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 353
25 November - 1 December 2006


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA: More food available, but millions still in need
SOMALIA: Businessmen to hand over weapons
SOMALIA: People flee as military movements create fear
SUDAN: Calm after heavy fighting in southern town
SUDAN: AU, Sudanese leaders meet on new Darfur peace force
SUDAN: Southerners register to return home


Also see:
SOMALIA: Battered by floods at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56573


ETHIOPIA: More food available, but millions still in need

The number of Ethiopians who will need food aid in 2007 is expected to 
be lower than the three million who have been dependent on emergency 
assistance this year because food production is expected to improve 
after good rainfall, an early warning network reported on Wednesday.

Those still in need of emergency assistance will be found mainly in the 
northeastern and southeastern lowlands and the few crop-dependent areas 
affected by the floods in July and August this year, according to the 
November report of the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network 
(FEWS Net).

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56561]


SOMALIA: Businessmen to hand over weapons

As another sign of improved security in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, 
the powerful business community has agreed to hand over their weapons to 
the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

"We have met and discussed this issue and they [the business community] 
have agreed," Sheikh Abdulkadir Ali Umar, the vice-chairman of the UIC, 
told IRIN on Tuesday.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56541]


SOMALIA: People flee as military movements create fear

Rising tension due to rivalry between feuding groups around Baidao, the 
seat of the country's interim government, has prompted residents to 
leave the town and nearby Buur Hakaba amid fears that armed forces 
massing in the area could soon clash, witnesses said on Monday.

Forces loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which controls much 
of the south and central Somalia, including the capital, Mogadishu, are 
massing at Buur Hakaba, 60 km south of Baidoa, in anticipation of a 
showdown with forces of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which 
is allegedly supported by Ethiopian troops.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56520]


SUDAN: Calm after heavy fighting in southern town

An uneasy calm returned to the southern Sudanese town of Malakal, Upper 
Nile State, on Thursday after two days of fighting between Sudanese 
government forces and soldiers of the Sudan People's Liberation Army 
(SPLA), sources said.

The fighting started on Tuesday between the former rebel movement, which 
formed the administration in southern Sudan after signing a peace 
agreement in 2005, and the government.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56576]


SUDAN: AU, Sudanese leaders meet on new Darfur peace force

African heads of state and African Union and United Nations officials 
will sit down opposite Sudan's president in the Nigerian capital Abuja 
on Thursday afternoon to try to hammer out the specifics of an agreement 
earlier this month by Sudan to allow the UN to put boots on the ground 
in wartorn Darfur.

Nigeria's President and former AU chariman Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegal 
President Abdoulaye Wade, Ghana President John Kufuor and Libya 
President Muammar Ghaddafi will face off opposite Sudanese President 
Omar al-Bashir, AU officials said.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56575]


SUDAN: Southerners register to return home

Peter Albino held his baby daughter on his lap, ignoring the bickering 
of his three other young children, as he concentrated on the interviewer 
registering him to return to Upper Nile State, southern Sudan.

One of four million southerners displaced by Sudan's 21-year civil war, 
Albino was an early candidate for return under a plan to repatriate 
150,000 people to their villages in the south by the end of 2008. [Full 
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56563]


IRIN-CEA
Tel: +254 2 622147
Fax: +254 2 622129
Email: IRIN@ocha.unon.org


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
     Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                    guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Horn of Africa                   www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/hafrica