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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 63
10-16 March 2001

                                
CONTENTS: 

SENEGAL: Government signs peace deal with rebels
SIERRA LEONE: UN takes over rebel-held Lunsar
SIERRA LEONE: UN patrol reaches far-flung town 
SIERRA LEONE: UNICEF begins last phase of vaccination drive
SIERRA LEONE: Bo Hospital gets drugs worth US $76,000 
SIERRA LEONE: Norwegian official assesses humanitarian situation
SIERRA LEONE: National policy on the disabled planned
SIERRA LEONE: UNAMSIL to fund skills training
SIERRA LEONE: Shooting at Pademba Road
SIERRA LEONE: IOM to move IDPs 
GUINEA: UNHCR rescues 200 refugees 
BURKINA FASO: Meningitis deaths rise 
COTE D'IVOIRE: General remains in jail despite acquittal
COTE D'IVOIRE: Cholera cases reported
LIBERIA: Journalist watchdog condemns arrests
NIGERIA: President visits restive Bayelsa State
NIGER: Ex-fighters in reintegration programme

SENEGAL: Government signs peace deal with rebels

The Senegalese government and an a pro-independence movement fighting
since 1982 signed a peace accord Friday, state radio announced.

Media sources in the capital, Dakar, said the announcement came as a
surprise, given the recent attacks in the south attributed to rogue
elements within the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance.

"This day puts us on the road to peace" Mamadou Niang, the interior
minister, and chief government negotiator said, AFP reported. Elements of
the deal, released to reporters, provide for the return of exiles and the
integration of MFDC fighters into government.

SIERRA LEONE: UN takes over rebel-held Lunsar

About 280 UN peacekeeping troops entered the strategic town of Lunsar on
Thursday, marking a major step in the UN's effort to occupy territory held
by the anti-government Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

"The troops have taken over all checkpoints and will conduct normal
patrols," Major Mohammed Yerima, the military spokesman for the United
Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), told IRIN on Friday.

Lunsar lies some 79 km northeast of Freetown. The main body of unit in the
town, the 7th Nigerian Battalion, is due to move in on 20 March, he said.
This, he added, would help give the public confidence about their security
and the UN mission.

[Full report see item 'SIERRA LEONE: UN takes over rebel-held Lunsar']

SIERRA LEONE: UN patrol reaches far-flung town

UN peacekeepers successfully conducted a long-range patrol to Kailahun on
Wednesday, the first unit to reach the eastern rebel-held town since
"Operation Khukri" last year when UN troops rescued their colleagues held
by the RUF.

UNAMSIL reported that the patrol, from the 3rd Ghanaian Battalion, left
Daru in the Eastern Region and passed through the RUF-held towns of
Bombahun, Kuiva, Mobai and Pendembu. They were "greeted with joy" by
villages, UNAMSIL reported. The UNAMSIL Force Commander, Lt-Gen Daniel
Opande, and his staff are scheduled to visit Kailahun.

The town is 2.7 km south of the Parrot's Beak in Guinea, a protrusion of
land into Sierra Leone which insurgents have been attacking since
September 2000.

SIERRA LEONE: UNICEF begins last phase of vaccination drive

The United Nations Children's Fund began its final round to vaccinate some
330,000 Sierra Leonean children in rebel-held areas of the country, the
agency's communication officer, Jagmeet Uppal, told IRIN on Friday.

The day's effort began in the districts of Kono, Kailahun, Port Loko,
Tonkolili, Bombali, Koinadugu and Kambia. UNICEF, WHO, Rotary
International and USAID provided the money and technical support to the
Ministry of Health and Sanitation. UNAMSIL provided logistics.

The effort, which began in 1998, had been possible because of the "very
close coordination" of RUF leaders, Joanna Van Gerpen, the UNICEF
representative in Sierra Leone, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. The
RUF allowed government health workers and over 1,000 volunteers into the
north, she said, as UNAMSIL troops provided security. Each child must get
at least four doses of vaccine to be fully covered.

SIERRA LEONE: Bo Hospital gets drugs worth US $76,000

Bo Government Hospital has received drugs worth some US $76,000 donated by
the Medical Research Centre, the Sierra Leone News Agency reported on
Wednesday.

The principal medical officer, Dr Amara Jambai, said that the consignment
had already been distributed to 34 health units in Bo District in the
south of the country. The medicines - paid for by the British Department
for International Development and MSF-Belgium - will be sold on a
cost-recovery basis.

