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IRIN-WA Update 382 of Events in West Africa (Monday 18 January)
SIERRA LEONE: British frigate arrives with medical supplies
A British Royal Navy frigate, the HMS Norfolk, has arrived in Freetown with three tonnes of medical supplies for the city's desperate population, a British Foreign Office official told IRIN today (Monday). He said the ship, which arrived on Friday, was in contact with the West African intervention force ECOMOG and was considering what help it could offer.
Brigadier David Richards, who heads the British liaison team on the ship, told Reuters: "Our focus in the first instance is clearly on the humanitarian situation." Reuters reported that doctors at Freetown's largest medical facility, Connaught Hospital, were treating at least 80 war wounded and were in desperate need of medical supplies.
Thousands flee eastern Freetown
Thousands of residents are fleeing fighting in Freetown's east end for the safer western part of the city, an official of the UN Humanitarian Coordination Unit (UN-HACU) told IRIN today. UNICEF put the number at 20,000.
The official, in regular contact with aid officials still in the Sierra Leonean capital, also said a large number of internally displaced people (IDPs) were jammed into the city's soccer stadium. She said the humanitarian community was trying to provide shelter, water and sanitation to the city's estimated one million IDPs and resident population. Humanitarian agencies and NGOs which have warehouses in the city were also trying to assess the state of these facilities, especially in the east end, which was recently subject to heavy damage in the fighting between the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels and ECOMOG.
Humanitarian agencies ask ECOMOG to secure their stores
UNICEF reported that humanitarian agencies, summoned to a meeting with the National Commission of Relief, Reconstruction and Reintegration (NCRRR), the Sierra Leone government body charged with humanitarian coordination, had asked the government and ECOMOG to secure humanitarian stores. They also asked for ECOMOG help in distributing food and other supplies and for permission to use radio communications sets. ECOMOG, on Friday, had demanded that all humanitarian agencies in Sierra Leone, including UN agencies, hand over all communications equipment, AFP reported, quoting a humanitarian agency official. No reason was given for the measure and ECOMOG could not be reached for comment, AFP said.
UNICEF also said it had provided diesel fuel to Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health so that hundreds of corpses could be removed from the city's streets. The Agency also provided Public Health Unit (PHU) kits to re-start four clinics in the west of the city, including Netlands Hospital and King Harmon Road Clinic.
Relief supplies sent to Kambia
Meanwhile, in New York, United Nations spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Friday that UN humanitarian workers in Guinea supplied medicines and other relief items to IDPs in Sierra Leone's Kambia area, some 60 km northeast of Freetown. He said UN agencies had undertaken a humanitarian assessment of the situation in Kambia, which is near the border with Guinea.
A UN-HACU official in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, told IRIN today that some 13,000 IDPs registered in Kambia were in relatively good shape with sufficient food and drugs. However, the official said, shortages of water and sanitation facilities remained.
Medical supplies planned for Kenema
UN agencies and NGOs, which met in Guinea on Saturday,
have agreed to deliver more medical supplies to Sierra
Leone's eastern city of Kenema, UNICEF said. At the
meeting, called to plan a humanitarian aid assessment
mission to the town's 50,000 IDPs, they agreed to use
their own aircraft to transport supplies. UNICEF said
USAID had indicated interest in paying some of the
transport costs.
Rebels infiltrate Freetown's west
Artillery and mortar fire was heard in the south and southwestern parts of Freetown today, almost two weeks after rebels stormed the eastern side of the city, AFP reported.
It quoted "reliable sources" as saying that RUF rebels were heading north along Lumley Road, an area running along the beach on the western side of the Freetown peninsula. AFP, also quoting a Nigerian officer with ECOMOG, said the rebels had infiltrated the western part of the city at the weekend. The rebels have reportedly regrouped in hills in the south and southeast of the city after being largely pushed out of the city's east end.
News reports said that ECOMOG Force Commander General Timothy Shelpidi said on Sunday that he needed helicopters, light arms and more communications equipment to deal with snipers in the city.
NIGERIA: PDP wins in Rivers re-run election
The People's Democratic Party (PDP) won Saturday's re-run election for state governor in Rivers, news agencies said. The PDP also won 42 out of 54 seats in the Rivers state assembly, Radio Nigeria-Kaduna, monitored by the BBC, said yesterday. The centre-left PDP had initially been reported to have won Rivers in the 9 January state elections, but the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) later ordered a partial re-run there due to polling irregularities. Saturday's victory brings to 20 the number of state governships won by the PDP, against nine for the All People's Party (APP) and six for the Alliance for Democracy (AD), AFP said. Voting has not yet taken place in one state, Bayelsa, in the troubled Niger Delta region. Meanwhile, AFP said 60 people had been arrested in Rivers State for various electoral offences during Saturday's polling, but half were later released.
MAURITANIA: Prominent opposition leader freed
Mauritania's most prominent opposition politician, Ahmed Ould Daddah, and two of his associates were freed after a month's detention for accusing the government of agreeing to accept Israeli nuclear waste in the West African country, news organisations and human rights officials said.
Daddah, chairman of the Union des forces democratiques, former minister Mohameden Ould Babah and Mohameden Ould Icheddou returned to their homes in the capital, Nouackchott, on Sunday, a day before the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A member of Mauritania's human rights associations told IRIN that the men were probably released because of international and national pressure.
"People, especially women, were very active," the official said.
The politicians were arrested on 16 December, on the eve of Ramadan, and sent to a remote desert location some 690 km east of the capital.
The government of President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, which made no comment of the release of the three men, has denied agreeing to accepting the nuclear waste from the Dimona nuclear power plant. The Mauritanian government accused the politicians of damaging the country's image through their claims.
WEST AFRICA: Refugee crisis linked to socio-economic situation
Solving the region's refugee problem is dependent on improving living conditions in refugee-hosting areas and countries of origin, the president of UNHCR's Executive Committee said on Saturday. At a news conference in the Ivorian capital Abidjan, Ambassador Victor Rodriguez Cedeno warned that poor socio-economic conditions in countries of origin, such as Liberia, could result in repatriation efforts being followed by renewed population movements. Without political stability and adequate living conditions in home areas "we won't see an end to the refugee problem" in the region, he said. With some 700,000 Sierra Leoneans and Liberians, the region now has the largest refugee population in Africa. Cedeno, who described West Africa's refugee problem as inter-linked and "very complex", has completed a two-week mission to Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia. A planned visit to Sierra Leone was cancelled due to the security situation. Cedeno said he would present a report on his mission to the 53-member Executive Committee.
CAMEROON/BURKINA FASO: OAU donates US $1 million
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has donated about US $1 million to help Cameroon and Burkina Faso combat drought and famine, the PANA news agency said on Friday. Citing an OAU press statement, PANA said US $1 million will go to Cameroon to help it combat locust infestation, while Burkina Faso will receive US $84,500 for "environmental development". The money comes from OAU's special emergency assistance fund for drought and famine in Africa, PANA said. OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim said in the statement that the fund was "a most practical expression of African solidarity", it added.
Abidjan, 18 January 1999, 18:00 GMT
[ENDS]
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 18:14:34 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.ocha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 382 for 1998.1.18
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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