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 231
19 - 25 June 2004


CONTENTS:

COTE D'IVOIRE: Security Council ends visit, rebels clash
LIBERIA: Disarmament to extend close to Ivorian border
CHAD: WFP facing crash crunch for air service
WESTERN SAHARA: Polisario releases 100 more prisoners
WEST AFRICA: Polio virus spreads/ Saving Lake Chad/ In favour of GMO
WEST AFRICA: Regional military task force


COTE D'IVOIRE: Security Council ends visit, rebels clash

A Security Council delegation ended on Thursday a 36-hour long mission in
Cote d'Ivoire where it said the UN was running impatient to see a speedy
end to the current political impasse, and that all actors who would
continue to obstruct the process would be held "accountable."

The delegation was on the second leg of a regional tour meant to support
peace and stability in West Africa. During its brief tour, the delegation
met with Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, Prime Minister Seydou Diarra,
the "G7" opposition alliance, the national assembly and some members of
the civil society. The Council urged all the main political actors to
implement the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement.

The delegation arrived in the country one day after violent fighting broke
in the rebel-held towns of Korhogo and Bouake, leaving according to the
rebel movement, 22 dead. In a statement on Monday, the "New Forces" said
the fighting was an assassination attempt on rebel leader Guillaume Soro
who traveling by road back to the rebel headquarter Bouake. The rebels
accused President Gbagbo, President Lansana Conte of Guinea and people
close to "IB", a former member of the Ivorian army who is fighting for
leadership of the rebel movement, of backing the fighting. Gbagbo and
Guinea's government have denied any involvement.

On Wednesday, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
announced that a five-member commission would shortly travel to Abidjan to
investigation rights violations committed from the onset of the crisis- 19
September 2002- and the signing of the peace agreement on 24 January 2003.

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


LIBERIA: Disarmament to extend close to Ivorian border

Liberia's transitional government leader Gyude Bryant on Thursday
announced that disarmament would be extended to eastern Liberia, near the
Ivorian border, before the end of the month, as the same time as UN
peacekeepers extended their reach, taking up positions in along the
border.

Disarmament would take place in Zwedru and Tappita. Zwedru, provincial
capital of Grand Gedeh County, has been used as the base of the country's
second rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), since
it launched its anti-government campaign in March 2003 and lies 482 km
northeast of Monrovia. Tappita, in the northern province of Nimba County,
is also a MODEL stronghold, and lies 368 km east of Monrovia. On Monday,
UN force Commander Daniel Opande told IRIN that in addition to the four
existing sites around Liberia, UN troops intend to open three further
disarmament centres along the Ivorian border.

The deployment of UN soldiers leaves only one of the West African nation's
15 counties without a UN peacekeeping presence. An advance party of 160
Senegalese peacekeepers were airlifted into the port city of Harper, the
main city in Maryland County.

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


CHAD: WFP facing crash crunch for air service

The World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Wednesday that it could be forced
to suspend its vital humanitarian air shuttle service if the agency
doesn't receive sufficient funds for the US $1.8 million-project.

WFP said they had received less than half of the US$1.8 million needed to
maintain until the end of the year the air service used to ferry
humanitarian personnel between the capital N'djamena and refugee camps in
the south and east where some 190,000 Sudanese refugees have gathered,
fleeing the conflict in Sudan's Darfur area.

Many of Chad's dirt roads become impassable during the rainy season,
making the WFP's air service even more important. WFP has other funding
shortfalls in Chad. It has half of the $30.5 million needed to buy 31,000
tones of food for 192,500 people until the end of the year.  The UN
Refugee Agency, UNHCR, last week raised its estimate of the number of
Sudanese refugees that have fled across the border into Chad to escape the
violence to 193,000.

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


WESTERN SAHAA: Polisario releases 100 more prisoners

The European Union announced on Monday that one hundred Moroccan prisoners
of war, some of them in captivity for more than 20 years, have been
released by the Polisario. The prisoners were captured during a 16-year
guerrilla campaign that the Polisario waged against Moroccan forces.
Morocco moved into Western Sahara after Spain withdrew from the colony in
1975.

