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 22-41-9339 
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci 


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 71
5-11 May 2001


CONTENTS:   

WEST AFRICA: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone roundup
WEST AFRICA: UN calls for subregional approach to end conflicts
GHANA: Scores die in soccer tragedy
COTE D'IVOIRE: Land dispute kills six
GUINEA-BISSAU: Some detained soldiers released
SENEGAL: Military escorts for travellers
BENIN: Police arrest 10 for child trafficking
CAMEROON: OMCT denounces arbitrary detentions
NIGER: WFP to help over 7,000 affected by drought
MAURITANIA: French aid for dencentralisation, water supplies 
NIGERIA: Rash of oil spills in the southeast 
AFRICA: HIV/AIDS depleting rural workforce, FAO report says 

WEST AFRICA: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone Roundup

Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) this week asked the UN
Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to deploy troops along the border with
Guinea and to ensure that pro-government Civil Defence Forces (CDF)
militiamen stop attacking it.

UNAMSIL peacekeepers confirmed that the CDF engaged the RUF recently in
the eastern area of Saiama, about eight kilometres from the Guinea border
and, on Monday, near Bandajuma, close to the eastern town of Daru. These
areas are also fairly close to Liberia's troubled northern county of Lofa.

UNAMSIL said the attacks threatened Sierra Leone's peace process,
violating a ceasfire agreement the government and the RUF signed in
November 2000 in Abuja, Nigeria, and reconfirmed this month. The two sides
agreed that CDF and RUF fighters would be disarmed simultaneously. RUF and
Sierra Leone government representatives are due to meet in Freetown on 15
May to set the timetable for the implementation of the process and for the
demobilisation and reintegration into civilian life of the two forces.

Guinean forces have also attacked the RUF in recent weeks, according to
NGOs. On 4 May, Amnesty International accused the Guineans of making
little or no effort to minimise civilian casualties when its artillery and
helicopter gunships pounded towns and villages in rebel-held areas in
Kambia District, northwestern Sierra Leone. Amnesty said this violated
international humanitarian law. Sierra Leone's government has also been
accused of tacitly supporting the Guinean operation against the RUF on its
territory despite the civilian losses. The two countries have set up a
commission to minimise such losses.

Both countries, and much of the international community, accuse Liberia of
backing the RUF. In March, the UN Security Council gave Liberia two months
to prove that it had stopped supporting the rebels. However, Monrovia
failed to satisfy the Council and, on 7 May, the UN imposed a ban on
Liberia's diamond exports and on travel by Liberian officials and their
families.

The international NGO Global Witness suggested that the ban should also
include Liberian timber exports because, it said, they were being used to
fund the RUF.

About 60,000 IDPs reported in Liberia

Monrovia, for its part, accuses Guinea of supporting dissidents in Lofa
County. A teenage dissident captured recently by Liberian forces said the
insurgents were receiving help from Guinea, humanitarian sources told
IRIN.

The fighting in Lofa has uprooted some 60,000 people according to the
American Refugee Committee (ARC). ARC has launched an emergency appeal for
money to help the displaced, who have had to seek refuge in locations that
lack clean water, sanitation, shelter, medical care and food.

According to ARC, more than 5,000 are camping in an old agricultural
compound in Bong County, which borders on Lofa. "There is no adequate
water system, the displaced persons are taking water from a nearby swamp,"
ARC Liberia Country Director Shaun Skelton reported. "There is no
sanitation at all, not even pit latrines. Some corn meal and oil has been
distributed by the World Food Programme, but it is insufficient."

Some 700 to 1,000 people have been arriving at the camp daily, according
to ARC, which said on Thursday that about 12,000 others were waiting at a
bridge between Lofa and Bong, with the Liberian Army strictly controlling
how many can escape to safety each day.

ARC said it was spearheading an effort to provide essential supplies and
equipment to the camp, including tarpaulins, chlorine, plastic water
containers, pit latrines and bathing rooms, food, charcoal and firewood,
emergency vaccinations, primary health units and fuel for trucks.

Meanwhile, Liberia's Foreign Ministry has asked diplomats and
representatives of inter-governmental organisations to limit their travel
to areas close to the capital, Monrovia, because of the insecurity caused
by the Lofa fighting.

Help under way for refugees, IDPs in Guinea

Fighting along the border between the three countries began in September,
when areas in southern Guinea were attacked by armed men who, according to
the Guinean authorities, crossed over from Liberia. Thousands of Guineans
and refugees have been displaced, including about 71,231 Sierra Leoneans
who have returned home.

The European Commission (EC) announced on Tuesday that it was giving
Guinea 4.5 million euros to provide health care, water and sanitation
services, shelter and other non-food items for refugees and displaced
Guineans, and to support the distribution of food to both groups.
Netaid.org, an organisation founded by UNDP and Cisco Systems Ltd., said
this week it was helping to trace separated children in Guinea and reunify
them with their families.

On 4 May, WFP reported that it had provided food for 14,742 IDPs in Mamou,
north of the border with Sierra Leone. The beneficiaries, it said, were
the most vulnerable of some 32,310 IDPs registered by the area's
authorities.
 
WEST AFRICA: UN calls for subregional approach to end conflicts

A UN multiagency mission that visited West Africa from 6 to 27 March has
advised the international community to adopt an integrated approach to
restore peace, prevent further conflicts, and promote economic and social
development in the subregion, the UN Department of Public Information
(DPI) reported.

