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 450
18 - 24 October 2008


CONTENTS:

COTE D'IVOIRE: "Alarming" malnutrition in north
CAMEROON-NIGERIA: Bakassi's displaced in flux, peninsula vulnerable
COTE D'IVOIRE: Election board suspends voter registration
WEST AFRICA: Taking on climate change as a region
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Oil money draws sub-Saharan Africans
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: "Without work, money, or papers, I am stuck"
COTE D'IVOIRE: "Rapes are encouraged"
MAURITANIA: Repatriated refugees returning to Senegal
MAURITANIA: Coup members face one-month sanctions ultimatum
NIGERIA: Officials seek source of deadly gastroenteritis


COTE D'IVOIRE: "Alarming" malnutrition in north

In Cote d'Ivoire government health officials and aid agencies are
launching emergency feeding and special nutritional training in the
north to respond to what nutrition experts call "alarming" malnutrition
levels.

Nearly 18 percent of children in the north are acutely malnourished
according to a July 2008 nutritional survey by the UN World Food
Programme (WFP) and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) conducted in
collaboration with the national government nutrition programme.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81119


CAMEROON-NIGERIA: Bakassi's displaced in flux, peninsula vulnerable

A 18 October rebel attack on the Bakassi peninsula exposes the region's
continued vulnerability to "insurgency, piracy and unruliness,"
according to a UN senior officer who coordinates the Cameroon Nigeria
Mixed Commission that oversaw the handover of the peninsula from
Nigerian to Cameroonian authorities on 14 August.

For decades, Cameroon and Nigeria had disputed ownership of the possibly
resource-rich peninsula, taking their case to the UN International Court
of Justice in 1994. After reviewing records going back one century, the
court ruled the peninsula belonged to Cameroon.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81118


COTE D'IVOIRE: Election board suspends voter registration

Cote d'Ivoire's electoral commission on 23 October suspended for two
days the long-delayed voter registration operation, throwing into deeper
uncertainty the timing of a presidential poll seen as indispensable to
restoring stability.

The electoral commission said registration was being suspended for
technical reasons, but the operation has been fraught with problems. The
order comes as youths continue attacking registration offices and some
election workers enter the second week of a strike over alleged lack of
pay.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81093


WEST AFRICA: Taking on climate change as a region

Climate experts and ministers in West Africa have committed to
coordinating national efforts to fight climate change, at the conclusion
of an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meeting in
Benin's economic capital, Cotonou, on 22 October.

Benin's UN Development Programme representative, Edith Gasana, told
participants "no country will be able to handle the struggle alone."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81092


EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Oil money draws sub-Saharan Africans

A few years after the first US oil drillers arrived in Equatorial Guinea
in 1992, hundreds of mostly West African migrants without travel or work
papers followed. National police forces now estimate that one-third of
the population - more than 300,000 - is from outside the country, with
most migrants arriving illegally in search of much-hyped oil money.

"About 10 years ago," said retired police officer Antonio Obiang,
"migrants from Nigeria and Cameroon started arriving. The first group
settled here while the second group thought of only one thing - going to
Europe [by] taking advantage in the 1980s of readily available visas [to
Europe]."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81046


EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Coulibaly - "Without work, money, or papers, I am
stuck"

"Oh no, no, in the name of the Lord, Equatorial Guinea is not the
country I had dreamt of when I was in Mopti [Mali]," said Coulibaly*,
dressed in a black Bob Marley T-shirt, dirty jeans and a pair of tennis
shoes that had long lost their white colour.

This young, lean Malian of 25 years is one of the hundreds of migrants,
known to locals as "indocumentados," or without papers, who arrive
monthly in oil-producing Equatorial Guinea. A street vendor of pirated
Nigerian CDs and DVDs, he pitches his wares daily rain or shine, in the
hopes of earning more than the day before.

http://www.irinnews.org/HOVReport.aspx?ReportId=81048


COTE D'IVOIRE: "Rapes are encouraged"

Rapes of women and girls are common in western Cote d'Ivoire and
generally go unpunished, said residents of the region.

"These days nearly every time we hear of armed robberies in homes, on
the roads or on plantations, we hear of rape," said a resident of the
western town of Duekoue some 500km from the commercial capital Abidjan,
who wanted to remain anonymous.

"We hear of two, three, four rapes every day."

With the proliferation of arms since conflict broke in 2002,
unprecedented violent crime continues to plague many areas of Cote
d'Ivoire where a March 2007 peace deal marked a formal end to fighting.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81038


MAURITANIA: Repatriated refugees returning to Senegal

Dozens of young Mauritanians recently repatriated from Senegal are
crossing back over into long-time refugee communities because schools in
Mauritania are not ready to take them in, according to the youths.

Hadry Yaro, 18, returned to Dodel in northern Senegal on 17 October.
"There were no classrooms for us [in Mauritania]. It was as if no one
expected us to be there. I need to finish school, so I came back alone
and am living with my uncle in Dodel."

Since ethnic violence and security crackdowns forced out tens of
thousands of mostly black Mauritanians almost two decades ago, most have
settled in the communities of Dodel and nearby N'dioum, with thousands
living in Mali.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81007


MAURITANIA: Coup members face one-month sanctions ultimatum

Following a meeting between Mauritania's junta leaders and the European
Union in Paris, EU officials have given the military officials one month
to show how they will restore constitutional order, or sanctions will
take effect.

Coup leaders - who have refused to release President Sidi Mohammed
Cheikh Ould Abdallahi - and donors are entering their 10th week of a
sanctions standoff. At stake is about US$500 million in development and
military assistance.

Included in that sum is $175 million from the World Bank, which includes
$9 million in humanitarian aid, budgeted for 17 programmes affecting
Mauritanians.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81013


NIGERIA: Officials seek source of deadly gastroenteritis

The Nigerian Ministry of Health is trying to determine what caused a
gastroenteritis outbreak that has claimed 120 lives in northern
Nigeria's Sokoto state and dozens more in the northwest, according to
national health statistics.

"Unfortunately, it is the environment," said the Ministry of Health's
deputy director, Abdul Nasidi. "The environment is so dirty. We are
trying to work with the Ministry of Environment to inculcate in
Nigerians how to live in a better environment. We want to get to the
bottom of these outbreaks."

"It is a serious outbreak," Sokoto state health commissioner, Jabbi
Kilgori, said at the height of the outbreak on 10 October. "We have 23
local government areas and at least 10 are affected. We have between
2,000 and 3,000 people affected and 120 deaths."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81037


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