Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-329: 12-May-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 329
6 - 12 May 2006
CONTENTS:
CHAD: Opposition denounce presidential poll
TOGO: EU funds to help poor within grasp if new elections set
MAURITANIA: Military leader salutes democracy on rural tour
LIBERIA: Government and UN vow to investigate sex trade report
CHAD: Aid worker in "critical condition" after carjacking in east
CHAD: Jan Egeland warns UN operations massively underfunded
CHAD: Opposition denounce presidential poll
Opposition parties that boycotted last week's presidential election in
Chad said that they will not recognise the victor regardless of who wins
in the final tally.
Polling went ahead across Chad on 3 May despite international and
opposition pressure for a delay, after rebels threatened to repeat
attacks on the capital N'djamena in a bid to disrupt voting.
Incumbent President Idriss Deby, who last year changed Chad's
constitution two-term limit, is favoured to win the ballot with three
government stalwarts and a minor opposition figure the only challengers
for the top job.
"We will not take part in this game," said Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh, a
spokesman for an umbrella group of opposition parties that boycotted the
poll, on Saturday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53209&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
TOGO: EU funds to help poor within grasp if new elections set
European Union officials on Thursday urged Togo's feuding politicians to
speed up a year-long national dialogue and settle on an agreement for
organising new elections, to enable the EU to hand over millions of
dollars of badly-needed assistance.
"The election date, for us, is not fundamental. An agreement on the
electoral framework to kick-start cooperation, finally and completely
is," said Filiberto Sebregondi head of the EU team which flew into Lome
last week to assess progress in dialogue between the government,
opposition parties and civil society representatives.
The EU, a major donor in West Africa, the world's poorest region, cut
off assistance to Togo in 1993 amid deep concerns over human rights and
democracy. But in 2004, in the last months of the late Gnassingbe
Eyadema's 38-year presidency, the authorities and the EU agreed on a
22-point roadmap to switch the aid back on.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53289&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=TOGO
MAURITANIA: Military leader salutes democracy on rural tour
Regional politicians, tribal chiefs, and local residents flocked to
catch a glimpse of Mauritania's newly self-installed military leader Ely
Ould Mohamed Vall during a nationwide roadtrip, but not quite everyone
liked what they saw.
Democracy was top of the agenda during Vall's first official jaunt
around the vast and sparsely populated country that straddles Africa's
Sahara desert since he seized power in a coup last August.
The military strongman has repeatedly promised he will give up the top
spot in West Africa's only Islamic Republic after overseeing elections
in March 2007. And furthermore, he's not putting his name down as a
candidate in the poll either.
"In this country the traditional form of politics is by a single party,
with monolithic rule and hereditary succession," Vall said at a rally in
the south eastern town Nema last week.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53281&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=MAURITANIA
LIBERIA: Government and UN vow to investigate sex trade report
The government of Liberia and the UN peacekeeping mission on Tuesday
promised to conduct investigations into a report by British-based
charity Save the Children that government workers, peacekeepers and aid
workers are giving Liberian girls money, food and favours in return for
sex.
And ordinary Liberians told IRIN that growing poverty appeared to be
fuelling promiscuous sexual behaviour.
In its report released this week, Save the Children said officials at
camps for displaced Liberians, peacekeepers, government employees and
teachers were among those abusing their positions of authority to have
sex with girls as young as eight.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53244&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=LIBERIA
CHAD: Aid worker in "critical condition" after carjacking in east
As an aid worker with the UN children's agency became the latest victim
of lawlessness in eastern Chad, humanitarian agencies on Monday called
on the government to crack down on militias.
The female Spanish UNICEF worker was shot twice at close range by a man
in military uniform on Friday in the eastern town Abeche, according to a
UN statement. She was thrown from the car by the perpetrator who drove
off with the vehicle, making the attack the 24th carjacking of a
humanitarian vehicle in Chad, the statement added.
"Over the last few months there have been continuing incidences of
insecurity and attacks against humanitarians," said UNICEF
representative in N'djamena Stephen Adkisson.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53210&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
CHAD: Jan Egeland warns UN operations massively underfunded
The UN's humanitarian point-man, Jan Egeland, warned that a UN operation
to assist quarter of a million people who fled to eastern Chad to escape
fighting has only received a tiny fraction of the funds needed.
Most of those in need of help ran from brutal terror campaigns in the
Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan. Others are displaced by fighting in
Chad or are refugees from war over the border in Central African
Republic.
"Only 16 percent of the humanitarian funds required to feed these people
have been received so far," Egeland, the United Nations Under-Secretary
General for Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53282&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
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