U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
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Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 56
20-26 January 2001


CONTENTS:
   
GUINEA: Irregular fighters seen in camps
GUINEA: Militiamen demand food from UNHCR
GUINEA: Refugees' return moves into higher gear
GUINEA: Missing UNHCR worker freed
BURKINA FASO: Migrants flee Cote d'Ivoire
WEST AFRICA: Ministers agree to increase regional security 
GUINEA-BISSAU: Ruling coalition collapses 
NIGER: Opposition wants probe into former president's death
GHANA: US repairs flood-damaged dams
GHANA: High rate of cervical cancer reported
LIBERIA: Government grounds aircraft 	
NIGERIA: Navy deployed to end communal violence
NIGERIA: NGOs ordered out of Kano
NIGERIA: Teenage girl lashed for premarital sex
MAURITANIA: Youths released from detention
SIERRA LEONE: Moving away from the IDP camp idea
SIERRA LEONE: OAU gives US $75,000 for returnees
SIERRA LEONE: Children still in prison
MALI: WFP offers food 

GUINEA: Irregular fighters seen in camps

Several irregular fighters armed with grenades, semi-automatic weapons and
other arms were seen in Nyaedou camp, southwestern Guinea, on Thursday while
food aid was being distributed, UNHCR reported. The agency said vehicles
loaded with fighters bearing rocket-propelled grenades, light machine guns
and ammunition were also seen passing Nyaedou headed for nearby Guekedou,
the scene of fighting on Monday.

Meanwhile, refugees in Nyaedou and Massakoundou, further north, have told
UNHCR that, instead of waiting for food aid, they would rather be helped to
go back to their home countries as soon as possible so as to escape the
fighting and chaos in southwestern Guinea. They also fear being impressed by
militia groups, or having local communities turn against them. 

UNHCR finished the distribution of relief aid, begun last week, to the some
30,000 refugees in Massakoundou camp on Thursday. Refugees said the rations
were not enough. However, armed men were seen leaving Massakoundou with
several bags of food aid intended for refugees, UNHCR said.

Meanwhile, the few refugees who successfully reached Conakry, more than 600
km to the west, reported paying up to US $50 for transport and bribes, UNHCR
said. 

Some 180,000 refugees and 70,000 displaced Guineans living in the Parrot's
Beak, a region near Guekedou that juts into Sierra Leone, remained out of
reach as agencies had not received the go-ahead to resume aid distribution
in the area. 

GUINEA: Militiamen demand food aid from UNHCR

Unarmed groups of men that have been supporting the Guinean forces visited
UNHCR and other relief agencies last week in Kissidougou, southern Guinea,
and requested food, fuel and other assistance, UNHCR reported. They were led
by a commander who, according to UNHCR, is apparently of Liberian origin and
calls himself 'General Rambo'. While agencies refused the demands and turned
the men away, they fear that the groups could become more threatening.
 
GUINEA: Refugees' return moves into higher gear

More refugees will now be able to return to Sierra Leone from Guinea by boat
each week with the deployment of a second UNHCR/IOM vessel to transport
them. The "Fanta" and the "Overbeck" will ferry 500 and 350 persons
respectively with daily departures planned, except on Mondays, thus
increasing average weekly arrivals in Sierra Leone from 1,400 to 2,550,
UNHCR said. 
   
GUINEA: Missing UNHCR worker freed

A UNHCR radio operator, Joseph Loua, was freed in Liberia on Monday, 47 days
after he was abducted by gunmen in the town of Guekedou in southern Guinea,
UNHCR reported. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) officials
found Loua in Voinjama, near Liberia's border with Guinea, and took him to
Monrovia.  
    
BURKINA FASO: Migrants flee Cote d'Ivoire

Authorities in Burkina Faso are facing an influx of returning migrants from
Cote d'Ivoire, where sporadic unrest has been followed by attacks on West
African foreigners. The National Committee for Emergency Assistance and
Rehabilitation said late last week that 2,500 to 3,000 people had arrived in
Ouagadougou on each of the twice-weekly trains between Abidjan and the
Burkinabe capital. 
 
WEST AFRICA: Ministers agree to increase regional security
 
Six West African nations have agreed not to serve as rear bases for criminal
groups and to combat transnational insecurity, media organisations reported.
Thursday's meeting in the Ivorian capital, Yamoussoukro, came in the wake of
the Ivorian government's allegation that foreigners participated in a failed
coup on 7-8 January.

Security ministers from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger and
Togo also agreed to guarantee the protection of each other's citizens living
in their countries, the Ivorian state-owned daily, 'Fraternite-Matin',
reported. However they said foreigners should respect the laws of their host
countries. 

Controlling immigration and monitoring borders were also considered
important crime-reducing factors.
  
GUINEA-BISSAU: Ruling coalition collapses 

Members of the Resistencia da Guine-Movimento Bafata (RGB) resigned from
Guinea-Bissau's ruling coalition on Tuesday following a dispute with
President Kumba Yala's Partido da Renovacao Social (PRS) over a cabinet
reshuffle. Yala's government is now in the minority in 102-member
parliament, where the PRS has 37 seats.

