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 181
21 - 27 June 2003


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: Rebels announce truce, Bush tells Taylor to quit
LIBERIA: Time for change, Greenstock says 
COTE D'IVOIRE: $91 m package to fight HIV/AIDS delayed
NIGERIA: Strike called to protest new fuel price
NIGERIA: Death toll in pipeline fire rises to 125
WEST AFRICA: UNICEF wants more girls in school
WEST AFRICA: Centre to probe malaria resistance
SENEGAL: ADB supports health project
SIERRA LEONE: Kabbah tightens controls on diamonds

LIBERIA: Rebels announce truce, Bush tells Taylor to quit

Liberian rebels declared a truce on Friday but stayed in the heart of the
capital, Monrovia, following a week of fighting between government troops
and the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) group.
Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced for the second time in a
month.

The health minister, Peter Coleman, said at least 200 people had been
killed by Thursday and 350 injured in the latest battle for Monrovia. Some
were hit by shells fired by rebels who bombarded the city with heavy
mortar and rocket fire throughout Wednesday night.

President Charles Taylor, who the rebels are trying to oust, went on radio
on Wednesday to say he would remain in the city to encourage his fighters.
"I have not left this city and I will not leave this city. My survival is
the Liberian people's survival, your survival is my survival," he said.

With the situation getting out of hand, US President George Bush called on
Taylor to step down "to avoid further bloodshed". Jeremy Greenstock, the
UK representative on the UN Security Council, suggested the US should lead
an intervention force in Liberia. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
expressed deep concern at the renewed fighting and called for an immediate
ceasefire.
 
But the rebels remained adamant. "We are going all out this time," a LURD
official told IRIN. A 17 June ceasefire between the warring factions,
signed in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, all but collapsed as the rebels
took advantage of a lull in fighting on Thursday to send troops from the
western to the eastern suburbs of the city, where Taylor and senior
government officials live.
 
Taylor's fighters meanwhile went on a massive looting spree. Thousands of
displaced people were running out of food and had started breaking into
closed shops to find something to eat. "Food is running out in Monrovia,"
a resident told IRIN. "People are desperate for something to eat."

The latest battle for Monrovia started last weekend with the LURD
advancing into the western outskirts on Tuesday. Another rebel group, the
Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), which controls most of
southeastern Liberia, reported heavy fighting with Taylor's forces in
their areas of control.

LURD rebels had overran Monrovia's western suburbs three weeks ago, but
withdrew to pave way for the 17 June ceasefire agreement. More than
100,000 people were displaced by the fighting and the government said over
300 were killed.

For IRIN coverage of the Liberian crisis go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35002&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA

LIBERIA: Time for a change, Greenstock says

The upsurge in fighting in Liberia came as a UN Security Council mission
led by Greenstock embarked on a 25 June-5 July mission to West Africa to
assess the prospects for peace and closer cooperation in eight countries,
namely Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea and
Sierra Leone.

Greenstock on Wednesday told a news conference in New York: "It is time
for a change and time to put the Liberian people first, rather than the
political ambitions of one faction or another." Taylor, he said, would
have to decide what part he wished to play in that change. But his
government's failure to run a stable Liberia and his failure to respond to
a Court indictment had to be taken into account.

A UN-backed court in Sierra Leone indicted Taylor for war crimes and
crimes against humanity for his role in fuelling that country's 1999-2001
civil war of 1991-2001. On Wednesday, the Swiss government froze his bank
accounts at the Court's request. Diplomats believe Taylor received uncut
diamonds from Sierra Leone in return for supporting the rebels.

"He is claimed to have invested the proceeds from the diamond sales in a
number of countries, including Switzerland," the Swiss Federal Office of
Justice said on Monday. The value of assets frozen was not immediately
known, but reports said Swiss banks had declared US $1.5 billion in
deposits belonging to private and public interests in Liberia.

Taylor has demanded that the indictment be lifted "for the sake of peace
in Liberia and the subregion." But the Court prosecutor, David Crane, said
on Wednesday that he wanted Taylor captured alive to answer the charges.
"He should be turned over to us alive so that he can be brought before
justice. He an absolute right to a fair and open trial," Crane said.

"Taylor is an indicted war criminal, someone who has destabilised this
region since he left Libya in 1988/89.I have a very strong moral grounding
in this. We are going to get Charles Taylor I can assure you," Crane said.
 
For IRIN coverage of the Liberian crisis go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35002&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA

COTE D’ IVOIRE: Wrangle delays $91m aid package to fight AIDS
 
The Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria delayed the
disbursement of a US $91 million grant to Cote d'Ivoire because of a
dispute between government departments in Abidjan over who gets to spend
the money. The fund has also failed to reach agreement with the Ivorian
government over who should control disbursement of the funds and monitor
their spending.