SIERRA LEONE: Norwegian official assesses humanitarian situation

Norway's secretary of state for foreign affairs, Raymond Johansen, has
ended a two-day visit to Sierra Leone to gain a first hand view of the
humanitarian situation in the war-torn country, a Norwegian Embassy
official in Abidjan told IRIN on Thursday.

The trip also focused on Security Council issues pertaining to the region,
First Secretary Rysst Vibeke said. Norway, a member of the UN Security
Council, allocated some US $8 million last year for humanitarian aid in
West Africa - most of it to alleviate the suffering of internally
displaced persons and refugees in Sierra Leone and Guinea. Johansen also
visited Guinea and Mali during his 8-13 March West African tour.

SIERRA LEONE: National policy on the disabled

A World Health Organization consultant, Chapel Khasnabis, has arrived in
Freetown to help the Ministry of Health develop a national policy on the
care of disabled persons, the Sierra Leone News Agency, SLENA, reported on
Monday.

During a courtesy call on the minister, Ibrahim Jalloh, Khasnabis said his
task would involve international non-governmental organizations in
developing the prosthetic and orthotics policy. Khasnabis said this would
ensure that every disabled person gets artificial limbs, calipers,
crutches, as well as splints for polio and spinal cord injuries that would
help make them productive citizens. Beneficiaries will get instruction on
a wide range of skills such as farming, carpentry and tailoring. The
programme would also enable disabled children to go to school.

The USAID funded project is being supported by the World Health
Organizaition, SLENA reported. Jalloh has already received US $130,000
from DHL for a war orthopaedic and prosthetic building project in Murray
Town, a western neighbourhood of Freetown.

At least 5,000 Sierra Leoneans have had their limbs hacked off by fighters
of the RUF that has waged an 11-year war against the state.

SIERRA LEONE: UNAMSIL to fund skills training

UNAMSIL will fund skills training for young girls who were abducted during
the country's war. It said the money, drawn from its Trust Fund, would pay
for training in tie-dyeing, tailoring, hairdressing and soap making.

US $9,953 donated by the Japanese government has been set aside to train
390 girls in the Western Area. The Pamronko Women's Development
Organization will provide the instructors while the Organization for
Research and Extension of Intermediate Technology will manage a
micro-credit project.

SIERRA LEONE: Shooting at Pademba Road

Security agents fired shots into the air in Freetown's Pademba Road Prison
on Wednesday as guards tried to search cells for weapons, Sierra Leone
radio reported, citing a police statement. Some media reported that the
prisoners ambushed the guards who wanted to search the cells following a
tip-off that arms and ammunition had been smuggled to imprisoned RUF
members.

SIERRA LEONE: IOM to move IDPs

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Friday it will
on 1 April begin transporting Sierra Leonean internally displaced persons
(IDPs) to their places of origin declared safe by UNAMSIL and the
government.

Spokesperson Niurka Pineiro told reporters in Geneva that, initially, IMO
expected to transport some 33,000 people, but that could reach 80,000. The
IDPs are now living in the greater Freetown area.

Pineiro said two chiefs in Sierra Leone's eastern Kenema District have
responded favourably to a government request for land on which to erect
tents for the returnees. In January, Kanja Sesay, the commissioner of the
National Commission for Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction,
said that where possible returning refugees and internally displaced
people would be settled in host communities rather than in camps.

GUINEA: UNHCR rescues 200 refugees

At least 200 exhausted refugees who fled Nongoa after rebels stormed the
southern Guinean town last week have been picked up on Wednesday and taken
by UNHCR trucks to Katkama, a former camp on the northern edge of the
conflict area.

The UNHCR reported on Thursday that some 9,000 refugees were scattered
among several settlements around Nongoa, 27 km west of Guekedou, at the
time of the attack on 9 March. "Many fled into the bush and began heading
northwards on foot, often without any of the 30-day rations they had
received just a few days earlier," the agency reported.

Nearly 2,000 refugees have arrived in Mongo, north of Nongoa. UNHCR added
that 1,500 others had reached Katkama, 30 km north of Guekedou. Another
400 new arrivals have reportedly reached Nyaedou camp, 15 km north of
Guekedou.

BURKINA FASO: Meningitis deaths rise

Burkina Faso health officials have expressed "serious concern" at the
rising toll from a meningitis outbreak that has, so far, killed 567 people
since January.

Speaking on state radio, the secretary-general of the Health Ministry,
Mathias Some, described the outbreak as widespread with 3,237 cases
recorded. He said all 12 health districts had been put under
"epidemiological surveillance".
  
At least 700,000 people have already been vaccinated nationwide. Yet,
officials fear they may soon run short of medicines and vaccines. The
ministry appealed to the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday for
help.

