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

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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 53
30 December 2000 - 5 January 2001


CONTENTS: 

GUINEA: IOM, UNHCR to repatriate 20,000 refugees
GUINEA: Government approves new transit camps
GUINEA: France to deliver 40 mt of relief
GUINEA: Refugees, IDPs near Kissidougou healthy
GUINEA: French charity appeals for vaccination money
GUINEA: Government wants robust ECOMOG
SIERRA LEONE: RUF agrees to open all roads within 72 hours
SIERRA LEONE: British troops stay
NIGERIA: Battalion completes peacekeeping training 
NIGERIA: Bishops want Sharia meeting
WEST AFRICA: Burkina Faso, The Gambia deny 
CHAD: Dissidents claim to kill head of president's security
COTE D'IVOIRE: World Banks supports anti-AIDS campaign
COTE D'IVOIRE: President pardons 3,200 prisoners
COTE D'IVOIRE: Conditions improve in largest prison
SENEGAL: President says no religious affairs ministry
GUINEA-BISSAU: Troops deploy to protect border
GUINEA-BISSAU: US $790 million debt relief
MAURITANIA: US $50m urban revival project

GUINEA: IOM, UNHCR to repatriate 20,000 refugees

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) plan to begin the
voluntary repatriation of 20,000 Sierra Leonean refugees on Monday.

The IOM said on Monday, in an appeal for emergency aid, that the
repatriation would be by air and sea. The IOM said it would assume "full
responsibility" for the sea operation as of 7 January while the airlift will
be considered later. 

A UNHCR spokeswoman in Abidjan, the Ivorian capital, told IRIN on Friday
that the agency had agreed to work with the IOM "to facilitate repatriation"
of Sierra Leonean refugees who wish to return home. Refugees seeking passage
home have been streaming daily into a crowded UNHCR holding facility in the
Guinean capital of Conakry.

[FOR full story see item "GUINEA: IOM, UNHCR to evacuate 20,000 refugees]

GUINEA: Government approves new transit camps

The Interior Ministry has given the UNHCR final approval to build a new
transit camp at Sangardo, 30 km northwest of Kissidougou, for 60,000
refugees who fled the Guekedou region. Sites have also been approved for
Albadaria and Dabola, north and west of Faranah. Together, these two sites
could shelter up to 40,000 refugees. 

GUINEA: France to deliver 40 mt of relief

France will deliver 40 mt of relief aid at the end of this week to an
estimated 400,000 people in southern Guinea displaced by recent cross-border
attacks by armed rebels, the state news agency said on Wednesday.

AFP quoted the French Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bernard Valero, as saying
the aid would be delivered through the International Committee of the Red
Cross and other humanitarian organizations operating in the area.

GUINEA: Refugees, IDPs near Kissidougou healthy

A UNHCR health assessment team has found most refugees and displaced
villagers 85 km north of the Guinean town of Kissidougou, to be in good
health, the agency reported. 

The UNHCR medical and sanitation team visited Nianfrando which is sheltering
some 4,000 Sierra Leoneans but more families are still emerging from the
bush in search of aid, the agency reported on 29 December 2000. 

Meanwhile, NGOs have resumed health services at the Massakoundou refugee
camp, 189 km southeast of Kissidougou. Designed to hold 20,000 people, the
facility is jammed with some 35,000 people, many of whom have abandoned
camps in the Guekedou area. Medecins Sans Frontieres, (MSF) and the
International Federation of the Red Cross are active in the area. 

GUINEA: French charity appeals for vaccination money

France's Hopital Sans Frontieres (HSF) has appealed for money for its mass
yellow fever vaccination effort in Guinea, the BBC reported on Wednesday. 

HSF said two million people were at risk from the illness, which has already
claimed almost 200 lives since October 2000, the BBC reported. The
Paris-based charity has already sent a 30-strong medical team to the region
and has inoculated 500,000 people. Another charity, Medecins Sans
Frontieres, appealed on 20 December 2000 for a massive effort to deliver
vaccines. 

GUINEA: Government wants robust ECOMOG

While welcoming the planned deployment of 1,676 West African troops along
its borders, Guinea said it wanted the peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, to be
armed with a mandate to hit back at insurgents from Liberia and Sierra
Leone, according to news reports on Saturday. 

