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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 283
18 - 24 June 2005


CONTENTS:

SUDAN: Gov't camps destroyed during fighting in the east
SUDAN: Rebels attack government soldiers in South Darfur
SUDAN: Khartoum drops charges against MSF officials
SOMALIA: Transitional president meets speaker in Yemen
SOMALIA: TFG preparing to begin operating from Jowhar
SOMALIA: EC grants =8020 million to fight rural poverty
ERITREA: International community urged to help end border dispute
ETHIOPIA: Critical malnutrition levels in refugee camps
ETHIOPIA: Poll body to probe complaints in 135 constituencies


SUDAN: Gov't camps destroyed during fighting in the east

Rebels of the Beja Congress group in eastern Sudan have destroyed three
government military camps during fighting that broke out in the
northeast on Sunday, one of the rebel leaders said on Thursday.

"Our forces destroyed three big camps and other smaller stations," said
Salah Barqueen, secretary for legal affairs of the Beja Congress, which
merged with the Rashaida Free Lions in February to form the Eastern
Front.

The fighting started when the rebels launched a major offensive for
control of the Red Sea town of Tokar, some 120 km south of Port Sudan.

In a statement issued on Monday, the Sudanese army claimed that it had
dealt with the offensive and was in complete control of the area.
Barqueen refuted the government claims. By Tuesday, he said, the rebels
had captured 20 government soldiers and significant quantities of
weapons and ammunition.

Speaking at the Beja Congress offices in the Eritrean capital, Asmara,
he told IRIN that the attack involved both eastern rebels and those from
the Justice and Equality Movement in the western Sudanese region of
Darfur.

The eastern rebels have clashed intermittently with government forces in
eastern Sudan since 1996, Beja sources said, but tension has risen in
recent months.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47757]


SUDAN: Rebels attack government soldiers in South Darfur

Violence flared up in the western Sudanese state of South Darfur on
Sunday when rebel fighters of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) attacked
and killed a number of Sudanese soldiers, a UN spokesperson said.

The attack on government troops took place in the area of Manawashi,
about 78 km north of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur State. "We know
for a fact that an attack by SLA rebels took place, but we don't know
why they attacked or how many casualties there are," Radhia Achouri,
spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Sudan said on Wednesday.

A humanitarian source reported that four Sudanese soldiers were killed
and three others wounded during the attack, adding that it was possible
the SLA leadership had been unable to control its forces on the ground.

"As of yesterday [Tuesday] afternoon, the Sudanese military has sealed
off the area and has restricted the movement of displaced persons (IDPs)
as well as NGOs," the source added. "The IDPs are currently cut off from
assistance."

The attack comes at a time when the AU, which is mediating in the Darfur
peace talks in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, is attempting to bring
back the warring parties to the negotiating table.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47768]


SUDAN: Khartoum drops charges against MSF officials

The international medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), said
on Monday the Sudanese authorities had dropped all charges against two
of its senior officials accused by Khartoum of publishing false
information.

MSF-Holland's head of mission in Sudan, Paul Foreman, and its regional
co-coordinator in Darfur, Vincent Hoedt, were arrested at the end of May
and charged with publishing false information, undermining the Sudanese
society and spying.

The charges were related to the publication in March of a report
entitled "The Crushing Burden of Rape" - on sexual violence in the
strife-torn western region of Darfur. The two officials had been freed
on bail and forbidden to leave the country.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47716]


SOMALIA: Transitional president meets speaker in Yemen

The transitional Somali president and parliamentary speaker have met in
Yemen to try and resolve disagreements that have split Somalia's
fledgling government, the deputy prime minister said on Thursday.

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed travelled to Yemen after leaving the
Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 13 June. His Transitional Federal Government
had been based in Nairobi since it was formed in October, 2004. Yusuf
was later joined by the speaker, Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden.

"They are trying to formulate a framework for an agreement on all issues
that have split the government," Mohamud Jama "Sifir", the deputy prime
minister said by telephone from Mogadishu.

He said the Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh had offered to mediate
in the "dialogue" between Yusuf and Aden after attempts by Uganda, Kenya
and Ethiopia to resolve the disagreement failed.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47788]


SOMALIA: TFG preparing to begin operating from Jowhar

Somalia's interim government has begun establishing itself in the town
of Jowhar, where it will be based until security is restored in the
capital, Mogadishu, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

"The government is in the process of setting itself up in Jowhar and the
prime minister [Ali Muhammad Gedi] laid the foundation for the
construction of a larger airport yesterday [Tuesday]," Hussein Jabiri,
director of information in the prime minister's office, said.

