Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-330: 19-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 330
13 - 19 May 2006
CONTENTS:
CHAD: Deby wins third presidential term as opposition cries foul
CHAD: UN warns humanitarian pull out possible
NIGERIA: More than 150 killed in pipeline blast
COTE D'IVOIRE: Bid to hand out ID cards ahead key vote kicks off
CHAD: Some 80,000 children at risk in lawless east
WEST AFRICA: Feeding operation in arid Sahel struggling for cash
GUINEA-BISSAU: UN launches emergency appeal after fighting in north
CHAD: Deby wins third presidential term as opposition cries foul
NDJAMENA, 15 May 2006 (IRIN) - Idriss Deby won Chad's presidential
elections with a substantial majority, according to Chadian election
officials, but opposition parties that boycotted the ballot have
denounced the process as a sham.
According to provisional figures released by the Chadian national
election commission late on Sunday, Deby received 77.6 percent of the
vote in the May 3 elections, sealing his bid to extend his 15-year reign
by another five years. And over 60 percent of Chad's 5.8 million
registered voters cast their ballot, the commission said.
"Yesterday I was the candidate of my party. Today I am the candidate of
all Chadians!" said Deby at a party in his private villa on Sunday night
as soldiers fired gunshots into the air in celebration.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53345&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
CHAD: UN warns humanitarian pull out possible
NDJAMENA, 16 May 2006 (IRIN) - Unless the security situation along the
1,000 kilometre desert border between Chad and Sudan improves
"drastically" aid agencies supporting 350,000 people in eastern Chad
will be forced to pull out, the UN's senior emergency coordination chief
Jan Egeland has warned.
"The whole humanitarian operation is threatened by the onslaught of
armed men, not only against the civilian population, but also against
the humanitarians," Egeland said in a statement issued in Geneva on
Monday.
Egeland, who visited south Sudan, eastern Chad and the Chadian capital
N'djamena last week, said the situation on the Chad-Sudan border was
already "very tense, given the frequent cross-border excursions by armed
soldiers from both sides who were attacking villagers in both
countries".
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53370&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
NIGERIA: More than 150 killed in pipeline blast
More than 150 people were killed while scavenging fuel when a ruptured
fuel pipeline exploded and caught fire near Nigeria's biggest city of
Lagos, police and health officials said.
The pipeline, which transports fuel from a depot at the Lagos port for
domestic use inland, was breached at several points at a beach on the
Lagos Lagoon where fuel thieves siphoned the volatile liquid into
plastic jerry cans. Inhabitants of poor fishing villages said they were
awakened by a huge bang as the pipeline caught fire, scorching the
crowds of scavengers.
"We think that between 150 and 200 people were killed by the fire,"
Lagos Police Commissioner Emmanuel Adebayo, told reporters at the scene.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53331&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGERIA
COTE D'IVOIRE: Bid to hand out ID cards ahead key vote kicks off
A pilot scheme to provide thousands of Ivorians with identity papers and
voting cards kicked off across war-divided Cote d'Ivoire on Thursday,
though few turned up to hearings in the government controlled south
which were disrupted by supporters of the president.
But in the rebel north, special hearings in Botro some 40 km outside of
the rebel stronghold of Bouake, attracted more people both young and old
than officials could process in a single day.
The pilot scheme will go on for one week in seven towns across the
country and is aimed at giving identity papers to Ivorians and
immigrants aged 13 and over who do not have a birth certificate.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53429&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
CHAD: Some 80,000 children at risk in lawless east
Fears are mounting for the safety of displaced Chadians, Darfuri
refugees, and aid workers helping to keep them alive in the harsh desert
of eastern Chad, and among them are 80,000 children, according to a UN
official.
There has been an increase in militia attacks on villages and refugee
camps in eastern Chad since rebels opposed to Chadian president Idriss
Deby launched an assault on the border town Adre in December. Since then
the Chadian army has withdrawn from many areas.
And on Wednesday, a senior UN official told IRIN in Dakar that the
government could not guarantee security across vast swathes of the
eastern region.
"The government has lost the ability to assure the security of some
areas along the border, and to ensure the security and integrity of
refugee camps, and the safety of humanitarian workers," Stephen
Adkisson, Chad representative for the UN children's agency UNICEF, told
IRIN in Dakar on Wednesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53413&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
WEST AFRICA: Feeding operation in arid Sahel struggling for cash
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday urged international
donors to find funds for the arid Sahel region of West Africa where
millions of people are still suffering the after shocks of last year's
regional food crisis.
The WFP aims to help feed 3.3 million mostly young children in the
Sahelian countries of Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso at a cost
of US $54 m, but the programme is 70 percent under funded.
Hunger is a perennial problem in the Sahel, an impoverished string of
countries that run west to east across the continent along the southern
fringes of the Sahara desert. But that is no reason for complacency,
warned WFP.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53375&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=WEST_AFRICA
GUINEA-BISSAU: UN launches emergency appeal after fighting in north
United Nations agencies on Tuesday launched a joint appeal for over US
$3.6 m to help some 20,000 people in northern Guinea Bissau made
vulnerable by fighting between Guinea Bissau military and rebels from
neighbouring Senegal.
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 to the north, raged in
northern Guinea Bissau's between 15 March and the end of April.
Some 10,000 people, 80 percent of whom are women and children, fled
villages on the Guinea Bissau side of the border. A further 2,500 people
fled over the border into Senegal. Most of the displaced and refugees
are staying with friends and relatives placing a substantial burden on
limited resources, said the UN's Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, (OCHA), which launched the emergency flash appeal.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53372&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA-BISSAU
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