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 407
15 - 21 December 2007


CONTENTS:

BURKINA FASO: Cancer and respiratory diseases worsening
CHAD: Thoughts on the pending EU/UN mission from UN's top humanitarian
    official
CHAD: Tales of the war wounded from an ICRC surgeon
GUINEA-BISSAU: Testing without treatment - an island's dilemma
MAURITANIA: Donor funds needed to clear landmines
NIGER: Botched birth survivors battle fistula
NIGER: Where childhood ends on the marriage bed
NIGER: Army, rebels commit abuses against civilians, rights groups say
SENEGAL: Disabled students conquer daily challenges
SENEGAL: Stiffer penalties for drug traffickers
SIERRA LEONE: Government probes unrest in diamond-mining area
WEST AFRICA: Slight drop in malnutrition but food remains scarce
AFRICA: Halfway to 2015 education goals, progress not fast enough


BURKINA FASO: Cancer and respiratory diseases worsening

A World Bank funded study shows that increased air pollution caused by
motorbikes and dust is causing some 200 new cancer cases in the Burkina
Faso capital, Ouagadougou, every year.

Increased levels of benzene in the atmosphere are the primary cause of
the disease, according to a government report, "Air Quality in
Ouagadougou". Benzene is a cancerous substance contained in motorcycle
fuel, which is a mix of lubricant and petrol.

"The situation is alarming regarding the high concentration of benzene
contained in the motorcycle fuel used by most people here," the director
of sanitation and pollution prevention at the ministry of environment,
Zephirin Athanase Ouedraogo, told IRIN.

The air quality study was conducted by the World Health Organization in
partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Quality of Living,
between November 2006 and March 2007 using monitoring stations set up
all over the 2 million-strong city.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75927


CHAD: Thoughts on the pending EU/UN mission from UN's top humanitarian
official

Aid organisations are struggling to provide assistance to around half a
million people in the east of Chad at a time when numerous rebel groups
are launching offensives against the army.

The EU was supposed to have started deploying troops to the east at this
time to protect humanitarian operations and civilian populations and the
UN was supposed to send police trainers to ensure security within the
various communities. But the arrival of these international security
forces has been delayed.

IRIN spoke with the UN Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident
Representative in Chad Kingsley Amaning about the current situation. The
following are excerpts:

Are you disappointed that the international forces have not arrived yet?

Certainly. We are unhappy that the international forces are late in
their deployment. While we are waiting we are witness to combatants on
both sides being massacred on the area boarding Sudan. Reports from the
east indicate that the clashes between the government forces and the
rebel groups were very bloody. And all this is occurring in the 21st
century.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75906


CHAD: Tales of the war wounded from an ICRC surgeon

The number of casualties in the latest fighting between the government
and rebels in eastern Chad has been so high that the International
Csommittee of the Red Cross (ICRC) surgical team in the country was
unable to cope, and a second team had to be sent out from Geneva.

"As soon as I arrived [on 2 December] I was presented with plenty of
wounded," the head surgeon of the back-up team, Amilcar Contreras, told
IRIN while on a break from performing surgery at La Liberte Hospital in
N'Djamena. "Some had been there for almost a week waiting to be operated
on while others had just come in."

Contreras said he quickly set up a "triage" system to prioritise the
most urgent cases.

"I had to deal with some pretty terrible things, like one guy who had a
piece of shrapnel lodged in his eye," Contreras said. "The only solution
was to remove the eye completely and I had to do it fast otherwise
[infection would spread and] he could have lost the sight in his other
eye."

But Contreras first had to get the patient's consent to remove the eye,
and that was not easy. "He said he wanted to seek traditional treatment
instead. I had to convince him that no one could possibly save the eye
and if I didn't remove it the dirt inside would remain trapped there and
his condition would worsen."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75933


GUINEA-BISSAU: Testing without treatment - an island's dilemma

Saico Djau is deeply frustrated. He is a laboratory technician and HIV
counsellor at the Marcelino Banca hospital on Bubaque Island, the second
largest in Guinea Bissau's Bijagos Archipelago. After testing people he
informs them of their status but for those found to be HIV-positive
there is little more he can do.

