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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 299
15 - 21 October 2005


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Ethiopia concerned about Eritrean restrictions on UN,
   says Meles
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN mission to continue work despite flight
   restrictions
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN vacates more monitoring posts on tense border
ETHIOPIA: Campaign launched against child trafficking
ERITREA: Government downplays helicopter restrictions
ERITREA: Fuel prices could affect harvest benefits, says FEWS Net
SOMALIA: Commission to coordinate anti-HIV/AIDS efforts in Puntland
SOMALIA: UN condemns arms embargo violations
SUDAN-UGANDA: LRA attacks hampering aid effort in southern Sudan - UN


SEE ALSO:

ETHIOPIA: Interview with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49594

SUDAN: Darfur nomads face adversity in isolation at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49640


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Ethiopia concerned about Eritrean restrictions on UN, 
says Meles

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi expressed serious concern on 
Wednesday over restrictions imposed by Eritrea on UN peacekeepers 
patrolling the two countries' disputed border. Speaking to journalists 
in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Meles said the restrictions were 
a violation of a peace agreement signed by the two countries, adding 
that the UN "should take necessary measures to restore the status quo".

His comments came days after UN peacekeepers said the restrictions 
imposed on 5 October had prevented them from ensuring that there was no 
renewed military build-up along the border separating the Ethiopian and 
Eritrean armies. Eritrea banned helicopter flights by peacekeepers in 
its airspace in the buffer zone and also restricted some UN night 
patrols on its side of the 1,000-km long Temporary Security Zone (TSZ).

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49641]


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN mission to continue work despite flight 
restrictions

The United Nations said on Tuesday it would not withdraw its 
peacekeepers from Eritrea and Ethiopia despite their ability to monitor 
the two countries' tense border being seriously hampered by a recent ban 
imposed by Eritrea on UN helicopter flights. "We are going to stay here 
and do what we can with the little we have remaining in terms of our 
resources," Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, the Special Representative of the 
UN Secretary-General, told a news conference organised by the UN Mission 
in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE).

"I just don't want anybody to go around saying that UNMEE is about to 
withdraw from the mission, because we are not about to withdraw," he 
added. On Monday, two seriously injured Kenyan peacekeepers could not be 
air-lifted for immediate treatment due to the flight ban. The 
peacekeepers were among three who were injured when their vehicle 
skidded off a road near Shambiko in the western sector of the Temporary 
Security Zone (TSZ) on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49625]


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN vacates more monitoring posts on tense border

The recent ban on UN helicopter flights by the Eritrean government has 
forced international peacekeepers to abandon a number of monitoring 
posts on the tense Ethiopian-Eritrean border region, the UN said in a 
statement on Monday.

"The continuing occupation of small posts in isolated places has become 
untenable and operationally unviable," the UN Mission in Ethiopia and 
Eritrea (UNMEE) reported. "Out of a total of 40 posts [...] UNMEE has 
now decided to vacate 18 of them and one Team Site of military 
observers."

The 18 posts are located throughout the border region and include two 
posts that were vacated last week. "Troops from these posts will be used 
to augment other posts in the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) in order to 
make their strength operationally viable," UNMEE said, referring to the 
25-km buffer area inside Eritrea's southern border.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49593]


ETHIOPIA: Campaign launched against child trafficking

Ethiopian children are being sold for as little as US $1.20 to work as 
domestic workers or prostitutes, the International Organization for 
Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday. Up to 20,000 children, some 10 years 
old, are sold each year by their parents and trafficked by unscrupulous 
brokers to work in cities across Ethiopia, the IOM added. The figures 
were announced as the Ethiopian government, the UN and the IOM launched 
a campaign to highlight the suffering endured by vulnerable children in 
this Horn of Africa nation.

Dubbed "Ethiopia's Campaign for Vulnerable Children", the campaign 
encourages candidates running in local elections scheduled for early 
2006 to push the issue onto the agenda. Top athletes - including 
Ethiopian Olympic gold medallist Kenenisa Bekele - have also joined the 
campaign to highlight the plight of vulnerable or orphaned children.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49655]


ERITREA: Government downplays helicopter restrictions

Eritrea downplayed the significance of restricting UN helicopters on 
Thursday, describing recent remarks by the Ethiopian prime minister as 
duplicitous. Speaking to journalists for the first time since Eritrea 
grounded UN peacekeeping helicopters earlier this month, a senior 
government official said that recent comments by Ethiopian Prime 
Minister Meles Zenawi were offensive.

