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Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 409
24 - 30 November 2007


CONTENTS:

SUDAN: High risk" of Arab insurgency in Darfur
SUDAN: Darfur fighting "displaced 30,000 in October"
AFRICA: Joining the fight against gender-based violence

SEE ALSO:
SOMALIA: Halimo Omar: "There is no limit to the suffering"
[http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75506 ]


SUDAN: High risk" of Arab insurgency in Darfur

The International Crisis Group (ICG) has cautioned that new dynamics in 
Sudan's Darfur crisis could result in an Arab insurgency and a possible 
spillover of the conflict into neighbouring Kordofan.

"Inter-Arab dissension has added new volatility to the situation on the 
ground," ICG states in a report, Darfur's New Security Reality, launched 
on 26 November in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. "Some tribes are trying 
to solidify land claims before the UN/AU [UN-African Union] hybrid 
peacekeeping operation in Darfur (UNAMID) arrives."

This, ICG said, had led to fighting with other Arab tribes, which have 
realised that the Khartoum-based central government "is not a guarantor 
of their long-term interests and have started to take protection into 
their own hands".

"There is now a high risk of an Arab insurgency, as well as potential 
for alliances with the predominantly non-Arab rebel groups," ICG added.

[Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=75504]


SUDAN: Darfur fighting "displaced 30,000 in October"

The UN special envoy for Darfur has again expressed concern over the 
security and humanitarian situation in the Sudanese region, where 
violence displaced at least 30,000 civilians in October alone, and led 
to the deaths of seven humanitarian workers.

In a statement to the UN Security Council in New York on 27 November, 
Jan Eliasson said the killing of the seven Sudanese aid workers was the 
highest monthly casualty since July 2006 and the displacement in October 
brought the total this year to 280,000. Since 2003, fighting that has 
pitted government forces and allied militia against rebel groups in 
Darfur has led to 200,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 2.2 
million people.

"Inter-tribal conflicts over land and water resources continue and 
persist," Eliasson told the Security Council. "There is increasing 
concern of Arab unrest and militancy as well as of a spillover of the 
conflict into [the neighbouring region of] Kordofan."

[Full report: 
http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=75548]


AFRICA: Joining the fight against gender-based violence

The small compensation Fartun Abdi Ahmed, 25, takes from having her 
genitalia ritually excised with a knife used on six other girls is that 
the procedure took place in a rural part of Somalia, where the risk of 
infection, from HIV, for example, was relatively low.

"One cannot imagine the pain, the fear and the stress I went through; 
thank God it was a rural area and so we did not get some of the 
infections that are common nowadays," Ahmed, a refugee, said on 23 
November at the launch of a 16-day campaign against gender violence in 
the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. "FGM [female genital mutilation] is the 
number-one form of gender-based violence for women in Somalia."

Ahmed, now a Nairobi-based community outreach worker and Somali 
translator with GTZ, the German aid agency, was addressing a press 
conference called by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian 
Affairs to mark 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination 
of Violence against Women.

[Full report: 
http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=75507]


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