U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 275
16 - 22 April 2005


CONTENTS:

DJIBOUTI: Thousands in need of food and water, says UN
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN investigates clashes on border
ERITREA: Recovery slowed by drought and military tensions - USAID
   official
ERITREA: UN food agency to feed 840,000 for another five months
ETHIOPIA: Humanitarian conditions to get worse - UNICEF
ETHIOPIA: Local observers to sue election board
SUDAN: Peacekeepers to arrive in the south within a month
SUDAN: Garang urges southern factions to reconcile
SUDAN: Violence continues to affect aid operations in Darfur - agencies


DJIBOUTI: Thousands in need of food and water, says UN

An estimated 28,650 people in Djibouti are experiencing severe food and
water shortages, due to a drought that has depleted pastures and led to
widespread livestock deaths, the UN's humanitarian agency said on
Friday.

"The income of households [in Djibouti] is dependent almost entirely on
the health and productivity of their livestock," the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report. "Since
livestock productivity has been undermined by the consecutive
deteriorating seasons, household income and food access has been
severely constrained," it added.

According to the report, Djibouti's coastal pastures and water sources
have also been overburdened by herders from the neighbouring,
drought-affected countries of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46768


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN investigates clashes on border

UN peacekeepers were investigating two recent armed clashes on the
Ethiopia-Eritrea border that left up to four dead, a UN official said on
Thursday. Gail Bindley Taylor Sainte, spokesperson for the UN Mission in
Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), said the incidents on 9 and 11 April were
probably caused by cattle rustling. She added that Ethiopian authorities
had categorically denied any involvement, and that UN peacekeepers had
no evidence that Ethiopian troops were involved.

Eritrean authorities said they had killed one man in the first clash and
captured another, while a third had escaped. In the second incident,
they said three men were killed and two escaped. UN peacekeepers said
they had seen the bodies of three men, and interviewed the captured man,
having been informed of the fighting after the second clash. "Further
investigations are continuing," Sainte told journalists in Addis Ababa
and Asmara, the capitals of Ethiopia and Eritrea respectively, via video
link from Asmara.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46748]


ERITREA: Recovery slowed by drought and military tensions - USAID
official

Since the border war with Ethiopia ended in 2000, drought and tensions
with its larger neighbour have continued to take a heavy toll on
Eritrea's economy and the welfare of its people, a USAID (US Agency for
International Development) official told IRIN in an interview. "There
was so much devastation [during the war]," Jatinder Cheema, USAID's
outgoing mission director in Eritrea, said on Saturday. "There was so
much rehabilitation to be done, and capacity to be built." The two-year
war killed an estimated 70,000 people from both countries, displaced a
third of Eritrea's population and caused large-scale destruction in
Eritrea, where much of the fighting took place.

In December 2000, the two Horn of Africa countries agreed to accept as
"final and binding" the decision of an independent boundary commission
on where the border should lie. However, Ethiopia subsequently rejected
the commission's ruling in April 2002. Military tensions between the two
states have simmered ever since. Some of Eritrea's most fertile land
lies along the border in the southwest of the country, but thousands of
Eritreans were unable to return to their homes there, due to the
destruction of the area and the lingering threat of landmines. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46719]


ERITREA: UN food agency to feed 840,000 for another five months

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has decided to extend its emergency
food-aid programme in Eritrea to mitigate the effects of drought, an
official told IRIN on Friday. "We decided to extend for five months and
to enlarge the existing emergency operation," Jean-Pierre Cebron, WFP's
country director for Eritrea, said. He added that the five-month
extension of WFP's emergency activities was intended to provide food aid
to around 840,000 people, at an estimated additional cost of US $25
million.

The aid will also be linked to programmes on adult literacy, education,
malnutrition and HIV/AIDS, he added. According to the UN agency, an
estimated 2.3 million Eritreans - roughly two-thirds of the population -
will need food aid in 2005. Pastures in Eritrea are at their driest
since 1998. WFP is also planning a two-year operation to start in
September, which would cover all the agency's activities in the country,
Cebron revealed. "It will be a unique operation for WFP," he said. "It
is the missing link between pure emergency and development."

[Full story
at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46700]


ETHIOPIA: Humanitarian conditions to get worse - UNICEF

Humanitarian conditions in Ethiopia are set to get worse now that a
scheme to end aid dependency has been delayed, the UN Children's Fund
(UNICEF) warned on Thursday. According to UNICEF, malnutrition was
increasing due to "difficulties" with the Productive Safety Net
Programme (PSNP), and funding shortfalls were holding up measles and
polio vaccination campaigns. A lack of support from the international
community in areas like health, water and nutrition was also hampering
the humanitarian response, it added. Thursday's warning came as the
Ethiopian government prepared to make a new appeal for support on 2 May,
to help the growing numbers needing food aid and emergency assistance.

