U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
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WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 230
12 - 18 June 2004


CONTENTS:

GUINEA: UN suspend activities after ethnic fighting
CHAD-SUDAN: WFP looks to trucking food across desert
LIBERIA: No census before elections
NIGERIA: Refugees to be repatriated from Cameroon
WESTERN SAHARA: Baker resigns
COTE D'IVOIRE: World Bank freezes money


GUINEA: UN suspend activities after ethnic fighting

Two days of fighting between rival ethnic communities in Guinea's 
southeastern town of Nzerekore forced UN agencies working with refugees in 
the surrounding area to suspend their operations temporarily, UN officials 
said on Friday.  UNHCR and the World Food Programme (WFP) had both 
suspended their operations there on Friday, fearing further trouble.

No details of casualties were immediately available.

Local sources in Nzerekore said the Guinean security forces had arrested a 
large number of people in the town, including many Liberians carrying 
guns. Some of these had been identified as members of the Liberians United 
for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement, they added.

For Guinea coverage please go to 
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Guinea


CHAD-SUDAN: WFP looks to trucking food across desert

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday that it was looking at 
the possibility of trucking food aid across the Sahara desert to feed up 
to 200,000 refugees from Sudan's troubled Darfur province who are fleeing 
into eastern Chad.

WFP officials said that one possibility was to truck food 3,000 km across 
the Sahara desert from the Libyan ports of Tripoli and Benghazi. Another 
option was to use a circuitous route from N'djamena to eastern Chad that 
passes through northern Chad, a completely desert area that is not 
generally affected by the rains that will soon make the main road to the 
east of the country virtually impassible.

WFP said last week that it had so far moved 7,600 tonnes of food by road 
from the port of Douala in Cameron to N'djamena, the capital of Chad, and 
onwards to the eight refugee camps that have sprung up between Abeche, the 
main town in eastern Chad, and the Sudanese border.

Earlier this year, international relief agencies expected fewer than 
100,000 refugees from Darfur to seek shelter in eastern Chad. However, 
nearly twice that number have already crossed the border.

Last week, UN refugee agency UNHCR raised its estimate of the number of 
Sudanese already inside Chad to 194,000 and more than doubled its 
international appeal for aid to look after them to US$55.8 million. UNHCR 
had previously asked donors for $20.8 million, of which it has so far 
received $18 million. WFP has increased its own appeal for food aid by 
more than 50 percent, WFP is now seeking a total of $30.5 million to feed 
192,500.

On the political front, Chad threatened to abandon its role as mediator 
between the Sudanese government and rebels in the Darfur region amid 
growing indications that the Darfur conflict is spilling across the border 
into eastern Chad.

For CHAD coverage please go to 
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Chad 
For Sudan coverage please go to 
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=Sudan


LIBERIA: No census before elections

Liberia has no time or money to conduct a population census before 
elections in October 2005 that are due to return the country to democracy 
after a long and bitter civil war, Frances Johnson-Morris, the head of the 
National Elections Commission, said on Monday. Johnson-Morris said it 
would take nearly two years to prepare the ground properly for a new 
census and the United Nations and other donors had made clear that they 
were not prepared to fund such an exercise.

The last proper census was carried out in 1984 and showed a population of 
2.5 million people. Several political parties and pro-democracy groups 
have called for a fresh census before Liberia goes to the polls again in 
15 months time so that the boundaries of electoral constituencies can be 
demarcated fairly.

Tens of thousands of people were killed during the 1989-2003 civil war and 
over 350,0000 Liberians fled to seek refuge abroad. Half a million more 
were displaced within the country. Most descended upon squatter camps that 
grew up around the outskirts of Monrovia.

Johnson-Morris said that a well-conducted voter registration campaign 
would be a good alternative to a census.

In other news, UN peacekeepers imposed a curfew to restore in Gbarnga 
after one person was killed and four were wounded in ethnic clashes 
between the Kpelle and Mandingo communities on Monday in the central 
Liberian town.

For Liberia coverage please go to 
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Liberia


NIGERIA: Refugees to be repatriated from Cameroon

The Nigerian government said on Wednesday that it planned to start 
repatriating more than 17,000 people who fled from eastern Nigerian into 
Cameroon following ethnic clashes two years ago. The National Emergency 
Management Agency (NEMA)  said that the return of the mainly pastoralist 
Fulani people to a mountainous frontier area in Taraba state would start 
next week. At least 23,000 Fulani herders fled into nearby Cameroon to 
escape clashes which broke out with farming communities on the Mambilla 
plateau between 1 and 7 January 2002. More than 100 people were killed in 
the clashes.

Six people were killed one week ago when Nigerian troops raided an Ijaw 
village in the troubled Niger Delta in search of weapons and were engaged 
in a gun battle by armed militants.  Nigerian security forces have mounted 
an offensive against armed militants blamed for crude oil theft, ethnic 
violence and the disruption of oil operations in the region since a late 
April attack on a boat belonging to ChevronTexaco in which seven people, 
including two US oil workers, were killed.

For Nigeria coverage please go to 
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Nigeria


WESTERN SAHARA: Baker resigns

Former US Secretary of State James Baker has resigned as the UN special 
envoy to the Western Sahara after trying without success for seven years 
to broker a political settlement for the desert territory which has been 
occupied by Morocco since 1976.

Baker's latest peace plan, put forward last year, provided for the former 
Spanish colony to be given self-rule for a period of four to five years. 
After that, its residents and the 165,000 Western Sahara refugees who have 
spent nearly 30 years living in camps in neighbouring Algeria would be 
allowed to vote on its future in a referendum. His plan was accepted by 
the Polisario movement but it was rejected by Morocco, which according to 
diplomats is anxious to avoid any loss of sovereignty.

Over the past 13 years, the United Nations has spent over US$600 million 
on peace efforts. These have included the maintenance in the territory of 
a UN Mission

For Western Sahara coverage please go to 
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=Western_Sahara


COTE D'IVOIRE: World Bank freezes money

The World Bank halted on Wednesday the disbursement of further loans to 
Cote d'Ivoire following the government's failure to pay off debt servicing 
arrears of $20.5 million, the bank said in a statement. The World Bank 
announced on Thursday that it was cutting off further disbursements to 
Cote d'Ivoire since accumulated arrears had gone unpaid for a period of 60 
days up to 15 June. A World Bank source said this would hold up the 
release of about $220 million of World Bank aid already in the pipeline 
for a dozen social and economic development projects ranging from 
education to road building, plus a further $40 million of World Bank money 
earmarked to support a planned $110 million disarmament and demobilisation 
programme.

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


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