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 West Africa Tel: +225 22-40-4440 Fax: +225 22-40-4435 e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ciWEST AFRICA IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 20 13-19 May 2000
CONTENTS: SIERRA LEONE: Security Council approves extra troops SIERRA LEONE: Sankoh captured SIERRA LEONE: Satisfaction at Sankoh's arrest SIERRA LEONE: Rebels attack on Port Loko fails SIERRA LEONE: British troops kill three RUF SIERRA LEONE: Seven states to send troops to Sierra Leone SIERRA LEONE: "Desperate" health situation in Port Loko SIERRA LEONE: WFP feeds thousands of IDPs SIERRA LEONE: Liberian refugees under UNHCR protection SIERRA LEONE: Southern Province remains quiet GUINEA: More refugees from Sierra Leone GUINEA-BISSAU: Government rejects call for UN border force GUINEA-BISSAU: Mauritanians flee amid tension COTE D'IVOIRE: Cabinet reshuffle COTE D'IVOIRE: Political meetings permitted CHAD: WFP to distribute food to 252,000 flood victims SENEGAL: Habre for trial 15 June SIERRA LEONE: Security Council approves extra troops The UN Security Council has decided that the troop strength of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) is to be expanded for the time being to 13,000, UN spokesman for the Secretary-General Fred Eckhard reported on Friday. The previous authorised strength of 11,100 is expected to be exceeded soon: as of Friday the strength of the force was reported at more than 10,200, he said. In response to a question, Eckhard said that the Secretary-General would soon be asking for more than 13,000. SIERRA LEONE: Sankoh captured Momentous events concerning Sierra Leone this week included the capture of rebel leader Foday Sankoh, continued attacks by his forces and a decision by West African leaders to redeploy troops to the troubled country in support of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Sankoh was caught on Wednesday by civilians, stripped naked, shot in the foot and marched off to the home of his erstwhile ally, Johnny Paul Koroma, before being handed to British paratroopers and then the government of Sierra Leone. Sankoh had fled on 8 May after thousands of demonstrators converged on his Freetown home blaming him and his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) for continuing to fuel instability. SIERRA LEONE: Satisfaction at Sankoh's arrest Various leaders, institutions and governments have expressed satisfaction at Sankoh's arrest. British Foreign Minister Robin Cook told reporters in Moscow that Sankoh's capture might help "stabilize Sierra Leone and reverse rebel advances". US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright added: "Troublemakers in these regions cannot be simply wished away, they must be contained, captured,convicted or converted." On Thursday, West African defence ministers and their military chiefs meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, "expressed satisfaction" at his capture. SIERRA LEONE: Rebel attack on Port Loko fails, again Some 500 RUF rebels attacked Port Loko, northeast of Freetown, on Tuesday night, with heavy mortars but were beaten back, the UN reported on Wednesday. One Nigerian UN soldier was killed during the attack, while at least six other Nigerian peacekeepers were wounded and flown to Freetown, according to UN spokesman Fred Eckhard, who said the attack was repelled. Pro-government forces had also repelled several rebel attacks on Port Loko on 5 May. Two government soldiers were wounded but there were no details of rebel casualties, a government spokesman said. SIERRA LEONE: British troops kill three RUF British paratroops shot dead three RUF rebels on Wednesday in an engagement along the Lingi Lo road junction near Lungi International Airport, Freetown, the Ministry of Defence said in London. Another rebel was later found dead in the bush, the BBC reported. The soldiers, who were on patrol, exchanged fire with a group of 40 rebels for 10 minutes. There were no British casualties, the statement said. The incident occurred on the same day that RUF leader Foday Sankoh was arrested in Freetown. SIERRA LEONE: Seven states to send troops to Sierra Leone Defence officials of seven West African states agreed on Thursday to send 3,000 troops to help end the conflict in Sierra Leone, ECOWAS Director of Information Adrienne Diop told IRIN. The pledge came at the end of a two-day meeting of defence ministers and chiefs of military staff from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). SIERRA LEONE: "Desperate" health situation in Port Loko The district medical officer for Port Loko, northeast of Freetown, has appealed for emergency health support for displaced people in his area, describing the situation there as "desperate", the Sierra Leone News Agency, SLENA, reported on Wednesday. Dr Moses Kargbo made the appeal after a survey of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the