The BBC reported Guinean Defence Minister Dorank Diasseni as saying - before
he was removed in a cabinet reshuffle on Thursday - that
the force should be able to protect Guineans and return fire. Dissidents
-whom Guinea believes to include Sierra Leone's anti-government
Revolutionary United Front fighters - have since September been carrying
out raids along Guinea's southern border killing and forcing tens of
thousands of villagers and refugees to flee. 

SIERRA LEONE: RUF due to open all roads 

The Revolutionary United Front is due, at the end of a self-imposed deadline
on Friday, to reopen all roads leading to areas under its control in
Sierra Leone, officials at the UN Mission in the country said.

RUF interim leader Issa Sesay made the commitment on Wednesday in Magburaka,
143 km northeast of Freetown, in a meeting with the force commander of the
United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), Lt-Gen Daniel Opande.

Three roads are to be reopened: the north-south Bumbuna to Magburaka link in
the middle of the country, Kabala to Makeni which from the north runs south
to Port Loko and Lunsar, and the Kambia-Mange-Port Loko axis. A
Freetown-based diplomat said the RUF has been under considerable military
pressure from Guinean troops on this third corridor, north of Freetown,
since suspected RUF fighters began raiding Guinea in September 2000. 

[For full item see story titled 'SIERRA LEONE: RUF agrees to open all roads
within 72 hours']

SIERRA LEONE: British troops stay

British troops, engaged in rebuilding the Sierra Leonean army, will remain
until the Revolutionary United Front has been defeated by war or diplomacy,
AFP quoted a senior British military officer as saying on Monday.

"We will leave when the war is either won or resolved on favourable terms,"
Jonathan Riley, the British brigadier commanding the operation, said on
BBC's Radio 4. 

British troops have trained 6,000 Sierra Leonean soldiers, in the effort to
re-establish a professional army of 10,500 troops under civilian control. 
These troops are expected to put additional pressure on the RUF whose
situation, Riley said, was "getting worse".

NIGERIA: Battalion completes peacekeeping training 

The first phase of United States military training of Nigerian soldiers for
peacekeeping in Sierra Leone has ended with the graduation of 800 troops
who underwent 10 weeks of instruction in the southwestern city of Ibadan,
the Voice of America (VOA) reported on Wednesday.

Soldiers of the 195th Motorised Infantry Battalion, expected to join the
United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) later in January, represent
the first of five Nigerian battalions to be trained by the US Army Special
Forces in battlefield tactics, marksmanship, first aid and human rights, US
Army Warrant Officer Brian Wilson, was reported as saying.

The training is part of a US $50-million programme covering six battalions
from Nigeria, Ghana and a yet to be named third West African country for
peacekeeping operations in war-torn Sierra Leone.

NIGERIA: Bishops want Sharia meeting

Nigeria's Roman Catholic bishops have called for a meeting of religious
leaders to resolve the lingering crisis in the country over the introduction
of Islamic Sharia law by some states, 'The Guardian' newspaper reported on
Wednesday.

The Lagos daily reported the head of the Nigerian Catholic Bishops'
Conference, Archbishop John Onaiyekan, as urging genuine Christians and
Muslims leaders to meet and produce common advise to government and
politicians. 

WEST AFRICA: Burkina Faso, The Gambia deny 

Burkina Faso and The Gambia have denied allegations in a recent UN report
that their territories were routes for the trafficking of arms and conflict
diamonds aiding anti-government forces in Angola and Sierra Leone, according
to news reports. 

The report, by a panel investigating the illegal trade, cited Burkina Faso
as circumventing the UN arms and diamonds ban to dissidents in Angola and
Sierra Leone. The panel alleged that The Gambia was also a route for the
traffic of the diamonds. 

However, in comments published in the 2-3 January edition of the
government-owned tabloid, 'Sidwaya', Burkinabe President Blaise Compaore
said: "We are waiting for the January discussion [with UN officials] to take
part in the debates on the questions of mercenaries and diamonds
trafficking."

In another statement cited on Wednesday by the French news agency, AFP, The
Gambia's Department of State for Foreign Affairs added that the government
in Banjul had never condoned or involved itself in such transactions nor
derived revenue from the trade.  
 
However, it acknowledged that "a lot of private Gambian citizens" had been
involved in the informal trade in diamonds since before independence in
1965. 

CHAD: Dissidents claim to kill head of president's security

Dissidents calling themselves the Mouvement pour la democratie et la
justice au Tchad (MDJT) said on Sunday they had killed the head of the
country's presidential security detail, General Kerim Nassour, AFP
reported. 

