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 386
21 - 27 July 2007


CONTENTS:

SIERRA LEONE: Imported food a threat to domestic agriculture?
SENEGAL: Government working with Spain on child migrants
GUINEA-BISSAU: International attention on drug trafficking could help
   demining efforts
GUINEA: Donors to give $90 million to boost basic services
NIGERIA: Villagers flee communal fighting in central region
COTE D'IVOIRE: UN official calls for funds to ease return of
   war-displaced in west
COTE D'IVOIRE: Growing number of women presenting with obstetric
   fistula
NIGERIA: Guns, gangs, drugs feed growing delta violence
SENEGAL: Dakar water channel poses potential health hazard
MAURITANIA-SENEGAL: New hope for long-suffering Mauritanian refugees


SIERRA LEONE: Imported food a threat to domestic agriculture?

Food imports are keeping Sierra Leone from realising agricultural
self-sufficiency and meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of
eradicating hunger by 2015. In a country where 80 percent of food is
imported, mostly from the USA and Europe, the local agricultural
industry is feeble and local farmers struggle to compete.

"Sierra Leone faces a huge dependency on food importation, irrespective
of the country's potential for agricultural production," Tennyson
Williams, country director for non-governmental organisation (NGO)
ActionAid, told IRIN.

According to ActionAid, of the 780,000 hectares of available farmland in
Sierra Leone, only 15 percent is being used for food production. The
National Farmers' Association of Sierra Leone has called on the
government to help improve capacity to produce food locally.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73474


SENEGAL: Government working with Spain on child migrants

The Senegalese government said it is tackling the issue of child
migrants, after a human rights group released a scathing report on the
plight of African migrant children who have ended up in the Canary
Islands.

"We have a whole lot of things in the pipeline [on this issue]," said
Moustapha Ly, diplomatic adviser in charge of immigration at the
Senegalese Ministry of the Interior.

He said Spain and Senegal signed an agreement dealing with unaccompanied
migrant children on 5 December 2006, and Senegal is currently working
with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to study the
issue of child migrants.

A 26 July report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said hundreds of
unaccompanied migrant children from Africa - mostly teenagers from
Senegal and Morocco - were being held in dangerous conditions in the
Canary Islands, where they were beaten and left hungry.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73447


GUINEA-BISSAU: International attention on drug trafficking could help
demining efforts

Despite the serious threat posed by landmines and other explosive
remnants of war (ERW) in Guinea Bissau, in recent months international
eyes have focused increasingly and almost exclusively on drug
trafficking through this tiny West African nation.

Demining organisations are not sure that growing attention on the drug
trade in Guinea Bissau will aid their efforts, but are hopeful that the
issue will raise awareness in general.

"With all the attention, perhaps donors will start to recognize Guinea
Bissau's name and realise that the country, one of the poorest in the
world, faces many problems, not just with trafficking," Cassandra
McKeown, finance director for the UK's Cleared Ground Demining, told
IRIN.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73445


GUINEA: Donors to give $90 million to boost basic services

International donors have committed US$90 million to help the Guinean
government improve access to water, electricity and food and tackle mass
youth unemployment. These are stop-gap measures designed to appease a
population desperate for better living conditions.

Guinean Prime Minister Lansana Kouyate and other government officials
met representatives of the World Bank, the European Commission and other
donors in Paris on 24 and 25 July to get them to agree to a short-term
emergency package and a poverty reduction strategy for 2007-10. Donors
pledged some $400 million for the long-term programme.

With Guinea still reeling from unprecedented nationwide demonstrations
early this year, the Paris meeting marked the culmination of Kouyate's
push to boost a dilapidated economy and improve the daily lives of
citizens - among the poorest anywhere despite the country's wealth of
natural resources.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73442


NIGERIA: Villagers flee communal fighting in central region

A growing stream of villagers are fleeing border areas between Benue and
Taraba states in central Nigeria after an upsurge of deadly clashes
between ethnic Tiv and Kuteb communities over a protracted land dispute,
residents and officials said on 25 July.

Over 200 people have arrived in the town of Katsina-Ala - about 30km
from the fighting - since the latest reported attack on 19 July in which
local militia fighters opened fire on a crowded minibus, killing nine
passengers, Rufus Achenge, a local government official, said.

