Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-320: 10-Mar-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 320
4 - 10 March 2006
CONTENTS:
BENIN: Counting underway after calm vote, but worries persist
WEST AFRICA: Hundreds die in seasonal meningitis outbreak
COTE D'IVOIRE: Interview with UN special envoy for elections Antonio
Monteiro
GUINEA: Trade unions claim strike victory as government promises higher
wages
GUINEA: Food aid for Ivorian refugees to be axed at year end
CHAD: Government accuses Sudan of more attacks against civilians near
border
NIGER: Villagers, government, aid workers brace for tough months ahead
NIGERIA: Poorest forgotten in bird flu compensation pay-outs
BENIN: Counting underway after calm vote, but worries persist
Counting was underway on Monday in Benin after a calm though at times
chaotic presidential poll seen as critical to the future of the tiny
West African nation.
Turnout was high and there were few reported problems in the Sunday
election, but in some regions voters queued well into the night due to
delays in getting ballots, ink and boxes to the 17,849 polling stations
across the country.
"I am pleased by the massive turnout," said the head of Benin's National
Electoral Commission, Sylvain Nouwatin. "Provisional results will be
announced in all transparency."
Early figures showed banker Yayi Boni, a newcomer to the political
scene, and veteran politician and former cabinet minister Adrien
Houngbedji leading the field of the 26 candidates bidding to step into
the shoes of incumbent President Mathieu Kerekou.
Unless one of the candidates is declared outright winner with more than
50 percent of the vote, a run-off will be held for this fourth
presidential election since 1990.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52033&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=BENIN
WEST AFRICA: Hundreds die in seasonal meningitis outbreak
As seasonal harmattan winds from the Sahara blow dust clouds over West
Africa carrying deadly meningitis, hundreds of people have been reported
dead from the disease in the last few weeks.
Worst hit has been Burkina Faso, where 246 people have died, according
to the medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, and over 2,000 more
have fallen ill from the meningitis bacterium, which attacks the brain
and spinal chord.
Across Burkina Faso's northern border, 44 people died and 614 people
were reported ill between 1 January and 27 February in Niger, according
to the National Health Information System, SNIS. And to the south, in
war-divided Cote d'Ivoire, the UN children's agency UNICEF has reported
94 cases and 33 deaths from meningitis.
Meningitis is endemic in much of the arid Sahel region of West Africa,
with outbreaks most common during the dry season, from January to March.
This is when dry sand-laden winds that settle hazily in the sky act as
carriers of the meningitis bacteria which can attach to dust particles.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52140&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=WEST_AFRICA
COTE D'IVOIRE: Interview with UN special envoy for elections Antonio
Monteiro
After months of wrangling among political parties, Cote d'Ivoire's
independent electoral commission finally began work on 7 March. This
means there is no excuse left for not pressing ahead with plans to hold
presidential elections in October, the outgoing UN special envoy for
elections Antonio Monteiro said in an interview this week with IRIN.
QUESTION: The composition of the electoral commission was first agreed
upon in the 2003 Linas-Marcoussis peace talks. It took more than three
years to get it up and running. Why did it take so long and why did all
key players finally agree?
ANSWER: The electoral commission is the only body responsible for
organising presidential elections, so without the commission there can
be no elections. It's the engine of the presidential elections. The
election of the bureau of its central committee, held last October, was
contested by members of the ruling party and two smaller political
parties. A public struggle - I say public because it was in all the
newspapers - followed over control of the commission. The opposition
holds important seats, including that of chairman and vice-chairman. But
there were several unspecified posts for 'consultants'. We had to give
meaning to these seats by defining not only their powers but also their
allocation. That has been done now. The substance of these posts is
clear and the persons who will hold them have clearly defined tasks. In
fact, the [2005] Pretoria agreement created a partisan electoral
commission, while it is imperative to have a balanced commission. The
Ivorians have now agreed on a formula that allows all commissioners to
work in a transparent manner. They understood there could be no
elections if they did not find a solution.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52105&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
For a related article go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52124&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
GUINEA: Trade unions claim strike victory as government promises higher
wages
Trade union leaders have claimed victory after a five-day strike last
week reduced the normally bustling capital Conakry to a hush and pressed
the government into committing to wage increases.
Following talks over the weekend the government has promised to hike
civil servant wages by 30 percent - short of the four-fold increase
unions were demanding - and reduce taxes on state employees' salaries by
10 percent. The government and union representatives have also promised
to draw up a new minimum wage and salary scale for private sector
workers.
