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 389
13 - 17 August 2007


CONTENTS:

NIGERIA: Uneasy calm restored in Port Harcourt
GUINEA: Military warns of more protests if demands not met
NIGERIA: Tens of thousands languishing in prison awaiting trial
SIERRA LEONE: Judiciary prepares for post-election disputes
NIGER-NIGERIA: Polio down 80 percent with remaining cases blamed on
   borders
BURKINA FASO: Govt responds to nutrition critics with money, promises
LIBERIA: Sea destroys homes in coastal communities
SENEGAL: Rains come late, cause widespread flooding
CHAD: People flee villages as Lake Lere overflows
MAURITANIA: Health and sanitation next obstacle after flooding
WEST AFRICA: Region making headway on food fortification
COTE D'IVOIRE: Floods wipe out water source for hundreds of people
NIGER: Despite security assurances, mines keep aid agencies out of
   north
BURKINA FASO: Communities wiped out by countrywide flooding
COTE D'IVOIRE: Authorities work to stamp out uncontrolled sale of
   medicines


NIGERIA: Uneasy calm restored in Port Harcourt

The army appeared to be in charge again in Nigeria's southern city of
Port Harcourt a day after gun fights had erupted across the city causing
many residents to flee their homes. "The soldiers are everywhere in the
city and they are very serious," said a local driver George Aneh in Port
Harcourt who IRIN reached by telephone on 17 August. "On every corner
you see civilians getting out of the cars with their hands up as
soldiers check for weapons," he said. "The soldiers don't look at you in
the face or even have an interest in taking bribes." Traffic was lighter
than normal in Port Harcourt, he said, but banks and shops were all open
again for business. Despite the heavy military presence, the government
has reportedly said the city was not under a state of emergency.
According to various press reports the government imposed a dusk-to-dawn
curfew on 17 August and Aneh said in the evening the city had grown
eerily quiet. Fighting broke out in the early hours of 16 August after
the military launched an attack in the Makoba district of the city on
what was believed to have been a hideout of militia leader Soboma
George. At least 32 people died in the fighting, most of them militia
fighters, including George, according to various reports attributed to
the government.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73794


GUINEA: Military warns of more protests if demands not met

Guinean soldiers warn they could stage fresh protests within weeks if
the government fails to meet demands that were at the centre of
military-led riots in May that left two people dead and several injured.
Soldiers say they are giving the government until 8 September to pay
long-overdue salaries. "After that deadline, we'll make ourselves heard
as we did in May," said one sergeant major who spoke on condition of
anonymity to avoid problems with superiors. Many soldiers IRIN spoke to
echoed this position. Demanding back salary and the dismissal of top
military officials, soldiers rioted in the capital, Conakry, and in two
other towns, shooting into the air and strafing a residential area with
machine guns, killing at least two people. The bulk of the soldiers'
demands have yet to be met, military sources told IRIN. "What we want is
to obtain, at the end of this month, what is our due, as promised by the
government under [President] Lansana Conte." He said soldiers will
refuse their salary for this month. "We have decided not to touch our
money at the end of this month to protest the failure to meet the
commitments made by our leaders." The military has long demanded back
salaries, the reintegration of soldiers sacked after a rebellion in 1996
and promotions. Troops want the government to give them 300 billion CFA
francs (US$77 million) Conte allegedly promised them to end the 1996
mutiny.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73792


NIGERIA: Tens of thousands languishing in prison awaiting trial

About 60 percent of inmates in Nigerian prisons await trial, often for
years, in unsanitary, overcrowded conditions, human rights groups and UN
officials say. Of Nigeria's 40,000 or so prisoners, 25,000 have never
been convicted of a crime, and remain in prison up to 14 years without
going to court. "In some prisons, the conditions of inmates awaiting
trial are worse than the inmates on death row," said Aster van Kregten,
Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International and part of a delegation
who visited 10 prisons in the states of Enugu, Kano and Lagos, and in
the Federal Capital Territory at the end of July. "We were quite
shocked." Amnesty International found cells of 200 inmates with only two
toilets, often overflowing by the end of each day; boys as young as 11
held in cells with adult men; and rampant disease, including
tuberculosis, malaria and rabies. "In almost every cell people were
sleeping on the floor," van Kregten told IRIN. "Many inmates do have a
bed, but don't have a mattress." She added that in many cases those
awaiting trial were allowed outside for fresh air only once a week.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73777


