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 336
15 - 21 July 2006


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA: Increased efforts to prevent blindness
SOMALIA-DJIBOUTI: Troop deployment premature, Djibouti Gov't says
SOMALIA: Alarm in Baidoa over militia movements
SOMALIA: Gov't boycotts peace talks with Islamic group
SUDAN: Donors pledge to boost African force in Darfur
SUDAN: Clashes claim 28 lives in southern town - NGO
SUDAN: Calls to help AU avert catastrophe in Darfur


ETHIOPIA: Increased efforts to prevent blindness

The Ethiopian government is to increase efforts to prevent and treat 
blindness, which afflicts a large number of people across the country, 
said Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

Meles was speaking after visiting a cataract surgery training programme 
provided for Ethiopian ophthalmologists by the ORBIS International 
flying eye hospital. Some 40 local ophthalmologists attended the 
training.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54725]


SOMALIA-DJIBOUTI: Troop deployment premature, Djibouti Gov't says

Deployment of foreign peacekeepers in Somalia - proposed by the African 
Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development - was premature 
and could make matters worse, Djibouti?s Foreign Minister, Mahamoud Ali 
Youssouf, said.

"Djibouti's position is that the main parties in Somalia have embarked 
on a process of dialogue," Yusuf told IRIN on Wednesday. "Let's give 
that process a chance before we introduce foreign forces."

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54691]


SOMALIA: Alarm in Baidoa over militia movements

Tensions are rising in the southern Somali town of Baidao where the 
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is based, amid fears that the 
Islamists who control the capital, Mogadishu, could attack the town.

"There is a definite fear that these military movements could escalate 
into a real war," a local resident, speaking from the town, said on 
Thursday. "Some friends of mine are talking of moving their families out 
of Baidao."

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54710]


SOMALIA: Gov't boycotts peace talks with Islamic group

Peace talks scheduled for Saturday in Sudan between Somalia's 
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Union of Islamic Courts, 
currently in control of the capital, Mogadishu, stalled after the 
government boycotted the talks.

However, a Somali member of parliament told IRIN on Monday that the 
Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP) had voted to attend reconciliation 
talks, sponsored by the Arab League. Saturday's talks were to have taken 
place in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54639]


SUDAN: Donors pledge to boost African force in Darfur

Aid donors meeting in the Belgian capital have pledged about US $220 
million in additional funding to the African Union (AU) force struggling 
to keep the peace in Sudan's western region of Darfur.

The funding will help the Africa Mission in Sudan protect civilians and 
monitor the implementation of a Peace Agreement signed in May between 
the Sudanese government and some of the rebel groups in Darfur. [Full 
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54689]


SUDAN: Clashes claim 28 lives in southern town - NGO

Twenty eight people, including 17 civilians, were killed in fighting 
this week between Sudanese government troops and the southern Sudan 
People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in Rubkona, Unity State, a German NGO 
reported.

"The clashes began as a local dispute on Monday. They then escalated and 
spread," Johan van der Kamp, the Sudan coordinator for Deutsche 
Welthungerhilfe (German Agro Action), said in a statement on Thursday. 
He said his organisation had been forced to evacuate staff members from 
Rubkona to Khartoum because their offices came under fire during the 
fighting. "As many as 28 deaths have since been recorded, 17 of them 
civilians," Van der Kamp added.

Unity State contains the largest oil fields in Sudan. During the civil 
war between the government and the SPLA, some of the fiercest fighting 
took place in that area, in particular since 1999, when oil extraction 
began. The Sudanese government was determined to maintain its hold on 
the region, arming and financing local militia to clear the area for oil 
extraction as well as to fend off the SPLA.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54726]


SUDAN: Calls to help AU avert catastrophe in Darfur

Humanitarian organisations on Tuesday sent appeals for the world to fund 
the African Union (AU) peacekeeping force in the western Sudanese region 
of Darfur, saying the troops were the only means of averting a 
catastrophe.

As international donors gathered in Brussels for a conference to raise 
funds to strengthen the cash-strapped African Mission in Sudan (AMIS), 
the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Jan Egeland added his voice 
to the calls to bolster AMIS, saying the force should be boosted even as 
the world planned for the UN to take over the peacekeeping role in 
Darfur from the AU.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54678]


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