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 399
22 - 26 October 2007


CONTENTS:

BENIN: AIDS stripping farmers of their land
CHAD: Peace deal signed to end rebellion
COTE D'IVOIRE: Government, former rebels thwarting arms inspections, UN
   says
GHANA: Food shortages follow drought, floods
GUINEA: Youths chase staff from state electricity offices, protesting
   power cuts
GUINEA: Slight boost in water, electricity services but much to be done
GUINEA-BISSAU: Security Council warns drug trafficking undermines
   stability
LIBERIA: Leprosy losing its stigma
MAURITANIA: New government tackling waste management
MAURITANIA-SENEGAL: Arrests raise questions over safe return of
   Mauritanian refugees
NIGER: Humanitarian crisis feared in north
NIGER: MSF ordered out of north after third hijacking
SAHEL: Foundation money to allow long term approach to water problem
SENEGAL: Calls for more prevention as cholera cases rise
SENEGAL: As fuel prices soar, oil lamps becoming a luxury product
WEST AFRICA: New approach to malaria recommended


BENIN: AIDS stripping farmers of their land

Comlan Houessou certainly knows what he is talking about when it comes
to the impact of AIDS on rural communities. He is a farmer in Benin who
has lost everything because of HIV: the respect of his neighbours, his
savings and his land. He is now fighting to rebuild his life. Just five
years ago, Houessou had two hectares of land in the Couffo region of
southwest Benin. He inherited the land from his family and grew corn,
cassava and cotton on it to meet the needs of his two wives and their
six children. In 2003, however, his health began to deteriorate. "It
started with headaches. I told myself that it would pass, but they got
worse", he told IRIN/PlusNews at the conference 'From research to
Action: mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture and food
security in West Africa', which took place at the start of October in
Cotonou, Benin.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74988


CHAD: Peace deal signed to end rebellion

The Chadian government and four of the main rebel groups that had vowed
to overthrow the government have signed a peace accord in Libya. ahamat
Nouri (UFDD), Timane Erdiimi (RFC), Hassane El Djinedi (DNT) and
Abdelwahid Aboud (UFDD-F) signed up to the deal in the presence of
Chadian President Idriss Deby and President Omar El Bachir of
neighbouring Sudan who have each accused each other of backing rebel
groups operating in their countries. he accord calls for an "immediate"
ceasefire, the integration of rebel fighters into the national army, and
the start of a process to integrate all the parties to the deal into the
government.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75007


COTE D'IVOIRE: Government, former rebels thwarting arms inspections, UN
says

Arms inspections in Cote d'Ivoire are being refused "with increasing
frequency" by former rebels and the national army and illegal arms
trafficking has become a "worrying phenomenon", according to a recent
report from the panel that monitors the country's UN arms embargo. In
the report, released publicly on 19 October, the UN panel said several
military units routinely refuse inspections by international forces. It
expressed particular concern that inspectors have not had access to the
presidential guard since the embargo was imposed in 2004. "Given the
persistence of hindrances to embargo inspections, the Group deems it
necessary to remind the two parties' military authorities. that the
impartial forces cannot fulfil their monitoring mandate without these
authorities' cooperation. This recommendation applies in particular to
Republican Guard units," the report said.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74991


GHANA: Food shortages follow drought, floods

After an initial push to provide food for people affected by drought and
heavy flooding in northern Ghana, donor attention on the country is
waning even though food shortages persist meaning the situation could
get much worse, the Ghanaian government and aid agencies warn. "Because
of the preceding drought and the end of the planting season, there is an
inevitable situation of food insecurity, which is likely to last until
the next harvest," the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC)
wrote in a 9 October appeal. "It's something that is going to be an
ongoing problem. The food supply has to be constant until the region is
able to regenerate itself," said Benonita Bismarck, head of operations
of the Ghana Red Cross Society.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74993


GUINEA: Youths chase staff from state electricity offices, protesting
power cuts

"Electricity for all or for nobody", chanted the 1,000 young protestors
in Labe, central Guinea, as they marched on the town's state electricity
office earlier this month, chased out the staff and barricaded the
doors. The youths then marched to the governor's office and handed him
the keys, appealing to him to find a solution to Labe's electricity
problem. The demonstrators did not use violence in the 10 October
protest, sources in Labe told IRIN. "We just wanted to talk to the
authorities and tell them our grievances," Balde Thierno Souleymane, 22,
said. "In Labe there was electricity in this or that area or for this or
that family. It was just nonsense."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74968


