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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e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 323
25 - 31 March 2006


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA-NIGERIA-SIERRA LEONE: Handcuffed Taylor deposited at war crimes
   court
WEST AFRICA: Children at risk once again in hungry Sahel, says UN
CHAD: New clashes in east, government blames Sudan
CHAD: Opposition denounces poll as 'masquerade', refuses to field
   candidate
NIGERIA: Delta militants free remaining foreign hostages, vow fresh
   attacks
COTE D'IVOIRE: University in rebel north opens after three-year closure
CAMEROON: New bird flu case confirms spread of H5N1


LIBERIA-NIGERIA-SIERRA LEONE: Handcuffed Taylor deposited at war crimes
court

UN peacekeepers delivered handcuffed former Liberian president Charles
Taylor into the custody of a UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone on
Wednesday where he will be the first former African head of state to
face prosecution for war crimes before an international tribunal.

Nigerian police captured Taylor, who is indicted on 11 counts including
responsibility for murder, mutilation, rape and recruiting child
soldiers in Sierra Leone's civil war, on Tuesday after he disappeared
from the mansion where he was living in exile in the south of the
country.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was on a visit to the United
States, ordered Taylor's immediate deportation to Liberia.

"Taylor was received as soon as he landed and the UNMIL peacekeepers
read him his rights and he was handcuffed by peacekeepers," Liberia's
chief prosecutor, Tiaon Gongloe said after Taylor's departure for Sierra
Leone in a UN helicopter.

On Wednesday, the Special Court for Sierra Leone requested that Charles
Taylor's trial take place in The Netherlands rather than in West Africa
because of security concerns.

While still in Freetown, Taylor is expected to appear in court in the
coming days to formally hear the charges and enter a plea, a court
spokesman said.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52503

For related articles see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52525
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52433
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52462
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52480
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52502



WEST AFRICA: Children at risk once again in hungry Sahel, says UN

Hundreds of thousands of children could go hungry yet again this year
across the arid Sahel, one of the world's poorest regions, the United
Nations said on Tuesday.

"The situation is serious, the coming weeks will be critical," said the
West Africa director of the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, Herve Ludovic de Lys.

The UN is appealing for US $91.9 million to help some five million
people at risk of going hungry in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and
Niger.

Despite a good harvest late in 2005, people in Niger and across the
Sahel face more months of empty stomachs from now until October/November
2006, the lean months ahead of the harvests when granaries tend to run
empty, UN officials said.

Last year's food crisis forced farming families into heavy debt they are
still struggling to repay, while prices of basic foodstuffs remain high.

And children are the most at risk, with malnutrition partly to blame for
the deaths of over 300,000 children - just over half of the child deaths
in the region, said Theophane Nikyema, deputy director of the regional
office of the UN children's agency UNICEF.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52479


CHAD: New clashes in east, government blames Sudan

Fierce fighting in eastern Chad between army troops and rebels allegedly
backed by neighbouring Sudan has left dozens dead including the army
chief, General Abakar Youssouf Mahamat Itno, Chadian officials told IRIN
on Friday.

The government blamed Sudan for Thursday's clashes, saying armed groups
and Sudanese Janjawid militia attacked Chadian troops near the border
with the troubled Darfur region, displacing thousands of civilians.

Foreign Minister Ahmad Allam-mi told IRIN by telephone that the Janjawid
and what he called "Chadian mercenaries" had attacked around the towns
of Ade and Moudeina.

On Friday the minister of territorial administration Mahamat Ali
Abdallah Nassour told reporters in the capital N'djamena that government
troops had "vigorously repelled" the attack.

The government said around 10 Chadian soldiers had been killed in the
clashes and 50 hurt, with "around 100 dead on their side," Allam-mi
said. "They fled towards Sudan; we don't know how many were injured."

Meanwhile a press release posted on the Internet by a rebel group
calling itself United Front for Democratic Change said 400 government
soldiers died, were taken prisoner, or defected.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52541


CHAD: Opposition denounces poll as 'masquerade', refuses to field
candidate

For the first time since multiparty politics came to Chad the main
opposition has declined to put forth a contender in a presidential
election, this time around unanimous in calling for citizens to shun the
process.

As the deadline for candidates passed at midnight on 24 March only the
agriculture minister and three representatives of political parties more
or less aligned with the ruling party had submitted their names - along
with President Idriss Deby - for the 3 May poll.

Opposition heavyweights have opted out and are urging voters to do the
same. "We staunchly reaffirm that we are not taking part and will not
endorse this masquerade," opposition leader Lol Mahamat Choua said at a
1,000-strong rally in the capital N'djamena on Saturday.

Opposition leaders, who since the February announcement of the election
date have denounced the process, say Chad must revise its electoral
commission and voter lists, among other changes, before a fair election
can take place.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52464


NIGERIA: Delta militants free remaining foreign hostages, vow fresh
attacks

Armed militants in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta on Monday freed three
remaining foreign hostages held captive for five weeks, but vowed to
continue attacks on oil installations.

The hostages, two Americans and one Briton, were released to local
leaders of the main ethnic Ijaw group on Monday morning and handed over
to the Delta state governor James Ibori at dawn, the governor's
spokesman said.

"The community leaders brought them to us and we're happy they've been
freed," said Abel Oshevire. The three oil workers, Cody Oswalt and
Russell Spell from the US and Briton John Hudspith, appeared in good
health, the official said.

The three were among nine employees of US oil services company Willbros
Inc. kidnapped when militants of the Movement for the Emancipation of
the Niger Delta (MEND) on 18 February raided a barge run by the firm.
Willbros was working on a contract for oil giant Royal Dutch Shell.

While six of the hostages were freed 11 days later on 1 March, the
militants kept the remaining three, they said, in order to draw the
attention of the United States and Britain to their demands.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52457&


COTE D'IVOIRE: University in rebel north opens after three-year closure

More than three years after war forced it to shut down, the University
of Bouake in the rebel-held north of Cote d'Ivoire officially reopened
this week, giving new hope to a generation of youth missing out on
schooling.

Hundreds of hopeful students and dozens of lecturers attended the
opening ceremony on Tuesday, which many hailed as a major step towards a
return to normal in the north. Several members of the administrative
staff had already returned earlier this month.

"When we announced the date=85for the formal reopening on 28 March, many
people doubted whether that date would be respected. Today, they can be
sure," said Higher Education Minister Cisse Bacongo, who hails from the
main opposition party Rally of the Republicans (RDR). The RDR is
considered sympathetic to the rebels.

The university closed in September 2002 as rebels occupied the north
after a failed bid to topple President Laurent Gbagbo. Before long, the
university library was looted and books were sold for next to nothing in
market stalls all over town.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52546


CAMEROON: New bird flu case confirms spread of H5N1

The government of Cameroon, the fourth African country affected by the
deadly H5N1 virus, has confirmed the presence of a second case of bird
flu.

In a statement on Wednesday, Minister for Livestock, Fisheries and
Animal Industries Aboukary Sarki said a specialist Italian laboratory
detected the H5N1 virus on a wild duck found dead on Lake Malape,
situated 40 kilometres west of Garoua near the border with Nigeria.

The minister urged people in the area "not to manipulate bodies of dead
wild birds ... not to consume flesh of any wild bird and to alert
veterinary officials of dead birds found in their vicinities".

The case in the West African nation's North province comes two weeks
after the announcement of a first case detected still farther north in
Maroua.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52519


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