Since a 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire took effect, the Polisario has released
most of its prisoners of war but 514 remain in captivity. The United
Nations has spent more than US $600 million over the past 13 years trying
to find a solution to the conflict in the desert territory. Former US
Secretary of State James Baker resigned as the UN special envoy to Western
Sahara earlier this month after failing to break the political stalemate.

For Western Sahara coverage please go to
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=41809&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=WESTERN_SAHARA


WEST AFRICA: Poliovirus spreads/ Saving Lake Chad/ In favour of GMO

Five times as many West and Central African children have been struck with
polio in the first half of 2004 compared to the same period last year,
health experts said on Tuesday. They warned that the threat of the biggest
epidemic in recent years looms over the region unless massive immunization
programmes swing into action.  "West and Central Africa is on the brink of
the largest polio epidemic in recent years," the Global Polio Eradication
Initiative, which is battling to wipe out the crippling disease by 2005,
said in a statement.

The Initiative said the epicenter of the outbreak remained the northern
Nigerian state of Kano, where immunisations were suspended last September
over concerns about vaccine safety. WHO statistics show 299 cases of polio
in West and Central Africa so far this year compared with just 58 in the
same period in 2003. Furthermore, the virus has hit children in 10 African
countries that were previously declared polio-free.

Health experts are aiming to reach 74 million children across 22 African
countries before then end of November and say grass-roots support is vital
in getting children to participate.

Saving Lake Chad

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday pledged US $2.5 million to
help fund a feasibility study on how to replenish the fast-depleting Lake
Chad with water from the River Congo. $5 million is needed to conduct the
study. A combination of severe drought in the 1970s, the steady southward
advance of the Sahara Desert and intense dependence on its waters for
agriculture has seen Lake Chad, once one of Africa's largest bodies of
fresh water, decline from 25,000 sq km in 1963 to about 1,500 sq km today.
The Lake Chad Basin Commission, which includes Nigeria, Niger, Chad,
Cameroon and Central Africa Republic, has proposed building a 2,400 km
canal to transport 100 billion cubit meters of water each year from the
River Congo to the lake. The LCBC says the survival of more than 20
million people in the Lake Chad region, who depend on its waters for
fishing and agriculture, is now seriously threatened.

West African leaders support biotech

At a three-day agricultural science conference in the Burkina Faso capital
Ouagadougou that ended on Wednesday, the leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali,
Niger and Ghana voiced their support for biotechnology that fitted the
needs of the continent. They said that they were in favour of
genetically-modified (GMO) crops to solve food production problems but
that they wanted to be sure about consumer safety and would proceed
cautiously.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates almost 200 million
people annually suffer from chronic malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa,
which has recorded lower growth in agricultural output over the last three
years.  The FAO said another two billion people born in the developing
world will have to be fed over the next 30 years and biotechnology could
be used to supply disease- and drought-resistant crops or to make African
staples like cassava more nutritional. For West Africa coverage please go
to
http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=West_Africa


WEST AFRICA:  Regional military task force

West African defence chiefs last week pledged to create a 6,500-strong
force, which can be deployed quickly to quell conflicts in the
strife-prone region. Members of the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) would contribute troops to be trained and put on standby.

Military chiefs, who make up the ECOWAS Defence and Security Commission
(EDSC), agreed that 1,500 troops would form the core of the operation and
be known as the ECOWAS Task Force. Another 3,500 troops would provide a
back-up brigade, with an extra 1,500 ready in reserve if needed.  ECOWAS
defence chiefs did not specify when the new force would come into being.
But they said a regional initiative was vital to avoid the difficulties
and delays encountered deploying troops to previous trouble-spots like
Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire and to deal swiftly with "threats
to peace and security in the region."

With four UN missions running in West Africa- Cote d'Ivoire, Western
Sahara, Liberia and Sierra Leone-, officials at the UN Department of
Peacekeeping Operations say African missions are crucial to complement
their role and the African Union has urged the creation of regional
brigades to respond to emergencies.

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


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