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 438
26 July - 1 August 2008


CONTENTS:

GUINEA-BISSAU: Cholera epidemic lessons ignored
CHAD: Neglected sectors to receive UN emergency funds
GUINEA-BISSAU: Elections fears as unity government splits
GUINEA-BISSAU: Key political events since independence
GUINEA-BISSAU: Cholera epidemic lessons ignored
BENIN: Prison conditions violate human rights
SIERRA LEONE: John and Mustapha, Sierra Leone, "We have no hope of a
   better future"
SIERRA LEONE: Violent memories still haunt war orphans


GUINEA-BISSAU: Cholera epidemic lessons ignored

A cholera epidemic sweeping across Guinea Bissau has now infected 1,077 
people - three-quarters of them in the capital Bissau - and killed 25, 
leading experts to ask why lessons from previous epidemics have not been 
taken on board. Cholera killed 400 people and infected 25,000 across the 
country in 2005. "We wrote reports and made many recommendations to the 
government after the 2005 cholera outbreak but none of them were ever 
implemented, and so we are left to start all over again," said Augostino 
Betunda, joint director of services at the Bissau centre of 
epidemiology, which is charged with diagnosing the disease. Since then, 
water and sanitation infrastructure in the capital has hardly improved, 
according to Betunda, and still only one in five people can access piped 
water in the capital.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79575


CHAD: Neglected sectors to receive UN emergency funds

Chad is to receive US$6.8 million from the UN's Central Emergency 
Response Fund (CERF) which injects money into crises that have been 
neglected or forgotten by donors, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) 
John Holmes announced. This represents the largest share of an overall 
US$30 million funding injection spread over seven crises, including 
Afghanistan and Iraq. "So far this year, humanitarian organisations have 
heavily concentrated on purely life-saving aspects of the response such 
as food security for refugees and internally displaced people," said 
Maurizio Giuliano, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations 
Humanitarian Coordinator in Chad. "This money enables us to make sure 
people not only survive but they can start to live lives that are as 
normal and dignified as possible. Education and protection are essential 
to this," he said.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79562


GUINEA-BISSAU: Elections fears as unity government splits

Experts fear parliamentary elections scheduled for November may be 
destabilised following the withdrawal of the opposition African Party 
for the Independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) from the 
national unity government on 25 July. The PAIGC announced its withdrawal 
after Prime Minister Marthinho Ndafa Kabi sacked four high-ranking 
officials, including the directors of customs, taxes, the treasury and 
the treasurer of public finances, without first informing the PAIGC or 
other coalition members. "We are concerned at the instability this 
[withdrawal] could cause. It is just three months to elections," said 
Shola Omoregie, Special representative to the UN Secretary General and 
head of the UN Peacebuilding Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS).

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79558


GUINEA-BISSAU: Key political events since independence

Uprisings and coup attempts have pervaded the politics of the tiny West 
African coastal state Guinea-Bissau since its independence from Portugal 
in the 1970s. The formation in March 2007 of a three party coalition, 
dubbed the 'Stability Pact' briefly reassured the country's much-needed 
donors that the country could be entering a new era of relative 
political calm. The pact guaranteed an engagement of the three political 
parties for ten years, although the military still retained a strong 
hold over the country's political and economic agenda. However the 
withdrawal on 25 July of the major coalition partner, the African Party 
for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) from the coalition 
has thrown the country's political future into question. Below is a 
time-line of the major political developments in the country since the 
formation of the PAIGC.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79559


BENIN: Prison conditions violate human rights

Prison conditions in Benin are so deplorable that they were, alongside 
police brutality, one of two reasons that compelled the international 
human rights watchdog Amnesty International to list the country in its 
annual State of the World's Human Rights report for the first time in 
2008. Prisons suffer from overcrowding, cases of unjustified detention, 
a lack of trained prison staff and lack of adequate food, according to 
the report. Amnesty highlights Abomey prison 150km north of Cotonou in 
central Benin which it says holds up to six times as many prisoners as 
it was designed to. The prison in the capital, Cotonou, holds 2,445 
prisoners in a facility set up to house 400.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79523


SIERRA LEONE: John and Mustapha, Sierra Leone, "We have no hope of a 
better future"

John (12) and Mustapha (14) were orphaned during the war when their 
parents were killed in front of them. Like many children in Sierra 
Leone, they struggle not only with the horrific memories of what 
happened to their parents, but also with the abuse they are currently 
suffering at the hands of those supposedly caring for them now. "During 
the war, we were in Guinea. The rebels came to the camps and our mother 
was shot. Our father was tied to a tree and he was killed as well. After 
the war ended, a neighbour sympathised with us and brought us back to 
Sierra Leone. But he married a cold-hearted woman who beats us, and 
deprives us of food. Sometimes she threatens to poison us. Because of 
the threats at the moment we are living in the streets [of Koindu] 
during the day."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79521


SIERRA LEONE: Violent memories still haunt war orphans

Theresa, a vivacious 16-year-old girl, last saw her parents when they 
were dragged away from her in a crush of people fleeing into 
neighbouring Guinea after a rebel attack on their town during the civil 
war (1991-2000). She never found them again, and lived out the war and 
its aftermath in refugee camps, begging and selling her body to soldiers 
and men for scraps of food and money. She said her life has rarely felt 
like it was worth living. "I feel like I have no purpose, like there is 
no meaning to it," she said. "I have no idea who the child's father is. 
I beg to eat." Alice Behrendt, who has studied the suicide risk of 
children in Togo, Burkina Faso, Liberia and Sierra Leone for the 
non-governmental organisation Plan International, said Theresa's sense 
of hopelessness is common among war orphans, and even children who did 
not lose their parents during the war.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79519


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