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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Fax: +225 22-41-9339
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 108
04 - 10 May 2002


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: At least 40,000 displaced in latest fighting
NIGERIA: BAC-1-11 aircraft grounded after crash
THE GAMBIA-SENEGAL: 9,000 Senegalese flee Casamance fighting
THE GAMBIA: Journalists petition against new media bill
MALI: Court affirms second round
SIERRA LEONE: Special voting starts
GHANA: Reconciliation panel inaugurated
WEST AFRICA: Health update: HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Meningitis
WEST AFRICA: ICRC and artists to raise rights awareness
GLOBAL: New rehydration formula to save millions of lives

LIBERIA: At least 40,000 displaced in latest fighting

At least 40,000 people have been displaced in Liberia by the latest
fighting between government troops and rebels in central Bong County,
humanitarian sources in the capital, Monrovia, told IRIN on Friday.

More displacement was expected as the fighting intensified around the town
of Gbarnga, 160 km north of Monrovia, the sources added. The majority of
the displaced were moving south to Margibi County, while a few were moving
into Nimba County.

By Friday the fighting had reportedly spread to several areas on the
outskirts of Gbarnga. A government military camp housing the engineering
and artillery base was overrun by the rebels, news agencies reported. At
least 900 students and teachers from Cuttington University College, the
second largest University in Liberia, were evacuated by a police convoy to
Monrovia on Tuesday, sources said. Fleeing residents, they added, spoke of
heavy gun fire coming from the town.

President Charles Taylor spoke on Radio Liberia International on Thursday,
saying fighting with rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and
Democracy (LURD) was continuing fiercely. He called on the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to lobby the Organisation for
African Unity (OAU) and the UN against the Security Council embargo, the
pro-Taylor radio station reported.

The Security Council decided unanimously this week to extend sanctions on
the Liberian government for 12 months, saying the country had not fully
complied with demands to stop support for the Revolutionary United Front
(RUF) and other armed rebel groups in the region. The extension, effective
from 7 May, covers an arms embargo, travel ban on government officials,
and a prohibition on the exports of rough diamonds, the UN reported on
Monday.

The Council, however, requested the Secretary-General, within three months
to set up another panel of experts to investigate in Liberia and
neighbouring states, compliance with its demands, the potential economic,
humanitarian and social impact of the sanctions on Liberia's population,
and any further violations.

The extension could "be immediately terminated if the Council decides that
the government has complied with the resolution", the UN said.

In March the UN mandated a panel of experts to probe the government's
compliance with the Council Resolution 1343 of March 2001, under which
sanctions were imposed on Monrovia for its links with RUF in neighbouring
Sierra Leone.

Gbarnga once served as a headquarters of President Charles Taylor's forces
when he led the war of rebellion in 1989-1996. LURD spokesman, William
Hanson, was quoted by the BBC on Wednesday as saying they had captured a
number of strategically important towns in the area.

NIGERIA: BAC-1-11 aircraft grounded after crash

Nigeria has grounded all British-made BAC-1-11 jet aircraft in the fleet
of airlines operating in the country, after an aircraft of the same model
crashed at the weekend, killing 149 people.

Minister of Aviation, Kema Chikwe, also told a news conference in the
capital, Abuja, on Wednesday that all aircraft above 22 years would no
longer be registered by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. Owners of
such aircraft have been given five years to phase them out, she added.

The twin-engine BAC-1-11-500 operated by EAS Airlines with 79 people on
board, crashed shortly after take-off on Saturday, into a residential
neighbourhood in the northern city of Kano. Four people survived while
another 74 were killed on the ground. Among the dead was Nigeria's
minister of sports, Ishaya Mark Aku, on his way to Lagos to watch a
friendly football match between the national team and Kenya. Unidentified
victims were given a mass burial in the city cemetery on Monday.

The minister also said a special panel, headed by a federal high court
judge, had been set up to investigate the circumstances of the accident.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, who visited the crash site on Monday, said
that victims would be paid compensation and announced that 10 million
naira (US $86,206) had been set aside to provide emergency assistance.

The crash was Nigeria's worst aviation accident since 1996, when a Boeing
727 aircraft operated by another local airliner, Aviation Development
Company, plunged into the Lagos lagoon while approaching to land, killing
all 145 passengers and crew on board.

THE GAMBIA-SENEGAL: 9,000 Senegalese flee Casamance fighting

At least 9,000 refugees fleeing fighting in the Casamance region of
southern Senegal have entered The Gambia since Monday, Gambian immigration
officials told IRIN on Friday.

