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 331
20 - 26 May 2006


CONTENTS:

CHAD-SUDAN: 100s Chad villagers killed, but no definitive link with Sudan
MALI: Desert city back in army control after rebel attack
BENIN: Petrol tanker explosion kills 39, injures 64
COTE D IVOIRE: Little known Buruli ulcer disease on the rise
LIBERIA: Ethnic tension high as returnees claim homes, land


CHAD-SUDAN: 118 Chad villagers killed in east

Militia fighters armed with machetes, knives and guns killed 118 people in
eastern Chad last month, including more than 75 people in one village alone.
But there is no definitive proven link between the attackers and the Sudanese
government, according to researchers from Human Rights Watch.

In the village of Jawara, which was visited last month by researchers from the
US rights NGO, 38 people gathered together praying under a tree were killed in
one swoop. Another 37 who came back to the village later to bury the dead were
also massacred, HRW said.

Those attacks took place on 12 and 13 April, according to villagers. That week,
rebel groups were seeping across the semi-arid central African country to
launch an attack on the capital N'djamena and remove President Idriss Deby.

HRW said it also learnt of a further 43 people killed in three villages close
to Jawara in eastern Chad at around the same time. "The bodies were still out
in the open. There were blood stains on the floor, machetes, and bodies," said
HRW researcher David Buchbinder.

"These attacks were deeper inside Chad than we have ever seen before, and there
were far more people killed -- we are talking about hundreds of people
butchered with machetes and knives," he told IRIN after a six-week visit to
camps and villages across eastern Chad, which borders Sudan's troubled western
Darfur region.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53523


MALI: Desert city back in army control after rebel attack

Mali's northern desert capital Kidal was back in government hands on Wednesday,
a day after Tuareg rebels demanding a better economic deal for the region
blitzed a string of barracks.

The rebels, who attacked two bases in Kidal and one in Menaka further south,
made off with vehicles, arms and munitions. "The situation is under control but
the city has ground to a standstill," Yaya Dolo, chief aide for the governor of
Kidal, told IRIN by telephone.

The turban-clad rebels, some believed to be army deserters seeking improved
conditions for their people, attacked early on Tuesday morning, riding into
town in trucks mounted with machine-guns. Residents reported heavy shooting
through the morning which continued sporadically later in the day.

In a statement to Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Bamako, a rebel spokesman
calling himself "Ahmed", claimed responsibility for the lightning raids on
behalf of Lieutenant-Colonel Fagaga, a onetime rebel leader who was integrated
into the army as part of a peace deal but who deserted earlier this year.

"We do not want war," the rebel spokesman told AFP. "We want to enter into
negotiations with the government - Our region is poor and we want to see it
developed quickly," he said. "We also have problems regarding our integration
into the Malian army."

Mali's vast northern deserts were the scene of a secessionist rebellion in 1990
by Tuaregs, who account for around six percent of the country's almost 14
million people. Hundreds of people were killed in the fighting and 150,000 fled
the country. A 1991 pact to end the Tuareg rebellion included the integration
of former rebels into the army and civilian sectors as well as better education
and health care facilities, especially in the northeast and east.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53516


BENIN: Petrol tanker explosion kills 39, injures 64

Thirty-nine people were killed and 64 injured when a petrol tanker in Benin
caught fire and exploded as they were siphoning petrol, hospital sources said.

Boniface Sambieni, director of the Saint Jean de Dieu de Tanguieta hospital,
told IRIN that a third of the injured were in critical condition suffering from
third degree burns. Twenty-three people had died on the spot in the accident
Wednesday evening in northwest Benin, while 16 died while receiving treatment.

The hospital did not have enough beds or medicine for the injured, some of whom
were being looked after in makeshift conditions in a meeting room, said
Sambieni. The local government head Paul Tawema said extra staff and medicine
were being rushed north to help.

The hospital director said he did not know how the accident had occurred. He
had been called to the scene late at night in the village of Tega 500 kms
northwest of Cotonou and had helped the evacuate the injured as there were no
ambulances available.

