zone that separates the 
two countries.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43079 ]


ETHIOPIA: Scrap criminal penalties for press offences, CPJ urges

Ethiopia faced renewed calls on Tuesday to scrap criminal penalties for 
press offences after the country's last remaining imprisoned journalist 
was released. Tewodros Kassa was freed after serving out a sentence of 
more than two years, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists 
(CPJ), said. Shortly before his release date in June this year, Kassa had 
been sentenced to a further three months for alleged defamation in an 
article written four years earlier, the New York-based organisation said.

Although Kassa's release meant there were currently no Ethiopian 
journalists in jail, many were still facing prosecution for alleged 
offences including defamation. "While we are relieved that our colleague 
has been freed from prison, it is outrageous that he was put there in the 
first place," Ann Cooper, CPJ Executive Director, said. "We reiterate our 
call for the Ethiopian government to remove criminal penalties for press 
offences," she said. In a letter to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi 
last month, the CPJ said criminal sanctions against journalists have a 
"chilling effect on press freedom and violate international standards."

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43100 ]


ETHIOPIA: Sanitation facillities severely lacking - UNICEF

Ethiopia severely lacks sanitation facilities, the United Nations 
Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday, adding that a mere six percent 
of the population have access to basic sanitation facilities - fuelling 
diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases, while less than a quarter has 
access to clean water. Hans Spruijt, head of water and environmental 
sanitation for UNICEF Ethiopia, told IRIN he believed the situation had 
got worse because of a lack of commitment by previous governments. He said 
that addressing the water crisis in the country had "fallen between the 
cracks".

Calling for emphasis to be given to water sanitation and immunisation, he 
told IRIN: "It is the cause of debilitating diseases for the majority of 
children. That is how serious a lack of sanitation and clean water is. It 
also affects malnutrition. Worm infestation and diarrhoea are the exact 
opposite of food intake, so it is one of the most important factors of 
malnutrition." Up to 70 percent of transmissible diseases are due to dirty 
water or lack of sanitation, according to UNICEF. It was for this reason 
that the UN has underscored the importance of safe clean water by calling 
for the number of people without clean water to be halved by 2015 - a 
Millennium Development Goal.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43065 ]


ETHIOPIA: Gambella families in need of support - Oxfam

Families forced to flee violence in western Ethiopia need more 
humanitarian support to help them rebuild their shattered lives, Oxfam 
America urged on Tuesday. Abera Tola, head of the organisation's office in 
Ethiopia, told IRIN that "fear and suspicion" still hampered attempts to 
help families hit by the violence. He said the region needed mosquito nets 
to prevent malaria, oxen for farmers who lost all their possessions, and 
tools so that people could rebuild their lives. Hundreds of people were 
reported killed in communal fighting that flared up in December in 
Gambella, and continued during the early part of this year, government 
officials said.

As many as 15,000 were reported to have fled to neighbouring Sudan. The 
fighting, which was sparked by an attack on a vehicle in which eight 
government workers were killed, fuelled existing tensions between ethnic 
groups in the area. Without peace-building initiatives among local groups 
any attempts at development in the region would fail, Tola noted. "We 
strongly believe that there should be a peace-building initiative running 
side by side with development work," he said from his office in Addis 
Ababa. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43061 ]

SUDAN: Opposition leaders arrested in Khartoum

The Sudanese government arrested 14 members of the Islamist opposition 
Popular Congress Party of former prime minister Hassan El Turabi on 
Wednesday as security was tightened around the capital, Khartoum. The 
Interior Ministry, in a statement broadcast on Radio Omdurman, accused 
those arrested of attempting to sabotage the peace. There was extra 
police, military and security personnel on Khartoum streets, where they 
set up roadblocks.

The government last year accused Turabi of sedition and claimed that his 
party was supporting the rebel Justice and Equality Movement in the 
western region of Darfur. The movement claims to be fighting to end the 
marginalisation of the area. Turabi, whose party was banned in March, has 
been under house arrest. Meanwhile, NGOs have urged France, Italy and 
Japan to improve their response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, 
where there are about 1.2 million internally displaced persons, and 
eastern Chad, which hosts about 200,000 refugees from Darfur. The three 
were among governments that had contributed least towards alleviating the 
suffering of people affected by the Darfur conflict, the NGOs said in a 
joint letter on Wednesday.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43102 ]