The mission reported views shared widely in the region that the political
and security situations in Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia,
Sierra Leone and the Casamance area of Senegal were expected to
deteriorate. The report, released on Monday, said regional rather than
national approaches were needed to ease tensions, otherwise they would
have serious implications for all of West Africa.

The mission, in which the Economic Community of West African States also
took part, visited Cote d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.
 
GHANA: Scores die in soccer tragedy

Ghanaian President John Kufour announced on Thursday three days of
mourning following the death of about 130 persons in Africa's worst soccer
tragedy. The disaster occurred on Wednesday at the Accra Sports Stadium,
when police fired teargas into the crowd, causing a stampede towards the
exits, which were locked. The government has set up a committee to look
into the disaster.

COTE D'IVOIRE: Land dispute kills six

Six people died and about 1,000 were displaced following a land dispute
last weekend between an indigene and a Burkinabe tenant farmer in the
village of Goya, 450 km west of Abidjan, a Red Cross official told IRIN on
Thursday.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Some detained soldiers released

The authorities in Guinea-Bissau recently released 16 soldiers detained
for their alleged role in an aborted attempt to take control of the armed
forces late last year, news organisations reported. They were among more
than 130 soldiers jailed on suspicion of siding with former military
strongman General Ansumane Mane during fighting with government forces on
22-23 November 2000 that cost Mane his life.

SENEGAL: Military escorts for travellers

The Senegalese army began on Tuesday to escort travellers from the
southern town of Ziguinchor, in Senegal's Casamance area, to the Gambian
border, various media reported. Since mid-February, around 30 people have
been killed in armed robberies blamed on the Mouvement des forces
democratiques de Casamance (MFDC), which has been fighting for
independence for Casamance since 1982.
  
BENIN: Police arrest 10 for child trafficking
    
Benin police arrested 10 people on Tuesday for trying to take 23 minors to
work in Cote d'Ivoire, a news source in Cotonou told IRIN. The source said
on Wednesday that the traffickers were arrested at Come, some 65 km
northwest of the Cotonou, and that the children, boys and girls aged 7-17
years were now being cared for by a non-governmental agency. AFP reported
that another 10 Benin nationals were caught in Togo trafficking 11
children last week.
  
On 3 May, Benin's National Assembly ratified ILO Convention 182, which
prohibits the worst forms of child labour, PANA reported.

CAMEROON: OMCT denounces arbitrary detentions
   
The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) said on Tuesday that it was
"gravely concerned for the physical and psychological integrity" of 10
persons arrested while organising a protest against human rights abuses by
the Operational Command, a special anti-crime unit.

NIGER: WFP to help over 7,000 affected by drought

The World Food Programme (WFP) is to distribute 430 mt of millet to just
over 7,000 schoolchildren and their families in drought-affected Zinder,
southern Niger, over a one-month period starting on 15 May. Up to 30,675
people have been affected by drought in Zinder, according to NGO and
government reports. WFP said on 4 May that the food situation in the
region was "extremely insecure", with reports of malnutrition and still
births. It said cereal stocks were low and prices had increased by 50
percent in March.


Niger has asked Morocco to help it make rain so as to end the drought, AFP
reported state radio as saying on Tuesday. President Mamadou Tandja made
the appeal during an official visit to Morocco last week. Artificial rain
is created by spraying salt crystals into clouds. The crystals capture
water vapour and become heavy, resulting in rain.

MAURITANIA: French aid for dencentralisation, water supplies

Mauritania and France have signed two agreements totalling US $1.2 million
to support administrative decentralisation and help to provide drinking
water to the semi-arid nation, Radio Mauritania reported on Monday.
Meanwhile, Water and Energy Minister Kane Moustapha, inaugurated on 5 May
204 projects costing about US $14 million to provide clean drinking water
in regions heavily affected by Guinea worm, a debilitating water-borne
disease.

NIGERIA: Rash of oil spills in the southeast

A rash of oil spills coupled with communal and industrial disputes have
disrupted crude oil production by three transnationals in the Niger Delta,
southeastern Nigeria, industry sources said on Friday.

US multinational ExxonMobil Corp's Nigerian subsidiary shut its Qua Iboe
oil export terminal on Thursday after it was besieged by protesters from
the local Eket community who accused the company of neglect.

Another US company, Chevron Corp, reported on Thursday that a faulty valve
on one of its pipelines had caused the leakage of an estimated 140 barrels
of crude near its Escravos operational base. And a strike at Royal
Dutch/Shell's Yorla Oilfield in Ogoniland has delayed the cleaning of a
spill that occurred there last week.

[See separate item titled 'NIGERIA: Oil spills heighten tension in the
southeast']

AFRICA: HIV/AIDS depleting rural workforce, FAO report says

An estimated seven million agricultural workers have died from AIDS since
1985 in the 27 most affected countries in Africa, and 16 million more
deaths are likely in the next two decades, the FAO says in a new report on
'The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Food Security'.

In the 10 most affected African countries, the labour force is expected to
decrease by 10 to 26 percent by 2020, FAO says. The 10 include two West
African nations, Cote d'Ivoire and Cameroon. Cote d'Ivoire's agricultural
labour force decreased by about 5.6 percent in 2000 and Cameroon's by 2.9
percent. Projected losses by 2020 have been put at 11.4 percent in Cote
d'Ivoire and 10.7 percent in Cameroon.
  
[The full FAO report is available at :
http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/003/Y0310E.htm ]
  
Abidjan, 11 May 2001; 19:00 GMT

 
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