Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-325: 14-Apr-06
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 Round-Up 325
8 - 14 April 2006
CONTENTS:
CHAD: President threatens to expel Darfur refugees as attacks surge in
lawless east
GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL: Offensive will continue until rebel positions destroyed, president
SIERRA LEONE: Residents divided over location of Taylor trial
LIBERIA: Youths petition for war crimes court
COTE D'IVOIRE: Election deadline may slip, prime minister
LIBERIA: End of diamond and timber sanctions closer, UN
GHANA: 120 deportees feared dead in Lake Volta ferry accident
CHAD: President threatens to expel Darfur refugees as attacks surge in
lawless east
Chad President Idriss Deby on Friday threatened to expel 200,000
Sudanese refugees sheltering in the east of the country after repeating
accusations that Sudan supports rebels who launched a new offensive to
oust Deby this week.
Deby said that the international community has until June to resolve the
ongoing Darfur conflict in Sudan, which lies over Chad's eastern border,
to help restore stability in his own country. If not, the refugees will
have to leave.
"If after June we can't guarantee the security of our citizens and the
refugees, then it is up to the international community to find another
country to shelter those refugees," he said at a pro-government rally in
N'djamena on Friday morning.
There are some 200,000 refugees from Sudan's troubled Darfur region in
eastern Chad according to the UN, making it one of the world's
humanitarian hot-spots. The UN's refugee agency UNHCR told IRIN on
Friday afternoon that they had not been formally notified of Deby's
deadline.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52811&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
See also:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52796&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52781&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52774&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52738&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL: Offensive will continue until rebel positions
destroyed, president
Guinea Bissau troops will continue their offensive in the north until
all the Senegalese rebel bases established there in the last month have
been "destroyed", President Joao Bernardo Vieira told IRIN.
Clashes between Guinea Bissau soldiers and a faction of the Senegalese
secessionist group, the Movement for the Democratic Forces of Casamance
(MFDC) from the region that borders Guinea Bissau, erupted in mid-March
with MFDC fighters taking positions in northern Guinea Bissau.
"The Guinea Bissau military will remain at the border until the total
destruction of all the rebels in Guinea Bissau territory," President
Vieira told IRIN on Thursday. "If the rebels are from the Casamance then
they must base their cause in the Casamance and not in Guinea Bissau
territory."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52809&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL
See also:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52740&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL
SIERRA LEONE: Residents divided over location of Taylor trial
Ever since former rebel leader and Liberian president Charles Taylor
arrived in Freetown in handcuffs, Sierra Leoneans have debated with
renewed vigour the merits and disadvantages of the Special Court and
whether it should be in on their doorstep at all.
After Taylor's long-awaited arrest and his deportation to the Court in
Sierra Leone last month, the ex Liberian leader will become the first
former African president to face trial for war crimes before an
international court.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52773&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=SIERRA_LEONE
LIBERIA: Youths petition for war crimes court
With one-time rebel leader and former Liberian president Charles Taylor
before a war crimes court in neighbouring Sierra Leone some Liberian
youths have begun petitioning their government to set up their own
tribunal.
Rebel fighters, many of them children and youths high on drugs and clad
in women's wigs and underwear, killed, raped and maimed during 14 years
of on-off civil war that ended when Taylor quit power and took exile in
August 2003.
But Taylor's days in a seafront mansion courtesy of the Nigerian
government abruptly came to an end last month after a rapid succession
of developments that culminated with UN peacekeepers handing a cuffed
Taylor over to the UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone where Taylor
is accused of war crimes.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52744&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA
COTE D'IVOIRE: Election deadline may slip, prime minister
Cote d'Ivoire's mediator prime minister Charles Konan Banny, brought in
to invigorate a hobbling peace process, told reporters in France that an
existing 31 October deadline for presidential elections may be delayed.
Banny wound up his first official visit as premier to former colonial
power France on Thursday, which included meetings with President Jacques
Chirac and Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and donors.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52792&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
LIBERIA: End of diamond and timber sanctions closer, UN
The head of the UN Security Council sanctions committee has praised the
government of Liberia for efforts to meet regulatory targets in the
diamond and timber trades that could lead to the lifting of sanctions.
The United Nations slapped bans on Liberian diamond exports in 2001 and
on timber two years later, saying the resources were being used to fuel
war in the region. But today - nearly three years after the country
emerged from its own 14-year civil war, the first post-conflict
president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is pushing to get the sanctions lifted.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52723&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA
GHANA: 120 deportees feared dead in Lake Volta ferry accident
At least 120 people who crammed onto a ferry during the forced
evacuation of an island in the vast Lake Volta in eastern Ghana are
feared drowned after the boat sank, according to regional police.
The ferry, headed for Abotoase in the eastern region of the lake on
Saturday, was being used by people scrambling to meet a deadline to
leave Dudzorme Island in the Tapa-Abotoase area, 150 kilometres north
west of the capital Accra.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52745&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GHANA
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