Antiretroviral treatment is not available on any of the Bijagos islands.
He can only give people the news and send them back to their villages,
scattered on 80 islands, where some 35,000 people live.

Pregnant women return home with the likelihood that they will pass the
virus to their babies.

"I feel so bad about it," Djau told IRIN. "I have no way of helping a
pregnant woman to have a healthy baby."

Antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) are available in the capital, Bissau, and
two other towns on the mainland. But Bubaque is five to six hours away
by motorised canoe from Bissau and the life-prolonging drugs cost more
than what most of Bubaque's residents can afford.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75971


MAURITANIA: Donor funds needed to clear landmines

Some 400 km north of Nouakchott at the border with Western Sahara is the
village of Boulanouar. Only the passing of trains transporting minerals
out of the desert region disturb the peace and quiet of the cattle
herders there. But beneath the sand lie deadly land mines, relics of a
brutal desert war over the Western Sahara territory in the 1970s.

"Since the war with the Saharawis we have lived with the problem of
mines," said Hamoud Mohamed, a local government official in Boulanouar.
"Of the 7,000 people in the commune, at least a dozen are handicapped.
They lead their lives with difficulty."

According to mapping conducted by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) in conjunction with the newly formed national demining
agency, at least 60 communities in Mauritania are affected by mines.

The biggest mine fields are around the towns Nouadhibou and Bir
Mohgrein, said Jim Sawatsky, a UNDP advisor to the demining project.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75943


NIGER: Botched birth survivors battle fistula

Niger is one of the most dangerous places in the world to give birth.

Thirty women lolling on mats outside a non-governmental organisation
(NGO) recovery clinic in Niamey might well wish they had not been so
lucky to survive.

They are alive, but, having endured an agonising labour lasting two or
three days and finally having had their dead children cut out of them,
they have been left with fistula, a tearing of the tissue that develops
when blood supply to the tissues of the vagina and bladder and/or rectum
is cut off during prolonged obstructed labour.

When the tissue dies a hole forms through which urine and faeces pass
uncontrollably.

Fistula is the ultimate symbol of childbirth gone wrong because of poor
health care access and the high prevalence of men marrying under-age
girls in Niger.

Ostracised

Many of the women here have been ostracised by their families and
communities, and even been banned from using public transport because of
their smell.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75970


NIGER: Where childhood ends on the marriage bed

Fifteen-year-old Hadjo Garbo's child-like features belie a history more
tragic and life-altering than many adults four times her age will have
experienced.

Two years ago this petite girl, who likes to fiddle with her elaborately
braided hair and once dreamed of being a housewife, was married to one
of the older men in her village in the Dosso region of southwest Niger.
She was just 13 years old.

The marriage was consummated, and by 14 she was pregnant with her first
child. But before her 15th birthday she had lost the baby - and her
husband.

Hadjo's anatomy proved unready for the task of delivering a baby and
after an excruciating three-day labour, the unborn foetus was cut out of
her, stillborn.

The horrific labour left the girl with what gynaecologists call an
obstetric fistula, a tearing of the tissue that develops when blood
supply to the tissues of the vagina and bladder and/or rectum is cut off
during prolonged obstructed labour. The condition mostly affects child
victims of underage marriage.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75932


NIGER: Army, rebels commit abuses against civilians, rights groups say

Nigerien army and rebels in the country have yet to formally respond to
charges by rights groups that both sides are committing abuses against
civilians.

"To my knowledge, there have been no crimes," said Oumarou Boubacar, an
army commander in Agadez in northern Niger where the crimes are alleged
to have taken place.

"We are an evolved army. We respect humanitarian law," he told IRIN by
phone on 20 December.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International released statements
on 19 December accusing the Nigerien army of extrajudicial killings,
mostly in reaction to rebel raids. HRW said the rebels have used
landmines and robbed civilians.