The Transitional Federal Government has been based in the Kenyan
capital, Nairobi, for the eight months since its formation, and only
began relocating to Somalia on 13 June.

Jabiri said the entire cabinet was expected to move to Jowhar, 90 km
north of Mogadishu, by 1 July, Somalia's independence day.

Somalia had no functional central authority for the 14 years following
the collapse in 1991 of the government of Muhammad Siyad Barre. Civil
war erupted in the Horn of Africa state soon after Barre was toppled as
various factions and rival warlords fought for power.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47767]


SOMALIA: EC grants =8020 million to fight rural poverty

The European Commission (EC) has awarded Somalia two grants worth a
total of =8020 million (US $24.6 million) to fight rural poverty and
strengthen the development of water and sanitation services, the EC
Somalia operations office announced on Friday.

"Assistance to Somalia supports food security and rural development
interventions which contribute to poverty reduction in rural areas where
66 percent of all Somalis live," the Kenya-based office said in a
statement.

The EC has awarded seven grants, totalling =8010 million ($12.3 million),
to international NGOs to assist Somalia's rural poor.

CARE and VETAID would target 35,000 drought-affected pastoralists in the
northeast, while CEFA, an Italian NGO, and Save the Children - UK will
target 5,400 vulnerable farmers in the Hiraan and Middle Shabelle
regions of central Somalia.

An education project sponsored by the British Broadcasting Corporation
would train 63,000 livestock-dependent households in animal breeding and
care, natural-resource management, marketing and product
diversification.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47718]


ERITREA: International community urged to help end border dispute

Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki on Monday urged the international
community to pressure Ethiopia to end a border stand-off between the two
countries, and claimed that the world seemed to favour Addis Ababa in
the dispute.

"We call on those that claim to tag themselves with the label of 'the
international community' - and who continue to allow that the rule of law
be violated and our sovereign territories remain under occupation -to
shoulder their responsibilities before it is too late," Isayas said at a
gathering to mark Martyrs' Day in the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

The day is observed in remembrance of citizens who died during Eritrea's
three-decade war for independence from Ethiopia.

Eritrea attained sovereignty in 1991, but the two countries took up arms
again in 1998 over a border dispute. Although that conflict ended in a
truce in 2000, a disagreement over the demarcation of the boundary has
kept tensions between the two states high.

In the December 2000 peace accord, both sides agreed that the ruling of
an independent boundary commission would be "final and binding". When
the commission made its ruling in April 2002, however, Ethiopia rejected
it. Eritrea has refused to negotiate an international treaty.

More than 70,000 people were killed during the 1998-2000 war. The armies
of the two states now face each other across a 25 km-wide demilitarised
zone that is patrolled by some UN 3,300 peacekeepers.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47760]


ETHIOPIA: Critical malnutrition levels in refugee camps

Malnutrition has reached critical levels in Fugnido and Bonga refugee
camps, which are in an area wracked by ethnic violence in recent years,
the UN said on Wednesday. The two camps, located close to the Sudanese
border in the Gambella region, are home to almost 48,000 people.

"A combination of factors have led to this severe situation, including
delayed delivery of food due to transport problems, insecurity both
inside and outside the Fugnido camp, and a lack of basic health and safe
water services," the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) said in a report.

"In Bonga camp, food deliveries have also been delayed and crops have
not been planted due to restrictions in movement outside the camp," OCHA
added.

Emergency feeding centres had been set up for 170 children in the camps.
Clean water was being trucked in by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), while
the UN World Food Programme was trying to transport supplies to the
refugees.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47785]


ETHIOPIA: Poll body to probe complaints in 135 constituencies

Ethiopia's electoral board said on Monday it would investigate
allegations of vote rigging in 135 constituencies out of the 299 where
complaints were lodged following parliamentary elections on 15 May.

"Of the 299 constituencies where it was alleged that fraud had taken
place, investigations will take place only in 135 constituencies,"
Getahun Amogne, spokesman for the National Electoral Board (NEB), told
IRIN.

"Complaints lodged for the rest of the constituencies were not properly
documented and [were] unsubstantiated according to the review body," he
added.

The investigations are expected to start next week, but political
parties were on Monday given 48 hours to appeal against NEB's rejection
of 164 complaints.

Rival political parties have lodged 61 types of complaints, including
gunmen intimidating voters, people being forced to vote for certain
parties, ballot boxes being stuffed or disappearing and the number of
ballots exceeding those of registered voters.

The ruling party has won 302 seats and its allies 26, according to the
provisional results released so far. Opposition parties got 194 seats in
the 547-seat lower house of parliament, up from the 12 seats they won
during elections in 2000.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47753]


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


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