SIERRA LEONE: Judiciary prepares for post-election disputes

As results trickle in from Sierra Leone's presidential and parliamentary
elections on 11 August, losing parties are likely to challenge the
results in court. The problem is that the country is still emerging from
a civil war and its institutions - particularly the judiciary - remain
weak. "The perception of the judiciary as unjust and subservient to the
executive is still very strong," said a report issued in July by the
International Crisis Group. The UK-based Chatham House issued its own
report earlier in the year describing the judiciary as "easily
corrupted". The country's 2004 Truth and Reconciliation Commission
report concluded that the country's weak judiciary had been one of the
root causes of the war which ravaged the country from 1991-2002. The
Commission recommended that the government focus resources on improving
the overall performance of the judiciary, but observers contacted by
IRIN all agreed that the recommendations had gone largely unheeded.
Against this background, electoral officials are concerned that even
though local and international observers generally deemed the elections
free and fair, the credibility of the results could still be in
jeopardy. "Election matters have to be dealt with with sufficient
dispatch," Reginald Fynn, legal expert at the National Electoral
Commission (NEC) told IRIN. Josehine Koroma, deputy executive director
of the Network Movement For Justice And Development, told IRIN: "The
[judicial] system here is very slow and if you have to wait for a long
time it could lead to something disastrous in this country."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73760


NIGER-NIGERIA: Polio down 80 percent with remaining cases blamed on
borders

The chances that polio could be eradicated from the world seem to be
rising with dramatically fewer cases reported in Nigeria, the country
where the disease has been most endemic in the world, yet coordination
with bordering countries remains a weak link in the chain, polio experts
say. "A lot of people move from one side of the border [between Nigeria
and Niger] to the other and so [when there is a vaccination campaign]
many children may be missed," UN Children's Fund (UNICEF)'s
communications chief in Nigeria Christine Jaulmes, told IRIN. UNICEF in
Nigeria facilitated meetings in August between government and aid
officials from Niger, which shares a 1,000 kilometre border with
northern Nigeria, where most of the world's cases of polio have been
reported in recent years. Of the 2,000 cases reported around the world
in 2006, 1,125 were from Nigeria , according to figures provided by the
Polio Eradication Initiative. Yet as of 10 August only 156 cases had
been reported in Nigeria in 2007, compared with 753 cases on the same
date in 2006, Jaulmes said.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73771


BURKINA FASO: Govt responds to nutrition critics with money, promises

Burkina Faso's health ministry has responded to criticism by
international aid organisations of its malnutrition policies, which have
led to a 10-year downward slide of malnutrition rates among children, by
calling on them to join it in a new coordinated effort. "For the first
time, a budget is going to be allocated to combat malnutrition [and this
money will be used by all departments]," Sylvestre Tapsoba, the health
ministry official in charge of nutrition, announced to IRIN in an
exclusive interview last week, following a cabinet-level meeting
attended by the President and Prime Minister on malnutrition in July.
The health ministry will form a National Committee of Consultation on
Nutrition, Tapsoba said, which will include the agriculture, hydraulics
and fisheries, women's promotion, education and defence ministries, as
well as non-governmental organisations and international organisations.
Nutritionists will be placed in the 13 health zones around the country,
and surveillance among pregnant women and young children will be
improved. The health ministry will also conduct health surveys every two
years, and set up early warning posts in high-risk areas during the
five-month lean season which happens every summer, Tapsoba said. "We
hope to use the decentralised services of government ministries and NGOs
to reach communities and sensitize them and to gather acute cases before
it is too late," he said. "All partners are asked to help the government
finance this fight, because whatever the government does, it cannot do
it alone."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73751


LIBERIA: Sea destroys homes in coastal communities

More than 700 people are homeless in Liberia after ocean waves slammed
coastline communities, destroying more than 100 homes and other
structures. "We have been confronted with increasing high tides.wiping
away most human settlements along the beaches," Daniel Clarke, head of
the Liberian Red Cross Society, told IRIN. He called the situation "a
disaster". Between 30 July and 2 August, rising sea levels damaged homes
and property in fishing villages in Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount and
Montsserado counties, according to a recent report by the UN mission in
Liberia (UNMIL). Since then, on 14 August, a wave wiped out eight houses
in a shanty town in the capital, Monrovia, leaving 86 people without
shelter. Clarke said the Red Cross has so far registered more than 700
people displaced by the coastal destruction and the count continues.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73754