GUINEA: Slight boost in water, electricity services but much to be done

In one of the poorest and most volatile neighbourhoods of Conakry new
solar-panelled street lights line a boulevard for nearly three
kilometres, the shiny lampposts standing out amid crumbling cinder block
buildings and rutted dirt roads. "That came with 'le changement'," one
Guinean said, using one of the most often-heard phrases here these days
- referring to the change of government that took place in March after
weeks of unprecedented citizen demonstrations for better living
conditions and the ouster of the president of 23 years, Lansana Conte.
In a compromise Conte named a consensus prime minister, Lansana Kouyate,
who came in promising Guineans what most have been deprived of for
decades - access to the most basic of services like electricity, clean
water and sanitation.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74965


GUINEA-BISSAU: Security Council warns drug trafficking undermines
stability

The UN Security Council has warned that Guinea Bissau is being
"undermined" by prolific drug trafficking which is making the tiny
country a threat to West Africa's stability. "The Security Council notes
with deep concern the threat posed by drug and human trafficking, which
can undermine the important gains made with respect to rule of law,
democratic and transparent governance," the Council said in a
Presidential Statement delivered in New York on 19 October. Drug
trafficking in Guinea Bissau could have "negative implications towards
the region, as well as other regions," the Council noted.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74912


LIBERIA: Leprosy losing its stigma

In Liberia leprosy has long been seen as a disease caused by mystical
powers and one that cannot be cured by modern medicine. Health workers
and villagers say that is beginning to change. For Flomo Kerkula, 55,
the longstanding stigma has meant spending 20 of his 55 years at the
Tuberculosis and Leprosy Rehabilitation Camp in the northern Liberian
town of Ganta, Nimba County, which is run by a group of Roman Catholic
nuns. The camp provides free leprosy treatment and shelter for 200
patients who suffer from the disease. Their scars from having been
infected with the bacteria known as leprae, which attacks the nervous
system, include deformities of the skin, fingers and toes. The UN World
Food Program provides food to the patients.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74943


LIBERIA: Flomo Kerkula, "All my fingers and toes have gone and my family
abandoned me"

Leprosy patient Flomo Kerkula, 55, has been living in one of Liberia's
biggest leper camps in Ganta, Nimba County, for over two decades. One of
his elder brothers first took him to the camp for treatment, but twenty
years later, Kerkula told IRIN that his family has abandoned him,
despite the completion of his treatment. "I had a wife when I contracted
leprosy and I have brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, as well as
other relatives like cousins.

http://www.irinnews.org/HOVReport.aspx?ReportId=74944


MAURITANIA: New government tackling waste management

Since the 1970s, Mauritania's capital city has been growing explosively
and today a million people call the scruffy, ramshackle city's
collection of tin-roofed shacks and rough concrete buildings home.
Nouakchott's sanitation system has not kept up with the demand, and the
Mauritanian capital often looks more like an open garbage dump than the
country's showcase city. The unsanitary conditions pose serious health
risks and respiratory diseases are common there. But a new government,
elected in March 2007, has pledged to put an end to that under the
pledge: "A Clean City For Everyone". "We want to make sanitation a
priority so that people can live in the best conditions of hygiene and
healthiness," said Yaye N'Daw Coulibaly, Mayor of Tevragh Zeina, one of
nine city districts that make up Nouakchott.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74906


MAURITANIA-SENEGAL: Arrests raise questions over safe return of
Mauritanian refugees

A group that claims to represent some of the 30,000 Mauritanian refugees
living in Senegal says the recent arrest of some returnees is a sign
that the planned repatriation of thousands of others should not go ahead
until their rights and safety can be assured. The Collective of
Mauritanian Refugees for Solidarity and Durable Solutions (CRMSSD) says
seven refugees who returned to Mauritania in 1998 were recently
incarcerated for about 10 days after a dispute over land in the village
of Ngawle, in Mauritania's south-western Trarza region. The CRMSSD is
one of several organisations in Senegal representing Mauritanian
refugees and is not part of a newly formed committee that was to regroup
and represent all refugees before the United Nations.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74956


