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 390
7 - 13 July 2007


CONTENTS:

SOMALIA: Restrictions on trade affecting livelihoods
ISRAEL-SUDAN: Sudanese asylum seekers take long bus ride to find bed
   for night
AFRICA: Education tops pastoralists' concerns
SUDAN: Government warns of heavy rains as number of displaced rises
SOMALIA: Green light for reconciliation conference
SUDAN: Darfur actors to discuss road map for peace


Also see:
AFRICA: Can pastoralism survive in the 21st century? at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73231


SUDAN-UGANDA: Justin Okot: "I was forced to be an LRA rebel for seven 
years" at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73211


SOMALIA: Restrictions on trade affecting livelihoods

Restrictions on the movement of people, in addition to continuing 
insecurity, have closed Somalia's largest market for the first time 
since the start of the civil war in 1991, limiting the ability of the 
population to make a living, said local sources. "Nothing has come in or 
gone out of the market for the last five days," Ali Muhammad Siad, the 
chairman of Bakara market traders in the capital, Mogadishu, told IRIN 
on 9 July.

Government forces backed by Ethiopian troops have been searching the 
market for weapons, said a local journalist, who declined to be named. 
Attacks by insurgents targeting government and Ethiopian forces 
continue, despite a curfew since 22 June, and house-to-house weapons 
searches by government troops.

"Through all these years [civil war years] we have never closed for one 
day but today [9 July] it [the market] is totally closed," said Siad.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73140


ISRAEL-SUDAN: Sudanese asylum seekers take long bus ride to find bed for 
night

A group of about 60 Sudanese asylum seekers spent 8 July being bussed 
between Israel's southern city of Beersheba and the lawns in front of 
the Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem, as the authorities tried to 
decide where they could spend the night.

The Sudanese, including some from Darfur, had illegally crossed the 
Egypt-Israel border in the past few days. Initially, the Beersheba 
municipality found lodgings for them, while others went to Rahat, a 
Bedouin town in the southern Negev desert.

However, a city spokesman, Amnon Yosef, said Beersheba could no longer 
afford to house the asylum seekers and the government was not 
transferring promised funds for their care.

Full report: 
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73146


AFRICA: Education tops pastoralists' concerns

Pastoralists across Africa want their children to have access to 
education that suits their nomadic lifestyles, representatives of 
pastoral communities said on 9 July in Isiolo.

"The issue of the education curriculum is important to understanding 
pastoralism; imagine taking a lot of time to teach a child in Mandera 
[northern Kenya] how to plant beans when that child could be taught how 
to tan leather, given that it is the available resource," Ali Wario, 
Kenya's assistant minister for special programmes in the office of the 
president, said.

Wario, who opened the three-day workshop attended by at least 70 
participants, said children in Kenya's pastoralist areas not only lacked 
access to education but, when available, the curriculum often did not 
suit pastoral lifestyles. "We must have mobile schools in pastoralist 
areas if children are to gain from the education system."

Full report: 
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73156


SUDAN: Government warns of heavy rains as number of displaced rises

The Sudanese government has warned that heavy rains expected in various 
parts of the country could lead to further flooding and displacement, 
but said it was doing all it could to contain the situation.

About 20 people have been killed and 15,000 houses destroyed as flash 
floods triggered by heavy rains swept through parts of central, eastern 
and southeastern Sudan, the head of the civil defence authority said on 
10 July.

Major General Hamadallah Adam Ali told reporters in the capital, 
Khartoum, that dozens more people had been injured.

Full report: 
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73162


SOMALIA: Green light for reconciliation conference

After three postponements and many threats of non-attendance, Somalia's 
national reconciliation conference, due to start on 15 July, will 
proceed as planned, a senior official told IRIN.

"We are moving as planned and the conference is on schedule and will 
begin on 15 July," Abdulkadir Walayo, the media adviser for the National 
Governance and Reconciliation Commission (NGRC), which is organising the 
conference, said on 11 July.

He said most clans had put forward the names of their delegates. "We 
have 85 percent of the names and we expect the rest within the next two 
days."

The conference will be staged in Mogadishu, the capital, despite 
security concerns raised by some Hawiye elders.

Full report: 
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73188


SUDAN: Darfur actors to discuss road map for peace

The UN and African Union are to meet key regional and international 
actors in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur to seek a blueprint for peace in 
the region.

The meeting in Libya on 15-16 July comes days after the UN warned that 
violence in Darfur had displaced another 160,000 people since the 
beginning of 2007, and increased the number of people in need of aid to 
4.2 million, or nearly two-thirds of the population.

"Security incidents involving internally displaced people have more than 
tripled," said a statement issued in New York by the UN Office for the 
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Full report: 
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73191


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