SENEGAL: Rains come late, cause widespread flooding

Heavy rains are reportedly flooding towns in the centre and north of the
country causing damage to homes and crops. "After a slow start to the
[rainy] season in Senegal, rainfall has become torrential, especially in
a narrow band across the northern portion of the country," according to
the Weather Hazards Impacts Assessment issues for 9 to 15 August from
Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) ."Localized flooding is
possible during the next week as rivers are likely swollen and soils
saturated." The town of Thies reportedly received 127 millimetres of
rain on the night of 13 August. Several neighbourhoods in low areas were
affected, according to local correspondent for the Senegalese newspaper
Wal Fadjri. The local government announced that some 123 families have
lost their homes. The government has reportedly started providing
emergency assistance.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73726


CHAD: People flee villages as Lake Lere overflows

In southwest Chad heavy rains on 9 August caused Lake Lere to overflow,
flooding homes in dozens of surrounding villages. People are now wading
through water in search of dry land, witnesses told IRIN. "I have seen
terrible things," a driver in Pala village in the Department Mayo
Dallah, Galria Zoutene, told IRIN by telephone. "The worst has been at
the village of Tikem where everything has been wiped away." People have
been carried away by the floods, he added. "The body of a girl from the
village of Goigoudoum was only found two days after she disappeared."
The Secretary General of Mayo Dallah, Tchindebe Lama, is appealing for
food, blankets, tents and other basic provisions. The central government
said it will soon make a request for international assistance. "We
cannot deal with the situation alone," the minister of social action,
national solidarity and the family, Ngarmbatina Carmel Sou VI, told
IRIN. "The situation is very widespread and serious," she said. Flooding
is also occurring some 400 kilometres east of Lake Lere, around the town
of Am Timan, where local authorities have issued a communique saying the
Bhar Azoum River is set to burst its banks and flood the town.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73727


MAURITANIA: Health and sanitation next obstacle after flooding

A community in south-eastern Mauritania desperately needs latrines and
potable water after a flash flood wiped out its water and health
infrastructure, leaving the population vulnerable to disease, government
and UN officials say. Up to two-thirds of Tintane's population of 16,000
lost their homes and are living in tents and makeshift shelters in five
temporary sites - none of which have latrines. "They defecate on the
street, right beside their tents even," said Niang Saidou Doro of the
Mauritanian Ministry of Health. "It's a risk." Heavy rains beginning 7
August killed two people, left an unconfirmed number missing and
displaced up to 2,500 families in Tintane, a Sahelian town in a valley
at the foot of the El-Aguer mountain chain in Mauritania's Hodh
El-Gharbi region. The flooding destroyed homes, knocked over trees, and
wiped out crucial infrastructure, including a dam, the health centre and
over three kilometres of water pipes. "The whole sanitary system has
been destroyed," Didier Laye, interim UN resident coordinator for
Mauritania, told IRIN. "Potable water and health are the top
priorities." "The main problem now is not with food,"added Nicole
Jacquet, deputy country director for the World Food Programme (WFP).
"The main problem is with water, because the canal aqueduct has been
destroyed... We are worried the water is not drinkable." The government
and foreign donors have provided emergency food for the displaced
people, and the WFP has food stocks to last at least one month.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73732


WEST AFRICA: Region making headway on food fortification

Basic nutrients people need to survive have been added to food around
the world for almost a century, but West Africa is only now leading the
way for the same life-saving technique to be rolled out in Africa,
although experts warn it is just one small component in combating
under-nutrition. "West Africa has made more progress in food
fortification than anywhere else on the continent except possibly South
Africa," said Shawn Baker, West Africa regional director of the
non-governmental organisation Helen Keller International (HKI). However
"it is important not to oversell it," he emphasised. "Large-scale food
fortification is not going to solve all the region's problems, but the
levels of deficiency in West Africa are huge and I think the large-scale
programs like this do nonetheless help in making an overall reduction."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73733