NIGER: Opposition wants probe into former president's death

The leader of Niger's opposition Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP),
Hamid Algabid, said on Tuesday that his party aimed to make sure an
international inquiry is conducted into the assassination of former
president and RDP leader Ibrahim Bare Mainassara, AFP reported. 
 
GHANA: US repairs flood-damaged dams

The US Department of Defence and its European Command have approved US
$300,000 for the rehabilitation of dams damaged by floods in 1999, the Ghana
News Agency reported on Thursday, quoting the US ambassador. It said 10
dams, most of them in the north, were to be repaired. They were selected on
the basis of the extent of the damage and the impact of floods on area
residents. 
 
GHANA: High rate of cervical cancer reported

Routine checks conducted at Ghana's Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in recent
years show that cervical cancer is the commonest of all cancers recorded,
the Ghana News Agency quoted health officials as saying on Monday. The
agency said 481 cases of cervical cancer were recorded out of 1,661 patients
screened at the hospital's radiotherapy unit between October 1997 and
December 2000. This prompted the inauguration on Monday of a Cervical Cancer
Advisory Group by the director of the Ghana Health Service.
    
LIBERIA: Government grounds aircraft 	

Liberia has grounded all aircraft registered in the country until their
owners prove that they have complied with state regulations and the
standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, according to
news reports. The Ministry of Transport has also revoked the appointments of
agents who had been registering and inspecting aircraft on behalf of the
government. The moves follow publication of a UN report on illegal arms and
diamonds operations in Sierra Leone. The report said Liberia-registered
aircraft transported illegal arms bound for Sierra Leonean rebels. A Liberia
watcher told IRIN the government's action was in response to the UN report.
 
NIGERIA: Navy deployed to end communal violence

Nigerian authorities have deployed naval troops in the southeast to end
weeks of violence between two communities in which at least 15 people have
died, a media source told IRIN on Monday.

The Bille and Ke communities in the Degema district of the Niger Delta
region have both laid claim to land on which Royal/Dutch Shell has built an
oil facility. Each community maintains that it should receive the benefits
from the station. A reporter who visited the area told IRIN that the navy
was sent in after police repeatedly failed to quell the violence, in which
the belligerents used sophisticated weapons. 

NIGERIA: NGOs ordered out of Kano

Local and international human rights NGOs have been ordered by the Council
of Ulamas (Muslim clerics) in Kano to leave the northern Nigerian state,
according to media reports confirmed by advocacy groups.

"We have received information to that effect, but it is certainly
unconstitutional," Remi Adewale, a human rights activist, said.

NIGERIA: Teenage mother whipped for premarital sex

Local and international organisations, including UNICEF and Human Rights
Watch, have condemned the whipping in Zamfara, northern Nigeria, of a
17-year-old girl found guilty by an Islamic court of indulging in premarital
sex.

Bariya Ibrahim Magazu, who gave birth to a baby in December, received 100
strokes of the cane on 19 January, after an initial sentence of 180 strokes
was reduced. A Nigerian NGO, Baobab for Women's Human Rights, said officials
violated Zamfara's penal code, which provides for the right of appeal, since
Magazu was whipped while trying to exercise that right.

MAURITANIA: Youths released from detention

Three members of the banned Union des forces democratiques-ere nouvelle
(UFD-EN) in Mauritania, who were detained since early December, were freed
on 21 January, the Panafrican News Agency (PANA) reported. The Mauritanian
government had accused them of "threatening national security" and
instigating an anti-government graffiti campaign during political unrest
last month.  
 
SIERRA LEONE: Moving away from the IDP camp idea

Sierra Leone's returning refugees and internally displaced persons are to be
settled in host communities rather than in camps, the state-owned news
agency, SLENA, reported on 19 January. The concept is being adopted because
camp life "dehumanises and reduces the dignity of displaced people", Kanja
Sesay, the commissioner of the National Commission for Resettlement,
Rehabilitation and Reconstruction said.  

SIERRA LEONE: OAU gives US $75,000 for returnees

The Organization of African Unity has given Sierra Leone US $75,000 toward
the repatriation of refugees from Guinea, the state-owned news agency,
SLENA, reported on Monday from Freetown. 
 
SIERRA LEONE: Children still in prison

Sierra Leone's government continues to hold 13 minors at Freetown's Pademba
Road Prison, a UNICEF official said.

The boys were arrested in May 2000 for their involvement in RUF activities
but have not yet been charged, the official told IRIN on Friday. They are
the last of about 50 arrested when Freetown residents captured RUF leader
Foday Sankoh and handed him over to the government. Most of the children
were under 16 years and they were released in December, but the older ones
remained. 
 
OCHA said in its situation report of 22 December 2000 - 25 January 2001 that
officials of the Ministry of Social Welfare visited the prisoners every week
and that the UN and NGOs continued to call for their release.

MALI: WFP offers food 

The World Food Programme has agreed to give Mali US $1.9 million in food,
equivalent to 10,000 mt, to reduce its vulnerability to famine and alleviate
existing food shortages in various areas.  

Abidjan, 26 January 2001; 17:20 GMT


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