Over 500 arrived in the village of Berending in the space of two days,
while hundreds more crossed the border on Thursday as fighting between the
Senegalese army and rebels intensified after a brief lull mid-week, the
officials said. The escalation in the fighting came as Senegal prepared
for municipal elections. Reports said the army had mounted a "mopping up
operation" in the Casamance villages of Mamuda and Kartak, which were
previously used as rear bases by the rebels.

The Casamance Democratic Forces Movement (French acronym MFDC), has waged
an armed campaign since 1982 to gain independence for the region. Several
peace deals have been signed with the authorities in Senegal, but none has
been fully respected.

Fleeing refugees spoke of heavy aerial bombardment by Senegalese forces of
rebel positions, especially around the village of Diouloulou, some 80 km
northwest of Ziguinchor, where rebels attacked a delegation of ruling
party Senegalese politicians last week. The attack, in which at least
eight people died, prompted the current Senegalese army counter-offensive.

Gambian security forces continued to be stationed along the border in what
their chief of staff, Colonel Babucar Jatta, described as "a routine move
to monitor the situation on the border every time there's fighting in
Casamance." The armed forces deployment on Sunday followed the bombardment
of the Gambian border village of Dimbaya by a Senegalese military plane
that was pursuing suspected rebels.

UNHCR said arrangements had been made by the Gambian government to
transfer refugees from the border villages of Kartong and Darsilami to
Bambila refugee camp, some 200 km inland. An UNHCR mission from Dakar has
gone to the border area to assess humanitarian assistance needs.

Gambia is already host to some 12,000 refugees, 4,000 of them from Senegal
and about 7,000 from Sierra Leone, UNHCR said.

THE GAMBIA: Journalists petition against new media bill

Journalists in The Gambia have petitioned President Yahya Jammeh not to
sign into law a controversial media bill passed by parliament last week.
Jammeh, however, left for New York on Monday to attend the 8-10 May United
Nations conference on children.

The chairman of the Gambia Press Union, Demba Jawo, said they would
challenge the bill in court if the petition to the president fails. Under
the new bill journalists would be required to register with a National
Media Commission. The Commission is mandated to enforce a media code of
conduct, register journalists, summon journalists to answer complaints
against them from aggrieved parties and judge the complaints. It would
also set standards on content and quality of material for publication or
broadcast by the media.

MALI: Constitutional Court affirms second round

Mali's Constitutional Court has nullified over 500,000 ballots cast in the
first round of presidential elections, however it maintained that Sunday's
second round should go ahead as planned.

The court's decision marked the official and final results of the 28 April
first round which had been contested by some of the losing candidates.
Several presidential candidates had brought before the court allegations
of fraud and vote-rigging and were pressing for the highest court to annul
the first round. Although the court annulled 541,000 votes, it supported
the 3 May proclamation by the ministry of territorial administration - in
charge of organising the elections - that ex-army general Amadou Toumani
Toure and Soumaila Cisse of the ruling ADEMA party, were the two front
runners, Ismael Dicko, an information official at the ministry, told IRIN
on Friday.

Toure and Cisse will compete in the second round scheduled for 12 May.

Former prime minister, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who came third in the first
round, on Thursday urged his supporters to vote for Toure.

SIERRA LEONE: Special voting starts

Special voting for key state employees started on Friday, four days before
the rest of the nation votes in the first general elections since the
10-year war between the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the
government was officially declared over in January.

The one-day special vote is aimed at members of the armed forces, National
Electoral Commission, fire department, police force and others, who would
be on duty on 14 May, a UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) official in
the capital, Freetown, told IRIN.

There had been "no dramatic incidents" since campaigning by the 11
participating parties began. However, there were reports of verbal
intimidation of opposition members in the eastern town of Koidu by
supporters of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's ruling Sierra Leone People's
Party, humanitarian sources said.

Meanwhile UNAMSIL Force Commander Lt-Gen Daniel Opande, this week visited
two former RUF strongholds, the northern town of Makeni and Kenema in the
east, to assess the general security situation and to get an update on
preparations by UNAMSIL for next week's elections.

In Kenema, UNAMSIL reported Commander Brig-Gen George Ayi-Bonte as saying,
the security situation was calm. The election campaign in the area had
been peaceful while arrangements had been put in place to ensure adequate
security for free, fair and transparent elections, he said.

The general security situation in Sierra Leone remained calm, a UNAMSIL
official said on Friday.