COTE D'IVOIRE: Floods wipe out water source for hundreds of people

Nearly 2,000 people in the Ivorian city of Agboville are struggling to
find drinking water after sewage-filled flood waters poisoned wells that
had been their sole source of water. "[Health workers] are telling us
not to drink water from the wells, but we don't know where else we're
going to find water," N'Guessan Pacone, 30, told IRIN by phone from
Agboville, located about 90km from the commercial capital, Abidjan.
N'Guessan's and hundreds of other residents' homes were severely damaged
in the floods and their belongings destroyed. Residents say diarrhoea,
malaria, and other illnesses are spreading in the area. Over 1,000
people are still displaced from floods that hit the riverside
neighbourhoods on 27 July, local sources said. Most people in the area
do not have running water and get their water from wells in their yards.
Many of the families' wells might have to be destroyed, according to an
official with the mayor's office. "The flood has contaminated these
wells and hygiene experts say it's probably not possible to treat and
rehabilitate them," said Ablo Gnamien Anatole, head of civil protection,
public hygiene and environment. Most people in the area dump raw sewage
into water channels, which overflowed in the recent flooding, Ablo said.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73734


NIGER: Despite security assurances, mines keep aid agencies out of north

The mayor of a remote city in lawless northern Niger last week appealed
for help with severe hunger and flood-related damage, but humanitarians
are struggling to respond because mines recently laid by anti-government
fighters have made the city unreachable. "We got a request from the
mayor who said they have a humanitarian crisis due to floods and the
security situation which has cut the city off," said International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesperson Marcel Izard. "There are
a number of people needing assistance and food," he said. But Iferouane,
1,000km northeast of the capital Niamey, is at the heart of a remote
area where the Nigerien army and some foreign mining companies have been
targeted by an armed group called the National Movement for Justice
(MNJ) since February this year. The army and MNJ have given the ICRC
security guarantees and offered to guide its staff around the mined
areas, but Izard said aid still will not get through. "We are not
concerned about either the rebels or the army, only the antipersonnel
and antitank mines. We have already had security guarantees from both
sides but the mines make it very unsafe to go because the floods mean
the mines could have shifted, even if we are told exactly where they
were laid," Izard explained.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73707


BURKINA FASO: Communities wiped out by countrywide flooding

A humanitarian crisis may be emerging in Burkina Faso with rains
destroying people's homes and farmland in several areas across the
country, the government's top crisis management expert said on 13
August. "We are making a cry from the heart for help," Amade Belem, the
permanent secretary for the national council for emergency aid, told
IRIN. "The situation is chaotic as in some areas we have never seen such
heavy rains before," he said. "Many people have lost everything." "We
are a long way from being able to meet their needs." The north He said
one of the worst-affected areas is the north province of Loroum, where
flooding has washed away houses, schools and other infrastructure in 14
villages. On 5 August two-thirds of all houses in the village of Banh
were washed away after rain fell non-stop for 13 hours. Some 3,500
people were made homeless. Some 450 of them are now living in the local
schools. Unless alternative housing is found, communities might not be
able to start the school year a planned on September 15. The government
has appealed for 1,500 tents but has so far only received four, Belem
said. He added that there is also an urgent need for medicine, water
purification chemicals and bed sheets. He said the situation is likely
to deteriorate in the coming days as the forecast is for more rain. The
national Red Cross told IRIN it is making its own assessment of the
situation in the north on 14 August.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73708


COTE D'IVOIRE: Authorities work to stamp out uncontrolled sale of
medicines

People in the Ivorian commercial capital, Abidjan, can be seen leaving
the doctor's office, prescription in hand, heading not to the pharmacy
but to Roxy market in the Adjame neighbourhood, where the same medicines
can be had for a fraction of the price. That is a problem, according to
health officials who recently launched a campaign to stem the
uncontrolled sale of prescription drugs. "When people buy medicines in
the streets it poses many problems, including inappropriate medicines
for the condition, incorrect dosage, lack of knowledge of interactions
with other medicines, and lack of surveillance by a medical
professional," said World Health Organization spokesperson Daniela
Bagozzi. She added, "It's part of an overall problem of the supply of
quality medicines in the developing world." Risks Cote d'Ivoire, like
other countries across the continent, is battling a flood of counterfeit
drugs - products that range from mixtures of toxic substances to
inactive, ineffective concoctions. But piled next to these on market
tables are also medicines that belong in the pharmacies but make their
way into street vendors' hands. Often through a lack of controls,
prescription drugs end up in the market, where they are not stored
properly and might be sold after their expiration date, health officials
say. In Cote d'Ivoire, medicines are also making it to the black market
through theft either by bandits or by workers who make off with drug
stocks and sell them.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73709


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