U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

Tel: +254 2 622147
Fax: +254 2 622129
e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 346
30 September - 6 October 2006


CONTENTS:

ERITREA: Renewed efforts to outlaw female genital mutilation
SOMALIA: UN envoy on tour to ease tensions
SOMALIA: Puntland arrests traffickers and deports migrants
SOMALIA: Kismayo radio station back on air
SUDAN: Uneasy calm after 11 killed in Darfur clashes
SUDAN: "Hear Our Voices" - Our biggest problem is getting medicine -
   displaced woman
SUDAN: "Hear Our Voices" - I would like to complete my studies and be a
   doctor, IDP says


Also see:

SUDAN-UGANDA: Southern Sudanese still live in fear and hope at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55828


ERITREA: Renewed efforts to outlaw female genital mutilation

Women in Eritrea have joined a nationwide campaign to try to eradicate
female genital mutilation (FGM) by lobbying for a law to ban the
practice and raise mass awareness among the population, an official at
the National Union of Eritrean Women (NUEW) said on Wednesday.

"We are campaigning throughout the country with different institutions,
including religious leaders and government ministries," Dehab Suleiman,
the head of information and research at NUEW, said. "We also want
parliament to change the law to make it illegal."

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55820]


SOMALIA: UN envoy on tour to ease tensions

The United Nations special envoy to Somalia, Fran=E7ois Lonseny Fall, has
embarked on a seven-nation tour "to ease tensions" in the Horn of Africa
due to the crisis in Somalia.

With tensions particularly high between Somalia's Transitional Federal
Government (TFG) and the expanding Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), Fall,
the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for
Somalia, began his regional tour in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital,
on Tuesday to urge restraint among neighbouring states.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55824]


SOMALIA: Puntland arrests traffickers and deports migrants

Authorities in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland,
northeastern Somalia, have begun a campaign to detain and repatriate
would-be migrants waiting to be smuggled into Yemen and the Gulf states,
Puntland's deputy police chief said on Tuesday.

"As of today, we have repatriated 236 migrants to their homes in
Ethiopia and southern Somalia," said Col. Abdiaziz Sa'id Ga'amey, who
leads a special unit to deal with migrants. He said at least 81
migrants, "who were trying to board boats" to Yemen, had been arrested
and charged in court.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55800]


SOMALIA: Kismayo radio station back on air

The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which controls the capital,
Mogadishu, and much of south-central Somalia, has allowed the HornAfrik
radio sub-station in Kismayo to resume normal broadcasting, an official
of the Mogadishu-based HornAfrik, told IRIN on Monday.

Civil society groups that had been critical of the UIC's action have
welcomed the reopening of the radio station. "We welcome this new
development and hope there will be more consultation before such drastic
action is taken," said Abdullahi Shirwa of Civil Society in Action, an
umbrella group.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55788]


SUDAN: Uneasy calm after 11 killed in Darfur clashes

Clashes between fighters loyal to the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army
(SLM/A) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) have left at least 11
civilians dead in Gereida town, South Darfur State in western Sudan,
sources said on Tuesday.

"The AU [African Union] military group in Gereida reported that SLM
combatants had driven most of the men out," Noureddine Mezni, an AU
spokesman, said in Khartoum. "The combatants were busy looting the
properties of the men and raping the wives."

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55802]


SUDAN: "Hear Our Voices" - Our biggest problem is getting medicine -
displaced woman

Efforts to resettle internally displaced people (IDPs) in southern Sudan
are continuing as the region recovers from a 19-year war that ended in
2005 when the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) signed an
agreement with the government of Sudan.

Most of those displaced are women and children, some of whom have known
no other life apart from IDP camps. Some were too young to understand
why they had to flee their homes; others say they left because of
drought; while others left when SPLA fighters took their livestock.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55782]


SUDAN: "Hear Our Voices" - I would like to complete my studies and be a
doctor, IDP says

It is almost two years since a historic peace agreement between the
government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement
(SPLA/M) ended a 21-year war in which tens of hundreds of Sudanese died
and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

Since then, international focus has shifted to Sudan's Darfur region but
the suffering in southern Sudan has not evaporated with the signing of
the peace agreement.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55781]


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