region whom, he said, needed immediate attention. Apart from the problem of food and accommodation for the massive influx of people from Port Loko, and Lunsar and Makeni in the north, he said, there was now the imminent danger of an outbreak of communicable diseases. He added that safe drinking water was scarce and there were few toilet facilities in settlements inhabited by IDPs. SIERRA LEONE: WFP feeds thousands of IDPs The World Food Programme (WFP) delivered 126 mt of food to 5,688 internally displaced people in Freetown from 10-13 May, and another 50,704 people began receiving supplies on 15 May, a WFP source told IRIN on Tuesday. The second batch of beneficiaries will receive 725 mt of food by Wednesday, the source said. The target group comprises mainly IDPs, people in institutions such as orphanages and centres for child soldiers, hospital inmates and people in feeding centres, the source added. IDPs outside Freetown began in May to join others already in the capital after the RUF resumed attacks on towns and captured UN soldiers. WFP has been registering the newly arrived IDPs, who number about 35,000. In all, the IDPs in Freetown has been estimated to be 80,000. SIERRA LEONE: Liberian refugees under UNHCR protection Some 6,566 Liberian refugees in Sierra Leone are under the protection of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN agency reported on Tuesday. About 3,560 live in the Freetown area while a minority live in various camps for displaced persons, UNHCR said. SIERRA LEONE: Southern Province remains quiet Southern Sierra Leone is still quiet with no significant changes in the humanitarian situation, the UN Humanitarian Assistance Office (HACU) said. Pro-government Civil Defence Forces (CDF) have taken up defensive positions and reestablished checkpoints in areas where they were previously active. In the southern town of Bo, some 190 km from Freetown, the police and the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), supported by the CDF, are conducting joint security patrols. However, there have been continuing reports of harassment of the local population by the CDF, including the commandeering of relief vehicles and the illegal occupation of relief agencies' facilities, HACU said. In the last few days there have been continued reports of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Konta area north of Bo believed to be arriving from the eastern district of Kono and from Masingbi in Northern Province. Humanitarian activities are continuing in IDP camps, HACU said. According to UNHCR there are currently no cross border movements from the eastern town of Zimmi to Liberia. GUINEA: More refugees from Sierra Leone About 150 Sierra Leoneans crossed into Guinea on Tuesday, bringing new refugee arrivals since the first week of May to 1,134, a UNHCR official in Conakry told IRIN. "They are deemed to be in good condition," the UNHCR Information Officer in Guinea, Fatoumata Kabba, said, "although four people showed signs of being hurt or tortured." The UNHCR said it was planning for the possible large-scale influx of Sierra Leoneans and that it had room for 10,000 additional refugees in the new camp of Kalako, in the western region of Forecariah. GUINEA-BISSAU: Government rejects call for UN border force Guinea-Bissau President Kumba Yala rejected on Thursday a proposal by his Senegalese counterpart, Abdoulaye Wade, to place UN military observers on their borders to monitor the movement of guerrillas fighting for a separate state in the south of Senegal, AFP reported. "It is senseless for us to accept such a proposal since we do not constitute a threat to Senegal," Yala told AFP, saying Dakar was free to post observers on its side of the border. Bissau rejects the Senegalese assertion that guerrillas of the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC) are using its territory to attack Senegal's Casamance area. The MFDC has been fighting the government in Dakar for 18 years for the independence of the Casamance. GUINEA-BISSAU: Mauritanians flee amid tension Mauritanian residents in Guinea-Bissau, most of them small shopowners, have been returning home in recent days for fear of political instability, news organisations reported on Monday. PANA quoted 'Les Plumes', a Mauritanian newspaper, as reporting that some of the estimated 3,000 Mauritanians in Guinea-Bissau were leaving on the advice of their consulate, which felt the country had become unsafe. Humanitarian sources in Bissau say there is tension between the elected government and a section of the former military junta that co-governed the country from May 1999 until President Yala's inauguration on 17 February 2000. Earlier this month the chief of naval staff, Col. Lamine Sanha, refused to accept his dismissal by Yala, fuelling fears that the fragile peace process in the country, which was wracked by civil war in 1998 and early 