They said Nassour and his aide, Colonel Fadoul Allamine, died in fighting
in northern Chad. The MDJT, which is demanding "the immediate resignation"
of President Idriss Deby, said that between 18 and 29 December 2000 it had
killed 413 government soldiers, among them 40 senior officers. 

AFP reported, the government as announcing on 20 December 2000
that it had captured an undisclosed number of dissidents and had killed
the MDJT's deputy chief of staff, Doungous Kelleye. 

Deby has again appealed to the movement to end the two-year conflict.

COTE D'IVOIRE: World Banks supports anti-AIDS campaign

Ivorian primary schools teachers, represented by the Syndicat national de
l'enseignement primaire public de Cote d'Ivoire (SNEPPCI), will receive some
US $293,000 from the World Bank for its anti-AIDS campaign, the state-owned
daily 'Fraternite Matin' reported on Wednesday. 

The contribution, of which US $55,000 is from the Ivorian government, would
fund information and prevention programmes and pay for support structures
for teachers with HIV, as well as for their wives and children. Since 1998,
growing number of primary and secondary school teachers have been
contracting the virus that leads to AIDS which, according to a local medical
study, kills up to eight teachers each week, the newspaper reported.

COTE D'IVOIRE: President pardons 3,200 prisoners

Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo has ordered the release of 3,200 prisoners
for humanitarian reasons, the state-owned 'Fraternite Matin' reported on
Wednesday. Criminals who will not benefit from this clemency are those being
detained for child kidnapping and trafficking, embezzlement of public funds,
and those who have attempted jail breaks.

COTE D'IVOIRE: Conditions improve in largest prison

Sanitary conditions in the largest Ivorian prison, the Maison d'arret et de
correction d'Abidjan (MACA), have greatly improved since 1997, the French
charity Medecins sans frontieres (MSF) announced in its latest activity
report. 

In its report for 2000, MSF says the mortality rate has been reduced by 90
percent as prison buildings have been disinfected and sanitary facilities
renovated. MSF also says drinkable water is now available free of charge.

SENEGAL: President says no religious affairs ministry

President Abdoulaye Wade has rejected calls for the establishment of a
ministry for religious affairs, saying it would have no part in the
politics of this secular country, PANA reported on Friday. 

Emphasising this, Wade said he deliberately celebrated the end of the holy
Muslim month of Ramadan at his local mosque rather than at the Grand
Mosque of Dakar that his predecessor, Abdou Diouf, had used as head of
state. Wade, who is a disciple of Senegal's powerful Mouride Brotherhood,
said he prayed at his mosque as a symbol of his intent to depoliticise
religion. 

GUINEA-BISSAU: Troops deploy to protect border

Guinea-Bissau has deployed an unspecified number of troops along its
northern border with Senegal's Casamance area where rival factions have been
fighting each other for control of Senegal's pro-independence movement, the
Portuguese news agency, Lusa, reported on Thursday. 

Fighting between wings of Senegal's Mouvement des forces democratiques de
Casamance (MFDC) has led to an undisclosed number of casualties and to the
suspension, on Wednesday, of the group's planned strategy meeting on future
peace negotiations with the Senegalese government. News reports have
suggested that a faction of the MFDC led by the Reverend Diamacoune Senghor
favours talks while the military arm of the movement, Atika, led by Salif
Sadjo, prefers a military option to gaining independence.  

Guinea-Bissau Defence Minister Fernando Correia Landim said his country's
troop deployment was a pre-emptive measure so that MDFC fighters would not
try to use Guinea-Bissau as a rear base to attack Senegalese troops. He said
the government in Bissau was ready to contribute to the peace negotiations
between the Senegalese government and the MFDC. 

GUINEA-BISSAU: US $790 million debt relief

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have agreed to a US 
$790-million debt relief package for Guinea-Bissau to support the
country's poverty reduction programmes, the World Bank announced.

It said Guinea-Bissau, which has experienced armed conflicts in the last two
years, remained one of the world's poorest countries with some 88 percent of
the population subsisting on less than US $1 a day. 

MAURITANIA: US $50m urban revival project

Mauritania is reviewing a US $50-million World bank funded project for
Nouakchott, aimed at improving living conditions in the capital's poor
neighbourhoods, AFP reported on Sunday. The main goal is to reduce poverty
among 40 percent of the city's two million residents. Poor neighborhoods
sprung up following droughts in the 1970s and an effort to modernise the
city, AFP reported. 

Abidjan, 5 January 2001; 20:10 GMT     


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