Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-185: 25-Jul-03
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 185
19 - 25 July 2003
CONTENTS:
LIBERIA: Chaos in Monrovia
COTE D'IVOIRE: Donors pledge funding for West African troops
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Elected president regains seat
SIERRA LEONE: Cash shortfall for child rehabilitation project; UN slows
down withdrawal
TOGO: Journalists freed
MAURITANIA: Alleged coup plotter to face civil court
LIBERIA: Chaos in Monrovia
Heavy fighting resumed in the Liberian capital Monrovia on Friday after a
24-hour lull, as government forces battled to recapture the port and
rebels showered the city centre with rockets and mortar shells.
Seven displaced people sheltering at Newport High School in the Mamba
Point diplomatic quarter were killed instantly when a mortar shell landed
on their compound. Another person was killed when a rocket landed near the
office of Medecins Sans Frontieres Belgium, Hani Khalifa, the head of the
MSF Belgium office told IRIN.
The city's one million inhabitants, who are running desperately short of
food and clean drinking water, scampered for cover, but several civilian
casualties were reported. A lull in the fighting on Thursday morning had
allowed many people to venture out in search of scarce food and water.
Since the weekend, fighting has been intense in Monrovia. The United
Nations, ECOWAS and international mediators nevertheless did not stop
their efforts in the search for a lasting political solution to the
problem. A proposed deployment of West African peacekeepers again topped
discussions. Two Nigerian battalions are expected to deploy to the
war-torn city within 10 days a vanguard to a large West African force.
By the end of the week, more than 150 people had died.
The fighting has virtually placed the Ghana talks on the backburners,
however negotiators said they expected full-pace talks to resume this
weekend.
For IRIN coverage of Liberia please visit
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Liberia
COTE D'IVOIRE: Donors pledge funding for West African troops
The United States and several European donors on 18 July pledged funding
to keep West African peacekeepers in Cote d'Ivoire until the end of the
month of November, but failed to fund a substantial enlargement of the
1,400 troops deployed in the country since the beginning of the year.
At a meeting in Paris, the donors committed about US $8 million of
assistance for the second half of this year, with $2.2 million of new
money from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Italy and
Luxembourg.
The peacekeeping mission had hoped for sufficient funding that would allow
for an increase to 3,200 troops. The 1,400 West African troops are from
Ghana, Benin, Togo, Niger and Senegal, and are helping French troops
deployed in the first days of the crisis which started on 19 September.
France, which has deployed men and equipment, provided financial support
and facilitated the signing of January peace agreement, did not reveal if
it was going to give a fresh commitment.
The World Food Programme, one of the many UN agencies which have been at
the forefront of the Ivorian humanitarian crisis, has warned that a
funding shortfall is threatening food assistance activities to thousands
of people. WFP's regional coordinator, Gemmo Lodesani, told IRIN on Monday
the food situation, mostly in western Cote d'Ivoire, was "very serious"
because men, women and children emerging from the bush and heavily
forested areas were showing signs of malnutrition.
For IRIN coverage of Cote d'Ivoire please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Cote_d_Ivoire
SAO TOME AD PRINCIPE: Elected president reinstated
Sao Tome and Principe's elected President Fradique de Menezes, who on 16
July lost his seat in a coup d'etat, on Wednesday returned to the
twin-island and re-assumed power following an agreement with the coup
plotters.
Under the agreement negotiated by Nigeria, Portugal, the United States and
other international mediators, de Menezes, elected president in 2001, will
form a government of national unity, and that amnesty is granted to the
coup plotters.
The week-long coup was led by Major Fernando Pereira, the head of the
military training school, who said the coup was a reaction to, among other
things, bad governance, mismanagement and growing poverty.
For IRIN coverage of Sao Tome and Principe please visit
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Sao_Tome_and_Principe
SIERRA LEONE: Cash shortfall for child rehabilitation project; UN slows
down withdrawal
UNICEF, the lead agency in Sierra Leone's child soldier rehabilitation
programme, warned this week that a cash shortfall was threatening the
completion of programmes targeting 7,000 child soldiers who fought in that
country's decade long war.
UNICEF's top official, Carol Bellamy, appealed to donors to provide US
$3.9 million in the short term to allow the education and training
programmes to continue. She said that the programmes were halfway through
completion and a stoppage would be like "handing the bitter pill of
failure" to the children
According to the agency, around 98 percent of former child soldiers and
separated children have returned to their communities upon successful
completion of the programme. At any given time, UNICEF said, some 300,000
children were involved as soldiers, guerrilla fighters, porters, spies and
sex slave in conflicts in 30 countries in the world.
Meanwhile the raging Liberian conflict has led to the United Nations to
slow down the withdrawal of peacekeepers operating in neighbouring Sierra
Leone itself coming out of a 1-year war. According to the UN, the mission
would operate on a modified plan whose main feature would be the delay of
commencement of the third phase of military draw down from August to
December. However the world body maintains that the UN Mission in Sierra
Leone, UNAMSIL, is still on target to withdraw from Sierra Leone at the
end of next year.
For IRIN coverage of Sierra Leone please visit
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Sierra_Leone
TOGO: Journalists freed
Three Togolese journalists arrested in mid-June and accused of
disseminating false information and threatening public order, were
released on Tuesday after a four-hour trial in the capital Lome. The
journalists maintained their innocence and had launched a hunger strike
last week. Though two of them were cleared of all charges, the
editor-in-chief of the weekly l'Evenement Dimas Dzikodo was fined US $863
for "disseminating false information."
For IRIN coverage of Togo please visit
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Togo
MAURITANIA: Alleged coup plotter to face civil court
A Mauritanian army officer who was extradited from Senegal to face charges
of involvement in last month's failed coup against President Maaouiya
Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya, will be tried by a civil not a military court, the
judge in charge of his case said on Monday.
Lieutenant M'hamed Ould Didi, who fled to Senegal shortly after the
collapse of the June 8 military rebellion, was sent back to the
Mauritanian capital Nouakchott last Friday.
Judge Mohamed Ould Babana, a member of The Gambia-based African Commission
for Human Rights, said Didi and all others who might subsequently be
charged in connection with the coup attempt would be tried under civilian
law.
Human rights activists had expressed fears that the coup plotters would
face a military tribunal that would be more be likely to impose death
sentences. They had voiced disapprobation of an eventual extradition,
citing among other things that there existed no extradition agreement
between Senegal and Mauritania
Judge Babana said Didi had been extradited under terms of the 1962
Antananarivo Convention, which allows African countries to return
suspected criminals back to the country of origin.
For IRIN coverage of Mauritania please visit
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Mauritania
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