1999, might be under threat. However, the chief of general staff of the armed forces said in a communique on 13 May that the military would "never use arms in the search for solutions ... within the framework of possible divergences in its normal relations with the government or any other democratically elected organ". GUINEA-BISSAU: World Bank lends US $25 million The World Bank said it approved a US $25-million loan to Guinea-Bissau on Tuesday to help the government revitalise its economic and social programmes. In part, the programme aims to support peace building, revive the economy, and to reduce poverty among the country's 1.2 million people. COTE D'IVOIRE: Cabinet reshuffle Ivorian military leader General Robert Guei reshuffled his cabinet on Thursday dropping seven ministers, among them the head of the Interior Ministry. The government now includes seven members of the military, three more than in the cabinet which the all-military Conseil National de Salut Public (CNSP) announced in January, some three weeks after then president Henri Konan Bedie was overthrown in a Christmas Eve coup. Guei, who heads the CNSP, said the reason for the reshuffle was "to reinforce the solidarity of the members of the government and to reaffirm forever that the head of state is the ... the sole authority under whose leadership political policy is determined and managed". He said: "Acts of defiance, wherever they may come from, are not tolerable especially when they border on insubordination or the rejection of the will of the majority, that is the refusal of the elementary principle of democracy." He did not elaborate. Ministers dropped from the cabinet include Interior Minister Major Issa Diakate, two members of the Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR), and one each from the Parti pour le progres et le socialisme (PPS) and the Parti africain pour la renaissance ivoirienne (PARI). The three parties belong to the Forum Republicain alliance. RDR leader Alassane Ouattara told reporters on Friday that his party had withdrawn the sole RDR member remaining in the government, Minister of Francophone Affairs and Culture Henriette Diabate, "in the name of (the) principle of solidarity dear to the RDR and indispensable for the consolidation of its action". The reshuffle came less than a week after Guei accused the RDR of plotting against the state, a charge the party has denied. COTE D'IVOIRE: Political meetings permitted Cote d'Ivoire's transitional military government authorised political parties on Tuesday to resume their activities. The authorisation, signed by Guei, said the bans were lifted because the date for a constitutional referendum and elections had now been announced. The referendum is due on 16 July and the elections on 17 September. However, the CNSP said any leader of a political party wishing to travel outside the country must first obtain its permission. CHAD: WFP to distribute food to 252,000 flood victims About 252,000 Chadian flood victims and farmers suffering from a failed agricultural harvest during 1999/2000 will receive some 7,000 mt of food aid from the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN agency said. An agreement for the provision of relief aid to poor farmers in the prefectures of Mayo Kebby, Moyen Chari and Logone Oriental was signed in Ndjamena, the Chadian capital, on Wednesday. The beneficiaries include vulnerable groups such as the aged, children and the disabled. The operation comes under a US $23-million-dollar emergency WFP food programme for populations suffering from food deficits in Chad, Mauritania and Senegal during the 1999-2000 agricultural season. SENEGAL: Habre for trial 15 June A Senegalese court said on Monday it would decide on 15 June whether or not to have former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre face trial on torture charges, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported. The New York-based organisation is one of a coalition of international, Chadian, Senegalese and other rights groups that filed the case on behalf of victims of Habre's rule. Habre's attorneys, lawyers for the victims and the state prosecutor presented arguments behind closed doors to Dakar's three-judge Indicting Chamber on Habre's request to have the case dismissed, HRW said. Abidjan, 19 May 2000; 18:55 GMT [IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 22-40-440 Fax: +225 22-40-4435 e-mail:irin-wa@irin.ci] [This item is delivered in the English service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.] Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2000 distributed by - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Volunteers in Technical Assistance Disaster Information Center lists: www.vita.org/listsub.htm sitreps nat-dsr web: www.vita.org fireline - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - West Africa - http://www.vita.org/humanitarian/wafrica