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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 228
22 - 28 January 2005


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA: Cereal food prices to rise despite good harvest
ETHIOPIA: New strategy launched to combat HIV/AIDS
SOMALIA: Relocation plans going ahead despite killing of police chief
   in Mogadishu
SOMALIA: Human rights expert pleads for tsunami-affected
SUDAN: EU resumes development aid
SUDAN: SPLM/A parliament ratifies southern peace agreement
SUDAN: Darfur villages reportedly burnt in fresh violence
SUDAN: Many reported killed during new hostilities in Darfur


ETHIOPIA: Cereal food prices to rise despite good harvest

Poor families in Ethiopia could be hit by unusually high cereal prices, 
according to a report by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS 
Net). Current high prices could be pushed up even further by local 
purchase of food aid that is planned for this year, the USAID-funded 
FEWS Net said on 20 January. The high prices, it added, had come as a 
surprise to many aid organisations because they followed reports of a 
bumper harvest in the country.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food 
Programme (WFP), this year's harvest is expected to be 10 percent higher 
than last year's. FAO and WFP are predicting about 14 million mt of 
cereals - almost 23 percent increase from the past five-year average - 
and following last year's good harvest. Traditionally, the price of 
cereals - the main food supply in Ethiopia - drops at this time of year 
because it is the main harvest period. However, current maize prices are 
around US $170 per mt - compared with previous years of $105 per mt.

[Full story
at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45215]


ETHIOPIA: New strategy launched to combat HIV/AIDS

Ethiopia is beginning to turn the tide in the war against HIV/AIDS, but 
the virus is still devastating the country, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi 
said on Monday. Speaking at the launch of the government's new 
three-year anti-HIV/AIDS strategic plan in the capital, Addis Ababa, 
Meles warned that hundreds of thousands of people were still dying. 
"Even though our struggle is bearing some encouraging results, we must 
not forget that we have one and a half million people infected by the 
virus," he said. "Even if the rate of progression of the epidemic is 
decreasing, hundreds of thousands of our people continue to perish."

His comments came as the government began the first-ever distribution of 
antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for up to 30,000 people this year. It 
estimates that ARVs could prevent 78,000 AIDS deaths in the first year 
if all people living with HIV/AIDS had access to the treatment. Full ARV 
coverage, the government added, could also reduce orphan numbers by 
332,000 by 2008. The new strategic plan - the fifth since the first ever 
strategy was drawn up in 1996 - aims to boost health coverage 
countrywide and speed up behavioural change.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45188]


SOMALIA: Relocation plans going ahead despite killing of police chief in 
Mogadishu

The Interim Somali government, which is based in Nairobi, Kenya, is 
continuing to plan its relocation to Somalia in early February despite 
the killing of a senior police officer in Mogadishu on Sunday, sources 
said. "There is no question that government plans to relocate will 
continue," a source in the prime minister's office told IRIN on Tuesday. 
"As repugnant as the killing is, there is no change of plans."  The 
cabinet met on Monday to discuss security and has agreed to continue 
with the relocation plan, the source added. It had initially resolved to 
start preparations for a return to Somalia during its first formal 
meeting on 15 January.

Three teams composed of cabinet ministers were formed to start making 
the necessary arrangements, according to a statement issued on 18 
January by the prime minister's office. "Preparations are already 
underway to implement the decision of the cabinet," the director of 
communications in the prime minister's office, Hussein Jabiri, told IRIN 
at the time. The first team of ministers to leave for the Somali 
capital, Mogadishu, would "consist of 30 members and will be led by the 
prime minister", Jabiri added.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45212]


SOMALIA: Human rights expert pleads for tsunami-affected

The UN independent expert on human rights, Ghanim Alnajjar, on Monday 
urged the international community to "remember those affected by the 
tsunami in the Puntland region of northeastern Somalia where more than 
150 people were killed and about 50,000 people" have been affected. 
Noting that some emergency supplies had been distributed to hundreds of 
families affected by the 26 December tsunami, Alnajjar, in a statement, 
said: "Somali victims of the devastating tsunami may be in danger of 
being forgotten by the international community."

"The independent expert notes that at this crucial time, when Somalia is 
working on reconciliation and reconstruction, the international 
community must, more than ever, support the fledgling Transitional 
Federal Government, which has set up a special commission to coordinate 
Somali relief," the statement issued by the UN Office of the High 
Commissioner for Human Rights, added. Meanwhile, the international 
charity, CARE-USA, has allocated US $2.5 million to help rebuild Somali 
communities devastated by the tsunami over the next 18 months. The funds 
will be used for short-term emergency relief, reconstruction and 
rehabilitation, disaster mitigation plans and training, livelihood 
recovery and helping families generate incomes, CARE said.