NIGER: Humanitarian crisis feared in north

In an atmosphere void of information and full of insecurity, some aid
workers fear a humanitarian crisis is emerging in the troubled northern
region of Niger, where thousands of people are thought to be cut off,
with limited access to food, healthcare and humanitarian assistance. "We
don't have hard facts at present that a crisis is ongoing but we do fear
that the risk is there that a crisis may emerge," said Niger-based Frank
Smit, West Africa humanitarian planning representative for Oxfam Novib,
the Dutch arm of the aid organisation Oxfam International. Snce
February, attacks led by ethnic Touareg in the northern Agadez region
have killed at least 45 government soldiers. Both the government and the
Nigerien Movement for Justice (MNJ) militia group have laid landmines.
Bandits have profited from the lack of safety by attacking convoys
travelling in the vast desert region of the Air mountain chain.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74905


NIGER: MSF ordered out of north after third hijacking

Nigerien authorities have ordered the French aid agency Medecins Sans
Frontieres to stop working in northern Niger after three of its vehicles
were hijacked in the last week. "They have been ordered to leave
Agadez," the governor of the Agadez region, Malam Boukar Abba told IRIN
on 23 October. "[MSF] wanted to intervene in many different areas and we
let them do a lot but. I do not see any point in them continuing - I
don't think MSF came here to be threatened at gunpoint." Two MSF four
wheel drive cars were hijacked from a village where they were being used
to deliver medicines 40km from Agadez on 22 October, according to Radio
France Internationale. MSF in Paris said it was still investigating the
report, which was confirmed by Governor Abba.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74936


SAHEL: Foundation money to allow long term approach to water problem

A donation of US$150 million to a 10-year water project in Burkina Faso,
Mali, Niger, Senegal and nine other countries in Africa and Central
America by the Howard G. Buffet Foundation could be the start of a much
needed injection of donor innovation into the relief sector,
non-governmental organisations involved in the project say. The
foundation's money will be used to start the Global Water Initiative
(GWI), a partnership of seven charities and relief organisations which
will be given US$15 million a year for 10 years. In the whole West
Africa region in 2006, traditional donor spending on water and
sanitation was US$130,000 - just 11 percent of the US$1,165 million aid
agencies had asked for - according to the UN Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74992


SENEGAL: Calls for more prevention as cholera cases rise

As the number of cholera cases in Senegal this year tops 2,000, Red
Cross and UN officials say not enough has changed since a huge epidemic
two years ago that affected more than 30,000 people and killed 450.
According to the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), 12
deaths and 2,231 cases of cholera have been registered since the
beginning of August in six regions of the country. "Every day, we're
getting new cases. Before, it was one or two cases a day. Now, it's 60
or 70. It's alarming," said Mamadou Sonko, head of operations for the
Senegalese Red Cross.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74913


SENEGAL: As fuel prices soar, oil lamps becoming a luxury product

Surging petrol prices in Africa usually weigh most heavily on the
emerging urban middle class, making it a struggle to put fuel in cars or
motorbikes every day and to pay home electricity bills. In Senegal, the
energy shock is starting to filter down to the most isolated rural
areas, where, far from electricity grids and roads, illiterate parents
hoping their children will have a better life through education are
worrying about how to put fuel in oil lamps so their children can do
their homework. "It is very difficult, because at night, we need to make
light but there has not been any petrol in the area since last year,"
said Abba Diallo, president of the Parent-Teacher Association in
Thiancone Boguel, a town in northeastern Senegal, some 690km from the
capital, Dakar, in the Matam region.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74934


WEST AFRICA: New approach to malaria recommended

A World Health Organization evaluation of West African countries'
progress in controlling malaria has recommended that donors allocate
more funds to indoor spraying and to helping countries purchase the
latest anti-malarial drugs. "For the control of malaria vectors, we had
previously recommended the use of mosquito nets," said Stephan Tohon,
WHO focal point on malaria in West Africa, speaking to IRIN on the
sidelines of the UN agency's malaria evaluation meeting in the Burkina
Faso capital Ouagadougou. "But today the experience of some countries in
southern Africa with indoor house spraying - containing the once-banned
insecticide DDT - has yielded positive results. This is very important
to beat malaria and it is going to contribute to controlling mosquitoes
not only in bedrooms, but in houses and verandas," Tohon explained.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74954


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