Yemane Ghebremeskel, a presidential adviser in Eritrea, was referring to 
remarks made by Meles in Addis Ababa on Wednesday. The Ethiopian prime 
minister told reporters in the capital that the flight restrictions were 
a violation of the peace agreement signed by the two countries, adding 
that the UN "should take necessary measures to restore the status quo." 
"I find the audacity of the prime minister marvelling," said 
Ghebremeskel. "If he is serious, it is an extreme case of duplicity 
because Ethiopia and the prime minister have violated the Algiers 
Agreement flagrantly and repeatedly."

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49672]


ERITREA: Fuel prices could affect harvest benefits, says FEWS Net

While increased rainfall in Eritrea should bring about higher crop 
yields this year, recent hikes in fuel prices may undermine the benefits 
of the harvest, a report said on Wednesday. "The expected harvest is 
likely to improve the food security situation by increasing the flow of 
fresh food commodities into local markets, which most likely will lower 
the price of major agricultural products," the US-funded Famine Early 
Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) said in its food security update in 
September.

The report cautioned, however: "The recent rise in fuel prices has 
exacerbated households' food insecurity and could counteract the impact 
of the expected harvest on household security." The most recent price 
rise for fuel in Eritrea was in August, when the cost of petrol 
increased from 32 Eritrean nakfa (US $2.13) to 38 nakfa ($2.53) per 
litre.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49619]


SOMALIA: Commission to coordinate anti-HIV/AIDS efforts in Puntland

Authorities in Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, 
northeastern Somalia, launched on Saturday a commission to coordinate 
efforts to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS. The Puntland AIDS Commission 
(PAC) was established under the office of the president as a 
multisectoral partnership comprised of six ministries, civil society 
organisations, religious leaders and representatives of people living 
with or affected by HIV/AIDS.

"Prevention is our most powerful tool to address this epidemic," 
Puntland's acting President, Hasan Dahir, said during the launch. "It 
remains critical that we continue to prioritise prevention through 
promoting awareness on life skills and HIV/AIDS education, while also 
directly addressing behaviour change." Elballa Hagona, UN Development 
Programme country director for Somalia, applauded the acting president's 
decision to embark on an HIV/AIDS prevention campaign while infection 
rates in the region were relatively low.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49614]


SOMALIA: UN condemns arms embargo violations

The UN Security Council has condemned the increase in the flow of arms 
and ammunition into Somalia in violation of a 13-year-old arms embargo 
against the war-scarred Horn of Africa nation. In a resolution on 
Friday, the Council underscored the importance of "enhancing the 
monitoring of the [...] through persistent and vigilant investigation 
into the violations, bearing in mind that strict enforcement of the arms 
embargo will improve the overall security situation".

The resolution followed findings by a UN monitoring team that violations 
- both by the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), its 
opponents in the capital, Mogadishu, and certain states in the region - 
had recently taken a "sustained and dramatic upswing". In a report 
released on 4 October, the team said the increased arms inflow was a 
manifestation of "highly aggravated political tensions between the TFG 
and the opposition".

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49589]


SUDAN-UGANDA: LRA attacks hampering aid effort in southern Sudan - UN

Continued attacks on civilians in southern Sudan by the Ugandan rebel 
group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), are making humanitarian access 
to the region's vulnerable populations increasingly difficult, the UN 
Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said on Wednesday. It said the impaired access 
was preventing relief agencies from forming a clear picture of the 
numbers of affected populations and delivering much-needed aid, the UN 
News Service reported.

The LRA, which has waged a 19-year war against the government of Uganda, 
operates from bases in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, and 
frequently targets southern Sudanese civilians. The government of Sudan, 
the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army and the Ugandan 
army recently launched a joint operation to flush the rebels out of 
Sudan.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49656]


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2005


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