It is expected to announce an increase in the number of people needing
aid this year - which currently stands at around seven million. In
December, the UN and the Ethiopian government appealed for US $112
million for health, nutrition, water and sanitation, but have so far
received less than a quarter of that. Some $159 million was also
requested to help feed 2.2 million people facing hunger. "Despite the
mounting humanitarian needs, contributions have remained very low,
especially in the non-food sector," UNICEF said in a report.

[Full story
at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46747]


ETHIOPIA: Local observers to sue election board

A coalition of Ethiopian groups announced plans on Wednesday to file a
lawsuit against the country's electoral commission, saying that new
rules could prevent thousands of local observers from monitoring May's
legislative elections. "We believe this decision by the National
Election Board [NEB] is in contravention of the national election law of
Ethiopia, and violates our constitutional rights," said Netsanet
Demissie, director of the Organisation for Social Justice (OSJ), which
comprises 35 Ethiopian organisations. As many as 2,000 observers from
the coalition could be barred from monitoring the elections because of
the rule change, he added.

"It is going to be in the form of a class action," he added. "This
litigation is very important in many ways, because it sends a message
that contradictory directives will not be tolerated by the public and
civil-society organisations." Ethiopia will go to the polls on 15 May -
the third democratic ballot in the history of the country. Netsanet said
he was gathering written consent from all OSJ's member associations, and
would lodge papers at the end of this week or early next week.
Meanwhile, the coalition was continuing to apply for accreditation for
its domestic observers "under protest".

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46723]


SUDAN: Peacekeepers to arrive in the south within a month

The UN announced on Wednesday that it would have peacekeeping troops on
the ground in south Sudan within a month, to monitor the implementation
of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended 21 years of civil
war in the south.

"Military observers and troops will start deploying in the mission area
starting from next month," Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the UN
Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), told reporters in the Sudanese capital,
Khartoum. A humanitarian source in the central Sudanese garrison town of
Malakal told IRIN on Thursday that a force of 1,000 Indian soldiers was
expected to be deployed in the town, but the exact date of their arrival
remained unclear.

"Military liaison officers have been deployed in most sectors, and staff
officers are shuttling between Khartoum and [various] sectors to
fine-tune the deployment schedule of troops," Achouri said, adding that
44 staff officers had arrived in Khartoum on Wednesday to help with
preparations. According to Achouri, Gen Fazle Elahi Akbar, the
Bangladeshi commander of the UNMIS force, would visit the main southern
cities of Malakal, Wau and Juba on Thursday and Friday to "assess the
ground preparations for UN troops' deployment."

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46750]


SUDAN: Garang urges southern factions to reconcile

The chairman of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army
(SPLM/A), John Garang, appealed on Tuesday to all factions operating in
south Sudan to put aside their differences and reconcile. "It is time to
heal wounds and work in an atmosphere of fraternity and mutual respect,
in order to create a healthy political environment," Garang said in a
speech to the South-South Dialogue Conference taking place in Nairobi,
Kenya's capital.

"Dialogue will ensure that the benefits of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement [CPA] signed on 9 January in Nairobi between the SPLM [/A] and
the Khartoum government are enjoyed by all Sudanese for a long time," he
added. "This is a rare opportunity to create greater unity of our
people." Tuesday's conference was meant to bring together more than 20
armed groups from south Sudan to develop a consensus on issues ranging
from security, democracy and good governance to human rights, gender
equality and economic development. Chaired by former Kenyan President
Daniel arap Moi, the conference was attended by members of Sudanese
civil-society organisations, church groups and 11 political parties.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46720]


SUDAN: Violence continues to affect aid operations in Darfur - agencies

Violence in the western Sudanese region of Darfur continued to affect
humanitarian operations during the past two weeks, international
humanitarian agencies said on Monday. The Danish Refugee Council
reported that a local staff member was shot and killed on Friday evening
in Golo, in the Jebel Marra region of West Darfur state. "We don't know
who is responsible for this tragic incident, which happened when our
staff member was off duty, but investigations are ongoing," Anne-Sophie
Laenkholm, programme coordinator for the Danish Refugee Council, told
IRIN.

The World Food Programme (WFP) reported ongoing insecurity in the region
was adversely affecting its food distributions. On 6 April, a truck
hired by a WFP partner organisation joined a WFP convoy travelling to
Malha in North Darfur state. When the convoy stopped in Cindi town, the
truck with 25 mt of food was detained along with the driver, while the
WFP convoy was allowed to continue.

"We don't know exactly who did this or where the truck and the driver
are at the moment," Peter Smerdon, senior WFP spokesperson, told IRIN.
"Currently, we still have 12 WFP trucks missing, which have been stolen
during various incidents in March, January and November."

[Full story
at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46681]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
2005


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