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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 282
11 - 17 June 2005


CONTENTS:

ERITREA: Inadequate aid disrupting humanitarian programmes
ETHIOPIA: Britain freezes aid over civil unrest
ETHIOPIA: Government crackdown countrywide, rights group says
ETHIOPIA: US condemns use of force as MP is killed
SOMALIA: Government unwelcome in Jowhar, faction leader says
SOMALIA: Interim government starts relocation
SUDAN: Back to the table: Darfur talks resume after initial delays
SUDAN: National court to try suspects of Darfur crimes


ERITREA: Inadequate aid disrupting humanitarian programmes

Poor donor response to the UN humanitarian appeal for Eritrea has forced
some UN agencies to slow down their activities and others to stop aid
programmes, a senior official of the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday.

"Some activities that would have been implemented are still at an early
stage or have been stopped," Damien Gugliermina, the humanitarian
affairs officer for OCHA, said in Asmara, the Eritrean capital. He said
as of June, US $42 million dollars, representing about 27 percent of
total requirements, had been received.

This has affected the operations of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in
Eritrea. Its representative, Charlotte Gardiner, said her agency had
been unable to carry out planned activities to strengthen women's access
to emergency obstetric care in the shortest possible time. "Since we did
not get extra funding, we cannot make the extra effort to assist
Eritrea," she said. In November 2004, the UN launched its humanitarian
appeal 2005 for Eritrea asking donors for $157 million, of which $114
million was intended for food aid.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47650]


ETHIOPIA: Britain freezes aid over civil unrest

Britain has frozen =A320 million (US $36 million) in aid to Ethiopia due
to last week's civil unrest that left some 36 people dead, a senior UK
government official said on Wednesday. "I am putting on hold the planned
increase in direct budget support that we were looking at, which was 20
million [pounds]," Hilary Benn, Britain's development minister, told
reporters in the capital, Addis Ababa. "In my view, it is sensible to
hold on to that to see how the situation develops," he added.

Benn, who was on a one-day visit Ethiopia, announced the decision hours
after a meeting with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi during which they
discussed the recent violence triggered by demonstrations in Addis Ababa
against alleged fraud in the country's parliamentary elections on 15
May. Benn, who also met with opposition leaders to appeal for calm, said
Meles had promised a public investigation into the unrest during which
36 people died when police and troops allegedly opened fire on
stone-throwing protesters.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47667]


ETHIOPIA: Government crackdown countrywide, rights group says

Thousands of people have been arrested across Ethiopia following the
recent violence triggered by demonstrations against alleged fraud in
parliamentary elections, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday.
"The security forces have killed dozens of protesters and arbitrarily
detained thousands of people across the country," Georgette Gagnon, the
HRW deputy director for Africa, said in statement.

HRW said the security forces had responded to incidents of rock-throwing
and looting "by opening fire indiscriminately on large crowds of people,
killing at least 36 and wounding more than 100". The New-York-based
lobby group said student activists and opposition supporters had been
rounded up in towns and cities in a crackdown after last week's
fighting.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47652]


ETHIOPIA: US condemns use of force as MP is killed

The US on Monday condemned what it called "unnecessary use of excessive
force" in Ethiopia, amid opposition claims that police shot and killed
one of its newly elected Members of Parliament.

"We urge the government to respect the rule of law, international
principles of human rights, and due process with regard to those
arrested or detained," Sean McCormack, a US State Department spokesman,
said in a statement. The criticism of the government's handling of last
week's election-related civil unrest, which claimed the lives of 36
people, came as Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi extended a ban on
demonstrations in the capital, Addis Ababa, by one month.

The medical director of Addis' Menelik Hospital, Yerdaw Ashgari,
confirmed the death toll from the protests, which followed claims that
parliamentary elections held on 15 May had been rigged in favour of the
ruling party, the Ethiopia People's Revolutionary Democratic Front
(EPRDF).

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47626]


SOMALIA: Government unwelcome in Jowhar, faction leader says

The faction leader who controls the town Jowhar in south-central Somalia
said on Tuesday that interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's
Transitional Federal Government was no longer welcome in the town. The
announcement came after the faction leader, Muhammad Omar Habeb, spent
the better part of Monday at the airstrip in Jowhar, waiting for Yusuf's
arrival. However, Yusuf's plane did not land in Jowhar as it was
diverted to the neighbouring country of Djibouti.

Habeb, popularly known as Muhammad-dhere, was apparently angry because
Yusuf went to Djibouti after leaving the Kenyan capital, Nairobi,
instead of Jowhar, as planned, a local source said. Muhammad-dhere, who
had mobilised "the entire town" to welcome Yusuf, and his entourage "was
at the airstrip for over eight hours waiting for them," Abdikarim Omar,
a local journalist working for Radio Jowhar, said on Wednesday. [Full
report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47651 ]


SOMALIA: Interim government starts relocation

Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, which has been based in
Nairobi since formed eight months ago, began relocating to the country
on Monday. Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said the
relocation from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, would be completed in a few
days. "This morning [Monday] the president, the prime minister,
ministers and members of parliament will attend a farewell ceremony
being held for them by [Kenyan] President [Mwai] Kibaki at State House,"
Dinari said.

Interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was scheduled to depart for
Somalia following the ceremony, accompanied by cabinet ministers,
Members of Parliament and other officials," he said, adding that Prime
Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi and the rest of the Somali government "will
follow within the next few days".

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47609]


SUDAN: Back to the table: Darfur talks resume after initial delays

The Sudanese government resumed face-to-face peace talks with the two
main rebel movements in its western Darfur region on Monday after three
days of bickering over whether representatives from Chad and Eritrea
should be allowed to attend, officials involved in the negotiations
said. The latest round of peace talks mediated by the African Union
officially began in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Friday following a
six-month break.

However, Boubou Niang, the official spokesman of the AU mediation team,
said the negotiations failed to get off the ground over the weekend due
to the dispute over foreign representatives. Sudan objected to the
proposed presence of observers from Eritrea, which is widely seen as
sympathetic to the rebel cause. One of the two rebel groups said it did
not want to see officials from Chad sitting at the negotiating table. It
accused the government in N'Djamena of taking Khartoum's side in the
two-year-old conflict, which has forced nearly two million people to
flee their homes.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47620]


SUDAN: National court to try suspects of Darfur crimes

A court set up by the Sudanese government this week to bring to trial
suspects of crimes related to the conflict in the western region of
Darfur was due to begin its work on Wednesday, Sudan's official news
agency reported. Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin formed the
court on Monday by issuing a national decree. A prosecution council will
hear the cases of 160 people accused of committing crimes in the states
of North, West and South Darfur, the Sudan News Agency reported on
Tuesday.

By Wednesday, members of the court had arrived in Nyala, the capital of
South Darfur, and were preparing to begin hearing cases, a relief worker
told IRIN. The court will sit in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur. The
mandate for a federal court to try crimes committed in Darfur was handed
down a week after the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court,
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, opened his investigation into the situation in
Darfur. The UN Security Council, in a resolution on 31 March, referred
the crisis in Darfur to the ICC prosecutor. The decision required Sudan
and all other parties to the conflict to cooperate with the court.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47654]


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


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