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 328
29 April - 5 May 2006


CONTENTS:

NIGERIA-SUDAN: Rebels still split on Darfur peace
CHAD: Tense poll passes off peacefully
CHAD: Deadly militia attack on border villages
COTE D'IVOIRE: First convoy could mark reopening of north-south trade
   route
GUINEA-BISSAU: Famine warning issued in south


NIGERIA-SUDAN: Rebels still split on Darfur peace

Bowing to international pressure, the largest of Darfur's three rebel
groups on Friday agreed "with reservations" to sign on to a peace deal
with Sudan, but two smaller groups are yet to get on board. The
government of Sudan too announced it would the latest amended version of
an 85-page peace proposal submitted to the parties to the Darfur
conflict by African Union (AU) negotiators. But two other rebel groups
involved in the three-year crisis in the western Sudanese region walked
out of the overnight talks despite changes worked into the original
draft during this round of negotiations that began last weekend in the
Nigerian capital. With three deadlines to reach a deal already missed
this week, AU officials overseeing the two-year peace bid did not say
when the talks might now end.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53173&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGERIA-SUDAN


CHAD: Tense poll passes off peacefully

President Idriss Deby ran for a third term as president of Chad on
Wednesday shrugging off rebel threats of another attack on the dusty
capital but many N'djamena residents spent the day hunkered in their
homes. Only three weeks after a rebel attack on N'djamena left more than
200 dead, Deby defied national and international pressure to delay the
polls, and under heavy guard, cast one of the first ballots of the day
at a special booth at the Ministry of Agriculture. Opposition parties
spent the weeks running up to the vote urging Chadians to boycott the
poll in favour of national dialogue. Many of the capital's more affluent
residents relocated over the river in neighbouring Cameroon, fearing a
rerun of attacks by anti-Deby rebels that left swathes of the city's
eastern suburbs devastated by mortar fire and shelling.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53138&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD


CHAD: Deadly militia attack on border villages

An attack on border villages in eastern Chad early Monday morning left
four dead and six wounded, said UN workers, deepening concern that
violence from the neighbouring Darfur region of Sudan is destabilising
south eastern Chad. "Three small settlements near the larger village of
Dalola, were surrounded by Janjawid. Some were seen in military uniform
others in military attire," said Matthew Conway, spokesman for the UN's
refugee agency UNHCR. Dalola, which is not marked on most maps, lies
near Koukou some 80 km from the Sudanese border and the troubled Darfur
region.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53080&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD


COTE D'IVOIRE: First convoy could mark reopening of north-south trade
route

The arrival of a convoy of 29 trucks in Cote d'Ivoire's port city of
Abidjan from northern landlocked neighbour Burkina Faso may lead to a
resumption of transit trade between the two countries after a nearly
four-year war-imposed blockage, an official said on Tuesday. The cotton
convoy passed through the rebel-controlled north of Cote d'Ivoire as
well as a UN and French monitored buffer zone before reaching the port
in the southern government-controlled half of the West African country.
According to Ivorian officials from the Ministry of Transport the convoy
was a trial run for the resumption of overland shipments to Abidjan from
Burkina Faso.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53104&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE


GUINEA-BISSAU: Famine warning issued in south

More than 32,000 people are at risk of starvation in Guinea-Bissau's
southern rice-bowl region after crops failed for a second year running
and government price-fixing decimated the cashew trade that usually
supplements incomes. Salination of rice-paddy irrigation channels caused
by flooding from mangrove forests, lack of rain, and pests and crop
diseases that have blighted around 70 percent of cultivable land in
these areas is responsible for the hunger, Bissauan Agriculture Minister
Sola Inquilin said in a statement earlier this week. Alanso Fati, the
Guinea Bissau representative of the Organisation of Workers in West
Africa, told IRIN that the failed rice crop is not the only reason for
local woes. He said the crisis has partly been caused by widespread
over-dependence on selling cashew nuts.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53183&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA-BISSAU


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