Ibrahima Fofana, secretary general of the United Workers Union of Guinea
(USTG) - one of the two central union alliances that led the strike -
welcomed the announcement but said that the success of the strike went
beyond pay raises. "It is not only the salary increase that we gained
that gave me satisfaction, but also the united manner in which all and
sundry supported the strike with one voice and one aim," Fofana said at
a post-strike meeting.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52074&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA
GUINEA: Food aid for Ivorian refugees to be axed at year end
Tough times lie ahead for the 3,000 or so Ivorians just settled at the
newly established Kouankan II refugee camp in Guinea's southeastern
forest region. Although the refugees are still busy building their
mud-brick houses, donors plan to pull the plug on food aid by year's
end, regardless of political events.
"Even if the people stay on, the food aid stays cut. The funding is
finished," said David Baduel, the UN World Food Programme representative
in Nzerekore, the main town in the lush Guinean region wedged between
three of West Africa's hotspots - Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra
Leone.
A total 53,000 refugees from regional conflict are currently sheltered
in camps in Guinea, all receiving monthly food allocations from WFP. But
as the vast majority hail from Liberia, where a new peacetime president
took office in January after UN troops restored security, donors purely
and simply plan to axe funds for refugees by December, saying it is time
to go home.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52102&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA
For a related article go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52035&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA
For an interview with Guinea's Interior Minister go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52012&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA
CHAD: Government accuses Sudan of more attacks against civilians near
border
The Chadian government has accused neighbouring Sudan of backing an
incursion into eastern Chad, just weeks after leaders of the two
countries agreed to calm longstanding hostilities.
"The janjawid [Arab militia in Sudan] led a raid on 6 March 2006 in the
zone of Amdjereme, stealing 700 camels, 1,000 cows and 1,500 sheep and
other goods belonging to these peaceful citizens," Chad communications
minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said in a statement on Wednesday.
Chadian soldiers pursued the militia forces and traded fire with them,
before the intruders fled toward Sudan, the statement said, adding that
Chadian forces recouped the livestock and returned it to Amdjereme.
Chad and Sudan, both facing rebellions, have long accused one another of
supporting dissidents. Chad president Idriss Deby and Sudan's Umar
al-Bashir met in Libya in early February, agreeing to a series of
measures to restore peace, including a vow not to back rebel activities
within their territories.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52123&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD
NIGER: Villagers, government, aid workers brace for tough months ahead
The Niger government, farmers, aid workers and donors are bracing for
tough months ahead as communities hard hit by last year's hunger crisis
begin to run out of the little food they were able to produce.
The government estimates that about 1.8 million people are at risk of
food shortages this year.
While the harvest in late 2005 was good in most parts, families still
reeling from last year's near-famine are far from catching up, having
sold off assets and gone deep into debt to keep their families fed. "I
was able to harvest a lot of millet," Haladou Karo, a farmer in Niger's
Maradi region, told IRIN. "But today not much is left in the granary
because of the debts I had to pay."
Government officials and aid experts alike say despite the decent
harvest, in 2006 many communities still will not be able to escape the
hunger-poverty cycle. "While food security conditions have temporarily
improved following the harvest, a severe hunger season (April-September
2006) is expected for the most food insecure households," noted a 15
February bulletin from the USAID Famine Early Warning System Network
(FEWS).
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52078&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGER
For IRIN special / Food crisis in Africa:
http://www.irinnews.org/foodCrisis.asp
NIGERIA: Poorest forgotten in bird flu compensation pay-outs
For months residents of Birnin Yero, a small village of mud walls and a
mix of corrugated iron and thatch roofs in northern Nigeria, had watched
their chickens die in unprecedented numbers. But they simply assumed it
was a bad case of the seasonal chicken plague.
It was only when Africa's first cases of the deadly H5N1 virus was
confirmed weeks later in poultry at nearby Sambawa Farms (owned by
Sports Minister Samailla Sambawa) in Jaji did they suspect their birds
may have succumbed to bird flu, too.
But as Nigeria begins compensating farmers for losses to bird flu, the
villagers of Birnin Yero, like their counterparts across Nigerian states
hit by the H5N1 virus, have been left out. Only the big commercial farms
like Sambawa, where government veterinary teams conducted the culling of
birds, are receiving compensation.
The small-scale poultry keepers, who raise their chickens in their
backyards and who keep more than 60 percent of all poultry in Africa's
most populous country, will not receive a cent.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52122&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGERIA
For related articles go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51987&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGER
Special IRIN map - Bird flu in Africa / Country updates:
http://www.irinnews.org/Avianflu.asp
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