Fears are that the entire country will be affected by the outbreak unless
urgent steps are taken immediately. Burkina Faso, like all Sahelian West
African countries, is in the "meningitis belt" that runs across to East
Africa.

In 1996, 4,000 of the 40,000 reported cases reported in Burkina Faso died
of the disease.

COTE D'IVOIRE: General remains in jail despite acquittal

A military court acquitted General Abdoulaye Coulibaly on Tuesday on
charges of threatening state security but he stand accused of stealing
public fund, and remains in prison

The state prosecutor says he stole 2.25 billion francs CFA (US $3.1
million) from the national lottery and the Port Authority, state and
private media reported. However, his lawyer pointed out that he was hiding
in the Nigerian Embassy at the time he was supposed to have committed the
crime.

Another general, Lansana Palenfo, was sentenced to one year on the state
security charge along with 10 other soldiers who each received a 10-year
term. The court acquitted 10 others.

The accused were implicated in an attempted assassination of General
Robert Guei, when he headed a 10-month military government in which
Palenfo and Coulibaly were leading members. They sought refuge in the
embassy until Guei was ousted in a popular uprising.

[For full story see item 'COTE D'IVOIRE: General acquitted, another jailed
in security trial']

COTE D'IVOIRE: Cholera cases reported

Cholera has killed an undisclosed number of people in all 10
neighbourhoods of Abidjan, the economic capital of 2.8 million people, and
in four other southeastern cities, an official with the National Institute
of Public Hygiene told IRIN on Monday.

The official of this government agency, who requested anonymity, said up
to 20 cases of the disease had been detected since the first report in
October 2000. With the minor rains due this month, the Ministry of Public
Health is on alert and is closely monitoring the cities of Abidjan,
Abengourou, Divo, Tiassale and Touba.

LIBERIA: Journalist watchdog condemns arrests

A global media watchdog, the Committee to Protect Journalists, has
condemned the imprisonment of four Liberian reporters charged with spying.

The New York based committee called for their release in a letter to
Liberian President Charles Taylor on Monday. The reporters were arrested
on 21 February at the offices of 'The News' following the publication of
an article saying the government had spent US $50,000 to repair
helicopters. The report also said that the government spent $23,000 on
Christmas cards and souvenirs at a time when civil servants have not been
paid for months.

CPJ quoted the government as saying that the article published in the
Monrovia daily was intended to "reveal national defence information to a
foreign power for the purpose of injuring Liberia...in the event of a
military and diplomatic confrontation". Liberia is facing what it says is
an insurgency from Guinea.

NIGERIA: President visits restive Bayelsa State

President Olusegun Obasanjo is on Friday due to end his two-day visit to
the restive Niger Delta state of Bayelsa, one of the most remote and
deprived areas of oil-rich Nigeria.

Since arriving in the state capital, Yenagoa, he has visited the town of
Odi which an army unit destroyed on 20 November 1999 when ordered in to
arrest a gang that had killed 12 policemen.

More than 1,000 homes were destroyed and dozens killed in the week-long
operation, AFP reported. During his tour on Thursday Obasanjo said nothing
about rebuilding the town.

He visited Oil Well No. 1 today, AFP reported, the first drilled in the
country by British Petroleum in the late 1950s in the fish-rich creeks and
swamps in Oloibiri, close to Yenagoa.

Despite its oil wealth the Niger Delta, and Bayeelsa in particular, is the
most deprived part of the country. Communities in the region had been
demanding greater share of oil revenues for themselves.

"We are happy that he has come to see the reality of the situation," Nimi
Walson-Jack, the executive director of the Centre for Responsive Politics
in Port Harcourt, told IRIN on Thursday.

[For full story see item 'NIGERIA: President visits restive Bayelsa
State']

NIGER: Ex-fighters in reintegration programme

United Nations Volunteers (UNV) will begin a two-year training programme
mid-April to promote peace in the southeastern Diffa Region and the
socio-economic reintegration of former anti-government rebels in the area.

An UNV programme officer, Sidi Mohamed Toure, told IRIN on Thursday that
13 national and international volunteers would train and support 660
former guerrillas in agricultural micro-projects so they could be
self-reliant. The participants, drawn from the 3,750 former fighters
registered by Niger's Commission on Peace Restoration, will also be told
that peace is an essential element to development.

The US $695,661 programme will come from the UNV's Special Voluntary Fund,
to which the UNDP and the French aid agency, Cooperation Francaise, have
contributed. The UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Lome
would provide technical aid.

Abidjan, 16 March 2001; 19:52 GMT


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