SUDAN: OCHA concerned about new displacement in North Darfur

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
(OCHA) is worried about the humanitarian situation in North Darfur, after 
thousands of newly displaced persons, reporting fresh hostilities, arrived 
in a camp near El Fasher, an OCHA spokesperson said on Wednesday. "We are 
very concerned that there are new IDP [internally displaced persons] 
arrivals in Zam Zam camp," Jennifer Abrahamson of OCHA Sudan, told IRIN on 
Wednesday. "There have been unconfirmed reports of increased insecurity 
around Thabit, south of the camp," she added. Zam Zam camp is near 
El-Fasher, administrative capital of North Darfur State.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a situation 
report on Wednesday that continuing clashes, in particular in rural areas 
of northern and southern Darfur, had given rise to further casualties and 
displacement of civilians. It said the number of IDPs in Gereida, south of 
Nyala, was estimated to have increased from 12,000 to 32,000 since 
mid-August, while a recent influx of people in towns east of Nyala had 
reportedly led to serious food shortages. Around 1,800 new arrivals had 
been reported at Zam Zam camp, the ICRC added.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43087 ]


SUDAN: Severe violations of children's rights in Darfur - SC UK

Sudanese government forces, militias, police and other security forces 
have committed serious violations of children's rights in Sudan's troubled 
western region of Darfur, according to a report by Save the Children UK, 
which noted that abuses included murder, rape and abduction. "There is 
evidence of widespread use of rape by militias as a weapon of war, with 
rape survivors ranging between 10-40 years old. Forced circumcision of 
women by their attackers has also been reported," Save the Children UK (SC 
UK) said in its latest report on the child protection crisis in Darfur 
issued on 3 September.

According to the report, other violations included killing of children's 
family members or relatives, recruitment of children into armed groups, 
burning of houses, crops and poisoning of wells, looting of property and 
animals, humiliation of relatives or families, and harassment and 
intimidation. Hundreds of children have been separated from their families 
in the conflict, SC UK said, adding that without the care and protection 
of their immediate family or of the community, the affected children were 
extremely vulnerable.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43056 ]


SOMALIA: Kismayo port city calm but tense

Somalia's southern port city of Kismayo was calm but tense on Wednesday as 
fears grew that forces loyal to one of the Somali faction leaders, Gen 
Muhammad Sa'id Hersi "Morgan", could come closer to the city, currently 
controlled by another faction, the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA), local 
sources told IRIN. Bethuel Kiplagat, the chief mediator in the ongoing 
Somali peace talks in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, however, told IRIN that 
he had had reports that Morgan had not yet started moving his forces 
towards Kismayo. "He is not moving. He remains where he was and efforts 
are being to dissuade him from approaching the city," Kiplagat said.

A local businessman in the city who asked not to be named said: "The town 
is calm but tense. Most people are going about their business, but the 
feeling of a town on a war-footing is there." He added that there were 
fewer militiamen visible in the city centre. Kiplagat had told IRIN on 
Monday that the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the 
subregional organisation under whose auspices the Somali peace process is 
being conducted, would impose a travel ban on Morgan and consider pressing 
charges against him at the International Criminal Court, if he made good 
his threat to attack Kismayo.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43082 ]


SOMALIA: IGAD warns warlord over reported plan to attack southern town

Gen Muhammad Sa'id Hersi "Morgan", leader of one of Somalia's armed 
factions, could eventually be prosecuted if he launched an offensive on 
the southern port of Kismayo, the chief mediator in the Somali peace 
process said on Monday. "We are monitoring the situation," Bethel 
Kiplagat, a Kenyan career diplomat, told IRIN. Asked what sanctions 
regional states could consider, he said: "They will not allow him to visit 
any of our neighbouring countries. He could also be charged in the 
International Criminal Court."

Morgan has boycotted ongoing reconciliation talks facilitated by the 
Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a subregional 
organisation made up of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda 
and, nominally, Somalia. The IGAD Facilitation Committee said in a 
statement issued on Friday by its chairman, John arap Koech, that it had 
learnt that "Morgan" was "advancing with troops towards the town of 
Kismayo". Koech, who is also Kenya's regional cooperation minister, said 
attacking Kismayo would be a "blatant act of aggression at a time when 
Somalia is on the threshold of lasting peace".

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43032 ]


SOMALIA: Watchdog demands release of editor detained in Somaliland

A US-based press freedom watchdog has urged authorities in Somaliland, the 
self-declared republic in northwestern Somalia, to release the 
editor-in-chief of two newspapers arrested at the end of last month. New 
York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that Hassan Said 
Yusuf, the editor-in-chief of the independent Somali-language daily, 
Jamhuuriya, and its weekly English-language edition, The Republican, was 
picked up from his office in Hargeisa, Somaliland's capital, on 31 August.

CPJ quoted local sources as saying that Yusuf's colleagues had by 2 
September not been allowed to visit him. "His arrest stemmed from a news 
article published in Jamhuuriya on August 30 about the Somaliland 
government's stance on peace talks in Kenya," CPJ said in a statement. The 
Somaliland administration refused to take part in the reconciliation 
conference in Nairobi aimed at ending factional warfare in the rest of 
Somalia, which has been without a government since the regime of Muhammad 
Siyad Barre was toppled in 1991.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43030 ]



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