Dozens of people have been reported killed since the resurgence of
fighting in early June in the Katsina-Ala and Takum districts spanning
Benue and Taraba states.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73403


COTE D'IVOIRE: UN official calls for funds to ease return of
war-displaced in west

The top UN humanitarian official in Cote d'Ivoire says aid groups
urgently need funds to help head off tensions in the west, where
war-displaced families returning home face insecurity, conflict with new
migrant farmers working their land, and a demolished infrastructure.

"The thing is people are already moving," Georg Charpentier, UN
humanitarian coordinator in Cote d'Ivoire, told IRIN. "If these issues
are not properly addressed, we're allowing for a high potential for
returning to interethnic conflict."

As Cote d'Ivoire inches towards peace, the donor community is focusing
on recovery efforts. But aid officials say the successful resettlement
of populations in the west - a region long fraught with interethnic
hostilities and land disputes - will require continued humanitarian
intervention.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73395


COTE D'IVOIRE: Growing number of women presenting with obstetric fistula

At Treichville public hospital in Cote d'Ivoire's commercial capital,
Abidjan, Josephine Gba sits in the corner of the waiting room holding
her crying three-month-old baby. In her late twenties, Gba travelled to
Abidjan from the western town of Man to receive treatment for obstetric
fistula, one of the most serious injuries of childbearing.

"Since the birth of my child, my genital organ hasn't gone back to
normal," she explained to the doctor. "Because of an infection, I have a
constant discharge and I give off a bad smell that prevents me from
going out in public. Help me, I'm suffering!" she pleaded.

She's lucky she sought care as early as she did. "When the condition is
several months old, treatment becomes difficult," said Mariam Toure, a
doctor at the hospital's urology department, which is currently treating
20 fistula patients.

Gba is one of an increasing number of Ivorian women presenting with
obstetric fistula, a hole in the vagina or rectum caused by a difficult
labour.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73389


NIGERIA: Guns, gangs, drugs feed growing delta violence

Youths armed with pistols and Kalashnikovs barricaded all approaches to
Victoria Street in Port Harcourt, the main city in Nigeria's oil-rich
Niger Delta, when a funeral took place there recently. With bandanas
tied across their foreheads they searched people for weapons before
letting them through. The funeral passed off without incident.

"Their action was meant to deter possible attacks by rival gangs," said
Benibo Alabo-Jack, a resident of adjoining Aggrey Road, who watched the
scene warily from his balcony.

Traditionally funerals have been big social events in Port Harcourt and
surrounding districts, providing the opportunity for the wealthy to show
off by sponsoring feasting, and singing and dancing sometimes lasting
several days.

More recently, funerals have provided a platform for the manifestation
of an emerging gun culture that has gripped Port Harcourt and much of
the 70,000sqkm delta region where nearly all of Nigeria's oil is
produced, said Alabo-Jack.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73385


SENEGAL: Dakar water channel poses potential health hazard

A water channel running through the centre of the bustling Senegalese
capital, Dakar, may have been intended as a public recreation area and
amenity, but the reality is different. Knee-level rubbish and stagnant
water mean the channel, known locally as Canal 4, is generally
considered to be a large, open sewer, and potentially poses a health
hazard.

"I don't understand how the government can ignore such a dangerous, and
yes, disgusting problem," said El Hadj Toure, a resident of Gueule
Tapee, a neighbourhood split down the middle by the channel. "How could
they have just built an open sewer here?"

The filth in the 23km long channel has been largely ignored by the
government, 13 years after its renovation. Residents living near Canal 4
blame its current state on government incompetence and indifference,
while experts and officials agree that local apathy has played a large
role.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73377


MAURITANIA-SENEGAL: New hope for long-suffering Mauritanian refugees

This village seems typical of villages in northern Senegal - with
thatched huts, women cooking on outdoor fires, children playing and men
sitting under trees drinking sweet tea.

Yet few of the Mauritanians living here call it home. It is a refugee
camp, and at best an artificial reality - an earnest attempt by a
people, driven out of their homes nearly 20 years ago, to make a life in
an unknown land.

Despite their lack of connection to Senegal, refugees say their home is
not in Mauritania either. "We are foreigners here as well as in our own
land," said one.

In 1989, Moorish Mauritanians drove as many as 70,000 black Mauritanians
from their country. Now, the newly elected Mauritanian government,
headed by Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, says it will do all it can to
help the remaining 20,000 to return.

Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73371


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