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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 301
29 October - 4 November 2005


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Annan urges restraint as troop movement reported on
   disputed border
ETHIOPIA: Death toll at 33 on third day of violence in capital
ETHIOPIA: Police attacked in troubled western region
ERITREA: Gov't says UN has failed to maintain peace in Horn of Africa
SOMALIA: Somaliland asks for replacement of EU liaison officer
SOMALIA: UN envoy commends Somaliland's stability
SUDAN: Swiss de-mining company suspends operations in the south
SUDAN: Darfur rebel dispute could divide movement


SEE ALSO:

SUDAN: Displaced girls trying to cope on the streets at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49877


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Annan urges restraint as troop movement reported on 
disputed border

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern on Wednesday about 
reported movements of military personnel on both the Ethiopian and 
Eritrean sides of the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) along their common 
border. In a statement issued by his spokesman, Annan said there had 
also been reports of "irregular activities inside the zone," and troop 
movements involving small and large military and paramilitary 
formations, armour as well as aerial defence assets.

"The Secretary-General strongly urges the parties to exercise maximum 
restraint and to put an immediate halt to any actions that may be 
misinterpreted by the other side or jeopardise the security arrangements 
which they agreed to in the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities of 
18 June 2000," the statement said.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49915]


ETHIOPIA: Death toll at 33 on third day of violence in capital

Two more people were killed and eight others injured in the Ethiopian 
capital of Addis Ababa on Thursday, bringing the death toll in three 
days of violence to 33, with more than 150 injured, doctors said. 
Although most of the city was tentatively calm, renewed fighting broke 
out sporadically in areas close to several foreign embassies. Police and 
heavily armed troops maintained a heavy presence, and armoured personnel 
carriers patrolled the streets.

At least three policemen were killed as they clashed with protesters who 
were demonstrating against the disputed elections, which took place in 
May. Many people had been arrested, although accurate numbers were not 
available. Diplomats said they believed as many as 2,000 people had been 
detained.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49919]


ETHIOPIA: Police attacked in troubled western region

Four police officers were shot dead and six others wounded after rebels 
attacked their station in Ethiopia's troubled western region, police 
said on Monday. The men, including the state police commissioner, were 
killed during a shoot-out on Sunday in Gambella town, some 700 km west 
of the capital, Addis Ababa. "Members of the Defence forces and the 
Federal Police are in hot pursuit of the culprits," Senday Gach, a 
police spokesman, said in a statement.

Western diplomats remarked that the death toll could be higher. "An 
armed group attacked the prison in Gambella to try and release some of 
their colleagues," said one diplomat on the condition of anonymity. 
"Although it has been fairly quiet in recent months, tensions have been 
increasing recently."

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49878]


ERITREA: Gov't says UN has failed to maintain peace in Horn of Africa

The Eritrean government has accused the UN Security Council of failing 
to maintain peace in the Horn of Africa, where a stalemate over border 
demarcation and the recent grounding of UN helicopters has increased 
tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia. "The disturbing fact is the 
Security Council has to date failed to carry out its obligations to 
maintain regional peace and security under the United Nations Charter 
and the two Algiers Agreements," President Isaias Afwerki said in a 
letter on Friday to the president of the Security Council.

"Current attempts by the Security Council to blame Eritrea are 
unwarranted, both legally and politically," he added.The letter followed 
another to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in which Isaias said the UN 
was engaged in an "unacceptable" campaign to portray "a humanitarian 
crisis" in Eritrea.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49849]


SOMALIA: Somaliland asks for replacement of EU liaison officer

The European Union (EU) expressed concern on Thursday over a decision by 
authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland to expel one of 
the organisation's officials from the territory. Richard Hands, the 
European Commission's operations manager for Somalia, said authorities 
in Hargeysa, Somaliland's capital, had asked for the replacement of one 
of the commission's officers.

In a letter to the EU office, Somaliland's national planning minister, 
Ahmed Haji Dahir Elmi, ordered the EU liaison officer in the territory, 
Ahmed Muhammed Mahamud, better known as Ahmed "Washington", to leave 
Somaliland within 48 hours. "The EU liaison officer [in Hargeysa] Ahmed 
Mohamed has been declared persona non grata and he should, with 
immediate effect, stop his operation here and leave Somaliland within 48 
hours," Elmi said in the letter.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49920]


SOMALIA: UN envoy commends Somaliland's stability

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative to Somalia, Francois 
Lonseny Fall, on Monday praised efforts by the self-declared republic of 
Somaliland to nurture democracy and enhance stability in the territory. 
"The people of Somaliland are to be commended for the progress they have 
made towards security and true democracy," Fall, who visited Somaliland 
for talks with senior officials, political party leaders and civil 
society representatives, said.

Residents of Somaliland, he said, had "succeeded in rising above the 
conflicts that have stifled social progress and the peaceful aspiration 
of the vast majority of the Somali people for the past 14 years". The 
visit was Fall's first trip to Somaliland, the northwestern Somali 
region that unilaterally seceded from the rest of Somalia after the 
collapse of regime of the late Muhammad Siyad Barre, in 1991. [Full 
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49871]


SUDAN: Swiss de-mining company suspends operations in the south

The Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) has suspended its operations 
in areas of southern Sudan after suspected rebels of the Lord's 
Resistance Army (LRA) killed two de-miners in an attack on Monday. "A 
FSD mine clearance team working in support of the United Nations World 
Food Programme's road reconstruction and rehabilitation programme was 
ambushed in south Sudan," FSD announced in a statement.

An Iraqi international team supervisor and a Sudanese colleague were 
killed, the statement added, and two government soldiers who had 
accompanied the convoy were injured. "As a result of this incident FSD 
will close all operations on the Juba - Jebelin and Nimule - Jebelin 
roads," FSD noted.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49902]


SUDAN: Darfur rebel dispute could divide movement

The reconciliation meeting called on Sunday by Darfur's main rebel 
group, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), could fail to unite 
the movement after its president, Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, refused to 
attend, observers fear. Growing rifts between both political leaders and 
military commanders as well as between the Zaghawa and Fur factions of 
the SLM/A have led to a breakdown in the movement's command structure.

It has also created a disconnect between political aspirations at the 
peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, and military operations on 
the ground, observers noted. SLM/A mediators arrived at the 
reconciliation meeting to try and resolve the dispute between its 
president and its secretary-general, Minni Arko Minnawi, in order to 
present a unified front when the stalled African Union-sponsored talks 
resume on 21 November.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49844]


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


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