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 170
05 - 11 April 2003


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Humanitarian situation worsens
COTE D'IVOIRE: Fighting resumes in the west 
WEST AFRICA: IOM to assist people displaced from Cote d'Ivoire
NIGERIA: HRW calls for appropriate action on Delta violence
BENIN: Media protest against beating, detention of journalists


LIBERIA: Humanitarian situation worsens

The UN Secretary-General's Representative in Liberia, Abou Moussa, warned
this week that fighting in various parts of Liberia had worsened the
humanitarian situation and that concerted action was required by the
international community to avert a looming catastrophe.

The conflict between pro-government troops and insurgents in Liberia,
which began around 1999, has been characterised by bouts of intense
fighting followed by periods of apparent calm. The latest escalatation
began in November 2002 when the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation
and Peace (LURD) overran the western town of Bopolu and later captured
Tubmanburg, 60 km west of the capital.

New fronts were later opened on the west coast and in the centre, around
the town of Gbarnga, Abou Moussa said in a report he presented on Monday
at the 10th ministerial meeting of the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West
African States) Security and Mediation Council, held in Abidjan.

The areas directly affected by the insecurity include the northwestern
county of Lofa, which borders on Guinea and Sierra Leone; central Liberia;
and parts of the east, along the border with Cote d'Ivoire.
 
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on
Wednesday that the fighting had prevented humanitarian aid from reaching
many of the people who needed it most, and that it had placed large
numbers of civilians at risk. These included Liberians, refugees and, in
the east, third country nationals, i.e. people transiting through Liberia
from Cote d'Ivoire to Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso.
  
OCHA also said that in areas where access to needy populations was
possible, mainly near the capital, Monrovia, humanitarian agencies were
running low on supplies.
 
It said only two percent of the US $42.6 million in funding requested in
the 2003 UN Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for Liberia had been donated.
UN humanitarian agencies in Liberia have urged donors to enable them to
assist vulnerable Liberians by urgently funding the appeal, OCHA added.
 
Journalists and humanitarian workers have also been caught up in the
fighting. Reporters sans Frontieres urged the government on Wednesday to
search for four local journalists who had gone missing in the centre and
southeast of Liberia two weeks before.

Over two weeks ago, more than 100 humanitarian workers, including
employees of UN agencies and NGOs, went missing following an attack on the
eastern border town of Zwedru.

[For other IRIN reports on Liberia, go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Liberia
]

COTE D'IVOIRE: Fighting resumes in the west

International media reported that Danane, a rebel-held town in western
Cote d'Ivoire was attacked by helicopter gunships this week. A UN source
said reports that many people had died in the attack had not been
confirmed. The source said two deaths had been confirmed in Danane.
 
Armed forces spokesman Lt-Col Aka N'Goran said on Wednesday that loyalist
forces had not carried out air attacks in the west. The interim minister
of defence, Assoa Adou, issued a communique dated 9 April in which he said
it was "not the vocation of the defence forces to attack civilian
populations". Without mentioning specific locations or dates, he said
defence and security forces had been "forced to react to a massive attack
by more than 500 men aboard some 60 vehicles to protect defenceless
civilians".
 
According to humanitarian sources, the insecurity in western Cote d'Ivoire
has caused people to flee at a rate of about 50 persons a day over the
past two or three weeks from affected areas to the town of Guiglo, 516 km
west of Abidjan.
 
The area affected by the most recent fighting is located along the border
with Liberia in a zone which, over the past few months, has been under the
control of the Mouvement populaire ivoirien du Grand Ouest (MPIGO -
Ivorian Popular Movement of the Greater West). Danane, 626 km northwest of
Abidjan, is where MPIGO has its headquarters.

Two other rebel groups operate in Cote d'Ivoire. The Mouvement pour la
Justice et la Paix (MJP -Movement for Justice and Peace) controls the area
around the western town of Man, 80 km northeast of Danane, and 578 km
northwest of Abidjan. The Mouvement patriotique de Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI -
Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire) controls much of northern Cote
d'Ivoire, while the south and parts of the west and northeast are in the
hands of the state.

A buffer force deployed by the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) has been monitoring an October ceasefire signed by the MPCI and
accepted by the state.

ECOWAS approved an increase in the size of the force from 1,200 to 3,200
at a meeting in Abidjan on Monday of its Mediation and Security Council,
which is made of ECOWAS foreign ministers.

Meanwhile, the offices of an Ivorian human rights organisation, the
Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains (MIDH), were ransacked on Saturday
by two armed men in plain clothes, MIDH sources told IRIN.

According to the sources, the men went to the organisation's offices in
Abidjan and asked its secretary for an MIDH document issued on the
previous day. They beat her up when she said she was not aware of the
document, searched the premises for about 45 minutes and took some
documents away.

[For other IRIN reports on Cote d'Ivoire, go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Cote_d_Ivoire
]

WEST AFRICA: IOM to assist people displaced from Cote d'Ivoire
 
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has announced plans to
launch a regional project to help repatriate some 21,500 third-country
nationals displaced by the Ivorian crisis and stranded in Cote d'Ivoire,
Liberia and Ghana.

The largest operation would target Liberia, from where IOM plans to
facilitate the return home of 11,000 people, mainly to Burkina Faso,
Guinea and Mali, IOM said in a news briefing on 4 April. The displaced had
fled western Cote d'Ivoire when armed clashes broke out there in late
2002.

IOM also plans to assist some 9,500 third-country nationals stranded in
western Cote d'Ivoire. In Ghana, it will target a group of 1,000 people,
mainly from Burkina Faso, who spent weeks in Liberia before travelling to
Accra on fishing boats in the hope of making it back to their home
country.

The Canadian and Dutch governments have provided funding for the
operation.
 
[For other IRIN reports on West Africa, go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa]

NIGERIA: HRW calls for appropriate action on Delta violence

Human Rights Watch (HRW) this week called on the Nigerian government and
multinational oil companies to take action immediately to prevent more
violence and abuses around the southern town of Warri, located in the
Niger Delta.
  
Since 13 March, clashes between members of the Ijaw and Itsekiri ethnic
groups in the Niger Delta have claimed scores of lives. Many other people
died when defence and security forces mounted an operation against Ijaw
villages in retaliation for the alleged killing by armed Ijaw youths of
four soldiers. HRW said in a letter to President Olusegun Obasanjo that it
had received reports of security forces firing indiscriminately on Ijaw
villages, killing dozens of people.

In separate letters, it appealed the main companies operating in the area
to publicly urge the government to restore security in a manner that
respects due process and fundamental human rights and is not
disproportionate.

The letter to President Obasanjo can be found at:
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/04/nigeria040703obasanjo.htm
 
The letters to the oil companies can be found at
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/04/nigeria040703chevron.htm
  and 
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/04/nigeria040703shell.htm

[For other IRIN reports on Nigeria, go to 
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Nigeria ]

BENIN: Media protest against beating, detention of journalists

Benin's private press association observed a "no press day" on Monday to
denounce the detention and beating on 1 April of four journalists from the
daily Le Telegramme, following the publication by the newspaper of a
letter critical of the country's authorities. About 30 newspapers were off
the newsstands while a handful of private radio stations played only
music.
 
The four journalists were taken to the main police station in Cotonou
where they were beaten, detained and released on the same day, RSF said.
The authorities accused them of violating journalistic ethics by
publishing a letter from a group of underground policemen addressed to
Benin's national head of police, Raymond Fadonougbo, which the latter
deemed a personal insult.

[For other IRIN reports on Benin, go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Benin]


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