A journalist with the Benin national news agency said the driver of the tanker,
which was heading to Mali, lost control of the vehicle, which tipped over onto
the side of the road. When local villagers arrived to siphon off the petrol,
the engine was still hot and a spark ignited the fuel, causing the explosion.

A television correspondent who arrived on the scene later said the accident
occurred when a homemade lamp carried by a villager fell over and ignited a
fire.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53562


COTE D'IVOIRE: Little known Buruli ulcer disease on the rise

KONGOUANOU, 23 May 2006 (IRIN) - With her left arm amputated and her chest
eaten away by large festering wounds, little Diane Akissi is disfigured for
life.

The eight-year-old girl suffers from Buruli ulcer, a little-known tropical
disease that afflicts mainly children and youths with potentially devastating
consequences. The infection usually starts with a painless swelling on the
skin, but causes massive ulcers on legs and arms if left untreated.

Experts have identified the bacterium that causes the disease, which is endemic
in a sweep of African countries from Guinea in the west to Uganda in the east,
but nobody knows for certain how it is transmitted.

Every year, the disease leaves scores of Ivorian children scarred, disfigured
or permanently disabled - like shoddily clad Diane, who shies away when people
look at her.

Six months ago, Diane's mother took her to the Kongouanou clinic in central
Cote d'Ivoire. But seeing the ulcers on the little girls' arm, Maria Santos
Silveira, a Spanish nun who runs the clinic, saw it was already too late:
Diane's disease was in such an advanced state that the arm had to be amputated.
"It was sad but we had no choice," said Cecile Akissi, the girl's mother.

Some 22,000 cases of Buruli ulcer have been reported in Cote d'Ivoire since the
disease was first discovered here in 1978. And the numbers are rising. At the
Kongouanou clinic, one of two functioning clinics nationwide specialised in
Buruli ulcer, up to 12 new patients each month come desperately looking for
help.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53488


LIBERIA: Ethnic tension high as returnees claim homes, land

The return of thousands of Liberians from camps across West Africa is fuelling
ethnic tension over the ownership of land and homes in northern Nimba county,
which saw some of the worst fighting in the civil war.

Hundreds of machete-armed youths from the Mano and Gio ethnic groups took to
the streets of Nimba's second largest commercial city Ganta last week after
rumours circulated that ethnic Mandingos, who have been living in refugee camps
in Guinea, were about to attack the city to reclaim their land.

UN peacekeepers and newly trained police officers rapidly contained the
trouble, making four arrests. But frightened residents, still reeling from 14
years of violent warfare, scuttled into the bush for safety.

The advance in the 1990s of Charles Taylor, the rebel leader who would become
president in 1997, ended the peaceful coexistence of Mandingos with their Gio
and Mano neighbours. Taylor launched a war in the late 1980s on then president,
Samuel Doe, in Nimba from bases in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire. Taylor's
fighters were mostly Gios and Manos. They accused the Mandingos of supporting
Doe and his ethnic Krahns, and chased them from their homes, and often, out of
Liberia all together.

A decade and a half later, Liberia is at peace and the colossal task of
rebuilding the entire infrastructure - from roads to schools, power lines and
hospitals - has begun. The refugee camps that sheltered tens of thousands of
Liberians are closing and UN agencies are transporting families home. But many
Mandingos are returning to Nimba to find that their homes are now occupied by
the Mano and Gio neighbours that chased them away.

Sekou Donzo, a local Mandingo leader in Ganta, told IRIN that patience is
running out among his kinsmen after several failed mediations by local
government leaders to re-possess their properties. "We do not want war, no more
war in Liberia, but our rights to live freely on our lands and houses that we
built before the war are being trampled upon by our fellow Liberians here in
Nimba - Our people are returning and they cannot be squatters in towns where
they built their houses," he said.

But some Gios and Manos contend that they are just taking back what was theirs
before Mandingos - mostly Muslims who trace their roots to territory beyond
Liberia's northern border - moved into the area in the 1960s.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53488


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