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Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 232
19 - 25 February 2005


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA: UN appeals for more donor support
ETHIOPIA: Growing concern over "safety nets" policy
ETHIOPIA: Electoral board appeals for peaceful poll
ETHIOPIA: Poverty outlook reveals yet many challenges
SOMALIA: President, prime minister begin week-long tour
SUDAN: WFP warns of potential food crisis
SUDAN: World must act on Darfur situation, urges Egeland
SUDAN: Basic infrastructure lacking as thousands return to the south -
   UNHCR
SUDAN: Several killed as ammunition depot explodes in Juba


ALSO SEE:

DJIBOUTI: Anti-FGM protocol ratified but huge challenges remain at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45684

SUDAN: Longing for home as IDP camp life toughens at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45670

ETHIOPIA: UN appeals for more donor support

The UN country team in Ethiopia has called for more donor support to the
Horn of Africa country, saying it had received less than five percent of
the US $112 million needed for emergency interventions in sectors like
health, water, nutrition and sanitation. "Unless new pledges are
announced and made available in the coming weeks thousands of people
will suffer," Modibo Toure, UN Development Programme (UNDP) country
representative, said in a fresh appeal. "There have been very limited
contributions for non-food items such as for emergency water and health
and nutrition activities," the UN team said in a report. "Emergency
nutritional needs involving targeted supplementary feeding are
particularly important and require urgent donor attention."

It added: "New crises and the emergence of hot spots have also increased
emergency assistance needs since the launching of the Appeal in December
2004." Aid organisations have warned of continued drought and loss of
livestock in parts of Afar, and high mortality rates in parts of
Ethiopia's Somali Region. They also added that ethnic conflict had
sparked displacement of large numbers of people in border areas between
Oromiya and Somali Region. "Assistance is being provided, but additional
resources are required in the coming weeks," said the UN team. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45761]


ETHIOPIA: Growing concern over "safety nets" policy

Concern is mounting over Ethiopia's flagship "safetys net" policy set up
to end dependency on aid for five million people, the UN said. Paul
Herbert, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) said the needy had still not received any food or cash under the
scheme. "Safety net transfers to beneficiaries have not yet started and
this is raising serious concerns," he told IRIN on Wednesday.

The scheme, which had been due to start on 1 January, provides food or
cash (US $0.70 cents a day) to people for employment in public work
programmes. Working for food or cash, the government says, would end aid
dependency. Bill Hammink, head of the US Agency For International
Development, told Prime Minister Meles Zenawi earlier this month that
major challenges surrounded the programme. "We cannot underestimate the
challenge involved in moving 5.1 million people into the productive
safety nets programme over the next 12 month transition period," he
said.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45775]


ETHIOPIA: Electoral board appeals for peaceful poll

Elections in Ethiopia could be affected if widespread violence occurs in
the run-up to polling, the chairman of the country's national election
board (NEB) warned on Tuesday. Kemal Bedri, the country's chief justice,
spoke out after confirming that two people were killed in recent
attacks. "We can assure the opposition that if there are abuses, we will
take action," Kemal told journalists. The Coalition for Unity and
Democracy said the attacks last month were meant to intimidate
opposition leaders in the run-up to national elections, set for 15 May.
Kemal rejected claims by the opposition group that as many as 14 people
were killed and dozens wounded in clashes, saying the evidence had never
been presented to them.

"Our role is to ensure free and fair elections and we will do that," he
said. "The elections will be held peacefully as they have [been] before.
If the incidents are of such gravity that it could affect the outcome
then the NEB can freeze the elections and order a re-election." The
attacks, which were investigated by NEB officials, took place in the
northeastern region of eastern Gojam on 19 January, he added. [Full
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45732]


ETHIOPIA: Poverty outlook reveals yet many challenges

When Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi outlined his government's
latest scorecard in its fight against poverty on 14 February, he posed a
quandary to wealthy nations. Ethiopia is one of the poorest nations on
earth, yet it receives one of the lowest levels of aid, he said at the
UN Conference Centre in the capital, Addis Ababa. The World Bank and UN
say the country has the capacity to spend more, wide-scale reforms are
being implemented and the international community has pledged its
support. Yet Ethiopia receives a little over US $13 per head in foreign
aid, compared to an African average of $27.

Little wonder then, Meles added, that the Horn of Africa nation remained
burdened by massive poverty, hunger and disease. The UN estimates that
42 million people in Ethiopia receive what is considered to be below the
minimum nutritional requirement. Around seven million are dependent on
food aid, while HIV/AIDS claimed the lives of 100,000 people in 2004.
Added to that is the $116 million a year Ethiopia must pay in interest
on debts - a sum equivalent to health care spending in Ethiopia - and
the challenges are colossal. Yet the economy grew last year by 11.6
percent, inflation was cut to nine percent, school enrolment was
dramatically increased and health care coverage rolled out, Mekonnen
Manyazewal, state minister for finance and economic development told
IRIN.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45685]


SOMALIA: President, prime minister begin week-long tour

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Muhammad
Gedi on Thursday arrived in the town of Jowhar, 90 km north of
Mogadishu, the Somali capital, to begin a week-long "meet the people"
tour of various regions in the country, a local journalist told IRIN.
"Thousands of residents lined up the 16-km stretch of road between the
town and the airstrip and many more waited at the residence where the
President is expected to stay," Yusuf Ali Usman, a Jowhar-based
journalist, said. In Nairobi, the director of communications in Gedi's
office, Hussein Jabiri, confirmed the leaders' departure. Yusuf and
Gedi, accompanied by a large delegation of the Kenyan-based interim
Somali government, arrived at Jowhar "at around noon local time".