GHANA: Reconciliation panel inaugurated

President John Kufuor inaugurated on Monday a reconciliation commission
responsible for looking into past human rights violations, news
organisation reported.

At the ceremony in the capital, Accra, Kufuor said that the hearings would
be "a forum for those who are aggrieved to seek consolation, and for those
whose losses cannot be replaced to receive compensation", news
organisations quoted him as saying.

He said the government was determined to build "a new Ghana" and that the
setting up of the commission was a genuine attempt to reconcile the nation
for the mistakes of the past. Some opposition politicians have criticized
the new body saying its only purpose was to carry out witch hunts.

The commission, chaired by a retired Supreme Court Judge, Justice
Amua-Sekyi, is expected to operate for about one year. It is mandated to
investigate abuses committed during the five military regimes which ruled
Ghana for a total of 22 years after the first coup in 1966, the BBC
reported.

WEST AFRICA: Health update: HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Meningitis

Togo's Red Cross association launched a two-year project against the
spread of HIV/AIDS this week, as part of a continent-wide health
initiative by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The HIV/AIDS initiative includes an education and sensitisation campaign
targeting those aged above 15, considered to be at most risk. The aims of
the project include teaming up with religious, community and youth leaders
to encourage the adoption of safe sex behavior, including use of condoms.

Meanwhile, in Gabon, the Ebola haemorrhagic fever outbreak has been
officially declared over, WHO reported the Ministry of Health as saying on
6 May. The last notified case died on 19 March and no further cases had
been reported for a period equivalent to twice the maximum incubation
period for Ebola, it added. WHO did not mention the status of the outbreak
in Republic of Congo.

The outbreak began in December 2001 and has mainly affected the Mekambo
area, 600 km east of Gabon's capital, Libreville, and districts across the
border in neighbouring Republic of Congo. On 10 April, 53 deaths had been
reported by the Gabonese Ministry of Health. In Republic of Congo, as at
29 March, 43 deaths were reported in Mbomo district and Kelle district.

Ebola is a haemorrhagic fever transmitted through direct contact with body
fluids of infected persons or other primates. There is no cure and between
50 percent and 90 percent of victims die.

Meanwhile in the Sahel countries of Burkina Faso and Niger, latest figures
indicate that the meningitis epidemic was slowing down.

Burkina Faso recorded 1,368 deaths from meningitis out of 11,899 cases as
at 28 April, with a weekly case-fatality rate that indicated a downward
trend in the epidemic, WHO reported on Monday. Meningitis in Burkina Faso
was first reported in January in the eastern district of Diapaga but,
since then, the Ministry of Health has reported cases in all of the
country's 53 districts.

In Niger, 3,518 cases including 308 deaths were reported as at 21 April,
particularly in the southern districts of Matamey (Zinder), Dakaro and
Guidan-Roumdji where cases were still being reported, WHO said.

The two countries are among the West African countries located in Africa's
meningitis belt that comprises about 15 countries south of the Sahara
where outbreaks of the disease occur each year.

WEST AFRICA: ICRC and artists to raise rights awareness

The regional delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) and seven West African artists have launched a music album titled
'Man is Man's remedy' that aims to raise awareness of basic principles of
humanitarian law.

The 8-track, non-commercial album, launched on Wednesday in Abidjan, Cote
d'Ivoire, was a collaborative work of four artists from Cote d'Ivoire,
Assy Kywah of Benin, Sonia Carre d'as of Burkina Faso and Dama Damwuzan of
Togo. Apart from a plea "to give back a little humanity to those who have
lost it" in the title track, they also sing of child-soldiers,
anti-personnel mines, small arms trafficking, women in war, prisoners,
displacement, and respect for civilians during conflict.

The ICRC project coordinator, Simon Pluess, said music was chosen because
of the region's strong oral tradition and because musicians were
"mouth-pieces" of their communities. The artists were also known to
highlight social issues in their respective careers.

GLOBAL: New rehydration formula to save millions of lives

The World Health Organization, released a new improved formula of Oral
Rehydration Salts (ORS) on Wednesday that would save millions of lives and
reduce the severity of illness of those suffering from acute diarrhoea,
WHO reported.

ORS is a sodium and glucose solution used to treat children with acute
diarrhoea. WHO said the new formula would reduce the severity of diarrhoea
and vomiting, the number of hospitalisations, the need for costly
intravenous fluid treatment and the length of illness.

Use of the new ORS formula would begin later this year in India, WHO said.


IRIN-WA
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Fax: +225 22-41-9339
Email: IRIN-WA@irin.ci

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