[Full story 
at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45210]


SUDAN: Many reported killed during new hostilities in Darfur

Scores of civilians have reportedly been killed and thousands displaced 
in a series of attacks on villages across the western Sudanese region of 
Darfur, according to the UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS). A UN 
assessment team that travelled to Hamada, Juruf and Gemeiza villages in 
South Darfur state found that renewed hostilities last week had claimed 
many lives and displaced more than 9,000 people. "It has been confirmed 
that the village of Hamada was nearly totally destroyed and that up to 
105 civilians may have been killed, with the majority of victims being 
women and children," UNAMIS Deputy Spokesperson George Somerwill told 
IRIN on Thursday.

Aid workers and rebels claimed government planes bombed the area on 19 
January, but Somerwill was unable to confirm which groups had been 
involved in the fighting or how the victims were killed. He said an 
estimated 8,000 people had fled the fighting to nearby Menawashi and 
1,250 to Mershing, both in South Darfur state. In another deadly 
incident, between 24 and 36 people were reportedly killed and 26 others 
injured, when a group of rebels attacked the village of Malam, about 100 
km north of the South Darfur capital, Nyala, on 21 January, Somerwill 
said.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45257]


SUDAN: EU resumes development aid

Following the signing of a comprehensive peace accord between the 
government of Sudan (GoS) and the Sudan People's Liberation 
Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on 9 January, the European Commission (EC) has 
agreed to start releasing European development funds to Sudan, which had 
been frozen since 1990. A "country strategy paper" for Sudan, drawn up 
by the EC in consultation with the GoS and SPLM/A, was signed on Tuesday 
in Brussels by Sudanese Minister for International Cooperation Yusuf 
Sulayman Takanah and European Commissioner for Development Louis Michel.

The signing of the strategy paper, which determines priorities for 
development cooperation between the European Union (EU) and Sudan, paves 
the way for the resumption of EU-Sudanese development cooperation. 
"Although the EU provided 500 million euros (US $648,650,000) in 
humanitarian assistance since 1992, official EC [European Commission] 
development assistance to Sudan was halted since 1990, as a result of 
the government's human rights record," Dex Agourides, EC liaison officer 
for Sudan in Nairobi, told IRIN on Wednesday.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45243]


SUDAN: SPLM/A parliament ratifies southern peace agreement

The National Liberation Council, the southern Sudan People's Liberation 
Movement/Army's (SPLM/A) legislative body, on Monday unanimously 
ratified the southern peace agreement ending the 21-year civil war in 
the south. Members of the 224-seat Council convened in Rumbek, the 
provisional capital of southern Sudan, to discuss the requirements of 
the agreement, signed on 9 January by the Sudanese government and the 
SPLM/A in Nairobi, Kenya. "It didn't take the members of the National 
Liberation Council much time in order for them to ratify the agreement," 
Yassir Arman, spokesperson of the SPLM/A, told IRIN on Tuesday.

"As some delegates were part of the negotiating team, the Council was 
already intimately aware of the details of the peace agreement," he 
added. Delegates were particularly concerned about the large number of 
Muslim countries that had offered to contribute forces to a future 
peacekeeping mission, fearing a northern bias during the implementation 
of the peace agreement in the south. Although the peace deal ends the 
application of Islamic Sharia law in the southern region, it was 
criticised for its perceived failure to lift Sharia from the Khartoum 
region.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45213]


SUDAN: Darfur villages reportedly burnt in fresh violence

Eight villages in the western Sudanese region of Darfur were reportedly 
burned to the ground on Friday in a fresh outbreak of violence, sources 
said. An unspecified number of people were killed, the sources added. 
"The police have reported the attacks and the African Union monitoring 
team is investigating what exactly happened," a humanitarian worker in 
the region, told IRIN on Monday. Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the 
United Nations Advance Mission in Sudan said the incident had not yet 
been formally reported to the mission. "We have heard about the attacks, 
but are trying to get confirmation," she said.

The official Sudan News Agency reported that the attacks were carried 
out by Darfur rebels and took place near Malam, about 100 km north of 
Nyala, the capital of South Darfur State. "The rebels have carried out a 
heinous attack on the areas of Malam, burning down eight villages and 
killing and injuring a number of civilians and looting properties," the 
agency quoted a government statement as saying. Other international 
media reported that the two main rebel groups, Justice and Equality 
Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), had 
denied any involvement in the incidents.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45191]


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2005


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