Local leaders, led by faction leader Muhammad Umar Habeb, who is also
the governor of Jowhar, received the delegation, Usman said. Yusuf and
Gedi had been due to make the trip on 23 February, but were delayed by
logistical problems. The tour marks the first time they have stepped on
Somali territory since Yusuf's election in October 2004 and his
appointment of Gedi two months later. The president's spokesman, Yusuf
Baribari, told IRIN the trip was part of the new government's relocation
process.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45760]


SUDAN: WFP warns of potential food crisis

The World Food Programme (WFP) has expressed concern about signs of a
potential food crisis in Sudan, saying that rapidly rising prices of
staple foodstuffs indicated that stocks were dwindling. "We are
beginning to worry that more people than we had anticipated would be
unable to feed themselves," Laura Melo, WFP spokesperson told IRIN on
Thursday. WFP, she said, had anticipated that 3.2 million people in
Sudan, excluding the strife-torn western region of Darfur, would need
food aid, and had appealed for US $302 million to fund operations to
help those affected by the shortages in 2005.

The agency was in the process of carrying out surveys to ascertain how
many more people might be in need, Melo said. However, she added, the
response to the existing appeal "had not been very good". Of the $302
million appealed for, only $22 million or eight percent of the
requirement had been received so far. Some of the areas worst affected
by the emerging crisis included Kordofan, Bahr el-Ghazal, Kassala and
the Red Sea State, Melo said. She added that in some of the regions, the
price of sorghum, a staple food in much of Sudan, had doubled since last
year.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45771]


SUDAN: World must act on Darfur situation, urges Egeland

Millions of people are at risk of starvation unless the international
community acts quickly on the situation in the war-torn western Sudanese
region of Darfur, Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator,
said. "Some are predicting four million, some are predicting - that
[more] people [are] in desperate need of life-saving assistance as we
approach the hunger gap in mid-year," Egeland told a news conference in
New York on Friday. "We did prevent the massive famine that many
predicted, but I think now its time to say we may perhaps not be able to
do so in the coming months if the situation keeps on deteriorating," UN
News reported him as saying.

Continued violence in Darfur, he added, was seriously hampering aid
efforts in the region. "Aid workers have been killed, our helicopters
have been shot at, our trucks are being looted there, we are paralysed,"
Egeland noted. "We could have provided daily bread for more than two
million people. We are, at best, giving to 1.5 million. This cannot
continue." He commended the humanitarian community - the UN, NGOs, the
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies - for their role in providing
relief to the vulnerable of Darfur. He noted that there were about 9,000
aid workers on the ground, with close to 1,000 being international.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45683]


SUDAN: Basic infrastructure lacking as thousands return to the south -
UNHCR

Thousands of displaced Sudanese have returned to the south following the
signing in January of a comprehensive peace agreement, but the region
totally lacks basic infrastructure, a UN official said. "An estimated
600,000 Sudanese have already returned home spontaneously," Wendy
Chamberlin, UNHCR deputy high commissioner, told reporters in the Kenyan
capital, Nairobi, on Friday. "Over 200,000 were non-registered refugees
from Uganda, the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] and Kenya and
perhaps as many as 400,000 were IDPs [internally displaced persons] who
returned on their own," she said.

Thousands more, she added, were expected within the next few months. The
returnees were, however, arriving in an area lacking basic
infrastructure - from roads, schools, clinics and buildings for the
local civil authorities, to protection for the returnees. "UNHCR does
not encourage people to return without assistance or without information
about the situation in their return destination," Chamberlin said.
"UNHCR is trying to prepare the ground by implementing community-based
programmes in the fields of water, health, education and landmine
clearance." She added: "UNHCR is in a race against time to get adequate
conditions in place for the Sudanese refugees and IDPs who are
anticipated to return within the next few months."

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45674]


SUDAN: Several killed as ammunition depot explodes in Juba

At least seven people were killed and several others injured when an
ammunition dump in the southern Sudanese town of Juba exploded, relief
sources told IRIN. A police statement said the explosions, which lasted
an hour and a half on Wednesday, destroyed a market west of the town and
damaged several homes and offices.

The official Sudan News Agency (SUNA), quoted a statement released by
armed forces spokesman, Gen Al-Abbas Abdel Rahman al-Khalifa, as saying
a warehouse where the ammunition was being kept blew up, causing a
series of explosions and scattering live fragments. He said seven people
were killed and 13 injured.

Khalifa, however, ruled out the possibility of "any hostile act behind
the incident", saying the extreme temperature of the late-morning heat
had caused the blast.

Other news sources, however, put the death toll much higher. The Sudan
News Service reported that the death toll had risen up to 80 people,
with about 250 injured.

Juba, southern Sudan's largest town, has a population of about 160,000,
and was controlled by Khartoum for the duration of the lengthy war
between the north and south. The war ended in January.

Meanwhile the UN has said more than US $1 billion would be needed to
fund the first year of the proposed UN peacekeeping mission in southern
Sudan.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45780]


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


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