Mamadou Diallo, the representative in Cote d'Ivoire of the Joint UN
Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said the issues holding up the agreement
could be resolved by the end of July. Most of the grant is for training
health workers, providing information to carriers of the HIV virus and
purchasing specialist drugs to treat people who had developed AIDS. Some
of would also be used to fight tuberculosis and malaria.

Some 12 percent of Cote d'Ivoire's 16 million people carry the HIV/AIDS
virus.

Meanwhile, wells and streams contaminated by the bodies of people killed
in recent fighting are threatening the health of thousands of people who
have begun returning to their villages in Cote d'Ivoire's "Wild West".
Officials said that the bodies of hundreds of people killed by
undisciplined militiamen fighting for both the government and rebels, were
dumped in wells and water courses.
 
A French officer said that in the village of Kahin near Duekoue nearly 40
people had died in two days from an outbreak of disease suspected to have
been caused by water contaminated by the rotting corpses of people killed
in militia raids. The Abidjan newspaper Soir Info said on Friday that its
reporters found about 60 heavily decomposed bodies lying in and around a
stream 300 mt from Fengolo, another village in the same area.

For IRIN coverage of Cote d'Ivoire go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Cote_d_Ivoire

NIGERIA: General strike called to protest new fuel price
 
Nigerian trade unions called an indefinite general strike starting on
Monday unless the government reversed new increases in fuel prices before
then. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said the price increases of over
50 percent were unacceptable and the government's explanation for them was
"untenable". The NLC said: "Workers should by Monday June 30 commence an
indefinite strike action."

The government increased petrol prices by 54 percent, saying it wanted to
eliminate subsidies and curb the smuggling of Nigerian petroleum products
to neighbouring countries where prices are much higher.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34973&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGERIA

NIGERIA: Death toll in pipeline fire rises to 125

The death toll in a fire which engulfed hundreds of people as they scooped
petrol from a burst pipeline in southeast Nigeria reached 125 on Monday.
More than 200 people injured in the blaze, many of them suffering from
severe burns, were taken to nearby hospitals. A mass burial was being
planned for unidentified victims.

The fuel pipeline from Port Harcourt to central and northern Nigeria was
ruptured by thieves at Onicha-Amaiyi village, 40 km south of Umuahia, the
Abia State capital, more than two weeks ago. It caught fire while scores
of people were scooping up the petrol.

In the past four years, at least 2,000 Nigerians have been killed by
pipeline fires while scooping fuel from burst pipes. The worst was in 1998
when over 1,200 people died in Jesse town in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34925&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGERIA

WEST AFRICA: UNICEF wants more girls in school
 
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) launched a campaign on Tuesday to get more
girls into primary school in West and Central Africa. "Hopes of improving
education in this part of Africa have been shattered by a devastating set
of social and economic ills, coupled with internal conflicts in several
countries," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy, said in Ouagadougou,
the capital of Burkina Faso.

Bellamy launched a new UNICEF initiative to get more girls into school in
Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic,
Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin and Guinea. Under the "25 by 2005"
initiative, UNICEF aims to raise the number of girls attending school in
25 countries over the next two years and reduce the gender gap with boys.
Thirteen of the targeted countries are in Africa.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34953&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=WEST_AFRICA
WEST AFRICA: Centre to probe malaria resistance
 
Nine West African countries agreed to share information on malaria through
the Muraz medical research centre at Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. The
countries, at a meeting of their health officials and representatives of
the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the Burkinabe capital, Ouagadougou,
last week, agreed to especially share information on malaria resistance to
some anti-malarial drugs.

WHO said it hoped the information exchange network would lead to a better
understanding of how resistance to anti-malarial drugs was building up in
West Africa so that treatment of the mosquito-borne disease could be
improved. The countries in the malaria information exchange network are:
Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra
Leone and Togo.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34933&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=WEST_AFRICA
SENEGAL: ADB supports health project
 
The African Development Bank (ADB) said on Tuesday it would provide US
$16.1 million to help improve the health of 2.5 million people in four
rural areas of Senegal over five-years. The funds will help reduce the
number of deaths at childbirth and in the early years of childhood by
increasing the number of medically assisted births and improving the
treatment of malaria and common childhood diseases. It will also promote
family planning and combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34954&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=SENEGAL

SIERRA LEONE: Kabbah tightens controls on diamonds
 
President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone announced on Friday that his
government had tightened controls on diamond mining.  The government, he
said, would "rigorously enforce existing diamond mining and trading
legislation."

Diamonds are Sierra Leone's main export. However, the most of the stones
are smuggled out of the country. Independent estimates value Sierra
Leone's annual production of diamonds at US $200-400 million. However,
officially recorded shipments in 2002 were worth just over US $40 million.
A struggle for control of the main diamond mining area in the southeast,
also fuelled a brutal civil war in 1999-2001.

For the full story go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34912&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=SIERRA_LEONE


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