The rebel Nigerien Movement for Justice (MNJ) has attacked government
outposts in the isolated north, purportedly to seek a greater portion of
Niger's uranium revenues and more equitable treatment for the ethnic
Touareg living in the area.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75956


SENEGAL: Disabled students conquer daily challenges

On the campus of Cheikh Anta Diop University in the Senegal capital
Dakar, physically handicapped students can often be seen crawling
unaided up concrete staircases or across dirty bathroom floors.

With a few exceptions - such as the main library and a new amphitheatre
- buildings on the sprawling, sandy campus have no handicap
accessibility.

"Users of hand-powered or motorised wheelchairs have to crawl to access
certain buildings," the disabled students association said in a recent
letter to the authorities. The association compiled a list of their
grievances and proposed solutions and presented it to university
officials at the beginning of the school year.

Serigne Diop, a government official, says he cannot erase from his mind
what he calls an "unbearable" image. "I saw a severely handicapped
student trying to make it up a spiral staircase on crutches. I think she
did not want to crawl so as not to get her clothes dirty," he said.
"Other students passed by her without bothering to help at all."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75929


SENEGAL: Stiffer penalties for drug traffickers

In Senegal drug traffickers stand to face 10 to 20 years of hard labour,
double the current punishment, under a new law adopted in parliament.

"We will take every measure to combat drug trafficking," Justice
Minister Cheikh Tidiane Sy said recently before the National Assembly,
which passed the law on 30 November. The Senate adopted it on 14
December.

The law now awaits promulgation by President Abdoulaye Wade.

Senegal and neighbouring countries, particularly Guinea-Bissau, have
become an epicentre for the transit of cocaine from Latin America to
Europe. The trafficking is threatening the stability and development of
West Africa, The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a recent
report.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75953


SIERRA LEONE: Government probes unrest in diamond-mining area

The Sierra Leone government has called for an inquiry into unrest over
diamond-mining operations in the east of the country after residents
were killed in protests last week.

The government has ordered operations suspended at Koidu Holdings Mining
Company's site in the town of Koidu in Kono district, according to a 17
December statement. A 10pm to 6am curfew remains in effect in the area.

Youths stormed the Koidu Holdings site on 13 December, setting fire to
surrounding bushes, company administrator Sadiq Sillah told IRIN.

Residents were protesting the mining operations' impact on living
conditions, saying the company has failed to compensate affected
families.

Koidu residents said police shot and killed protesters but police
officials say demonstrators were armed and police acted in self-defence.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75952


WEST AFRICA: Slight drop in malnutrition but food remains scarce

With levels of malnutrition in West Africa slightly lower in 2007 than
the previous year, the overall amount of money aid organisations are
requesting from donors for the 2008 Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP)
for the sub-region is also lower, UN officials say.

"There is less of a malnutrition crisis this year but [structural]
problems of food security are still a serious concern," Herve Ludovic de
Lys the regional head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs told IRIN at the launch of the 2008 CAP which
called on donors to provide funds for projects costing a total of $312
million.

"The good news is that improving food security is cheaper than treating
malnutrition," he said.

The largest part of the 2008 CAP, which is almost $40 million less than
in 2007, concerns projects related to food security as well as
nutrition.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75928


AFRICA: Halfway to 2015 education goals, progress not fast enough

Critics say donors at a recent high-level meeting failed to make firm
funding commitments for improving education, particularly in
impoverished, fragile and war-torn countries, making it highly unlikely
the world will meet ambitious education goals by the 2015 deadline.

"I cannot be very optimistic," Koichiro Matsuura, director-general of
the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said
at a press conference on 13 December in the Senegalese capital, Dakar,
at the close of the three-day meeting of the High-Level Group on
Education for All, which brought together education ministers, donors
and development partners.

While developing countries agreed to allocate 10 percent of budgets to
education, donor countries could not agree to include a specific
percentage of budgets for education aid, instead pledging "to work to
maintain and increase levels of funding to education" and to prioritise
low-income, fragile and emergency and conflict-affected states.

"Obviously it's a major disappointment that we don't have a commitment
to achieve a particular amount," said Nicholas Burnett, director of the
2008 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, which identified an
annual US$11 billion funding gap in external aid for education in order
to reach the goals in time.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75907


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