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IRIN-WA Update 527 of events in West Africa (Thursday 12 August)
LIBERIA: Dissidents occupy five areas, deputy minister says
Armed dissidents have occupied five localities in north-western Liberia, Deputy Information Minister Milton Teahjay told IRIN on Thursday.
Teahjay said a state of emergency had been declared in the five localities - Monokoma, Kolahun, Sardhu, Konjo and Benduman - to give the security forces "an opportunity to deal with the situation before it spreads to neighbouring towns".
News organisations reported that the government troops had gone on the offensive after receiving reinforcements.
The BBC reported Liberia's Foreign Minister, Monie Captan, as saying that the rebels appeared to be from ULIMO, a faction which opposed Taylor during the civil war.
Teahjay said the Liberian government, which has closed the border with Guinea and "put in place the necessary security apron to hold off the assailants", hoped to have the situation cleared up in the next few days.
[See separate item titled 'Dissidents occupy five areas,
deputy minister says']
Hostages unharmed, relief agencies say
Radio contact has been made with hostages abducted on Wednesday by armed men in Lofa county and they are all unharmed and well, Amanda Harvey, head of mission for Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) in Liberia told IRIN on Thursday.
"We have no other details but are hoping for a breakthrough tomorrow," she said.
The six European aid workers, three from the London-based
Medical Emergency Relief International (MERLIN), two
from MSF and one from the New York-based International
Rescue Committee (IRC), were abducted in Kolahun, some
250 km north of Monrovia by an unidentified group.
"They have since been moved but we do not know
their exact whereabouts," Harvey said.
They include midwife Sara Nam (30), logistician David
Heed (26) and doctor Mike Roe (33) - British aid workers
from MERLIN - Trond Heldaas, a 53-year-old Norwegian,
and 34-year-old Italian Irene Martino, both from MSF.
The sixth person is a British man working with IRC.
[See separate item titled 'Armed men kidnap aid workers']
Plane crash under investigation
Meanwhile, Teahjay also told IRIN that a full investigation into the plane crash which killed police director Joe Tate and six others was underway.
President Charles Taylor has instructed the Ministry of Transport to ask the company that manufactured the plane to go to Liberia to offer technical advice and assistance to try and find out if there was a fault with the plane that may have contributed to the crash, Teahjay said.
There will also be a full investigation to see whether the "airport facilities" were a contributory factor, he said.
The eight-seater Cessna aircraft crashed on Tuesday
night near the Roberts International Airport some 40
km east of Monrovia. The group had been returning
from Maryland County in the southeast of the country
after investigating reports of ritualistic killings,
news organisations said.
The other passengers were: Chief of Traffic Walter Pelham,
Assistant Director for Special Services Colonel Amie
Wreh, Chief of Task Force Cecelia Lewis, a body guard,
a church pastor who had asked for a ride to Monrovia
and the pilot.
All the bodies have now been recovered, Teahjay said.
Tate played a key role in Liberian politics for many years, first as one of Taylor's top commanders during the country's seven-year civil war and then as a leading member of his administration.
AFRICA: UN worried by poor response to Africa's disasters
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is "alarmed by the poor response of the international community" to the humanitarian needs of victims of war and natural disasters in many parts of Africa "which are nearing irrevocable crisis proportions," a senior UN official said on Thursday.
UN humanitarian agencies and their partners require US$ 796 million to assist over 12 million people in Africa during 1999, yet only US$ 352 million has been received, Fred Eckhard, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said.
He listed Angola, Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Guinea Bissau, the Republic of Congo,
Sierra Leone and Somalia among countries with serious
humanitarian needs that cannot be met due to inadequate
donor response.
SIERRA LEONE: Freed children to rejoin families, UNICEF
says
The reunification of children released on Tuesday by Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) rebels was due to start on Thursday, according to a news release from UNICEF Sierra Leone.
The children returned to Freetown to a rapturous welcome as crowds lined the streets clapping and cheering as the trucks went by. They were taken to Laka Interim Care Centre where each was given a hot bath and a change of clothes before receiving a medical check-up and preliminary counselling on Wednesday, the news release said.
Radio announcements aimed at facilitating the reunification of the some 150 children with their families were started on Wednesday.
The rebels had held the children captive for months, in some cases for years, according to the news release. About 90 of the released captives were children under the age of 13 years and some were very malnourished, haggard and in tattered clothes.
Five of the 10 mothers in the group were thought to be teenagers with babies, one of whom was only about five days old, it said.
There are some 4,000 children registered as missing by parents in the Western Area of Freetown after Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels invaded the capital in January. By the 31 July, 865 had been traced and reunified with 3,120 still recorded as missing, UNICEF said.
Government calls for release of other abductees
Sierra Leone's government on Wednesday called for the immediate and unconditional release of the many children and other civilians still held in captivity, according to a statement sent to IRIN.
It expressed the government's deep concern about those still held in captivity and "calls upon those responsible and their partners to release them immediately and unconditionally, in accordance with their commitment under the Lome Peace Agreement."
The government also welcomed the recent release of members of the UN-led mission to Occra Hills and some 200 women and children.
Government reiterates position on attacks against RUF
The government said it had investigated complaints of attacks on RUF positions in the east of the country. It said the investigations confirmed that neither its security forces, the pro-government Civil Defence Forces nor the Guinean authorities knew anything about the alleged incidents, according to another news release issued on Wednesday.
The government also reconfirmed its commitment to the Lome peace Accord and warned that any group trying to disrupt its smooth implementation risked "severe consequences."
An RUF commander, Sam Bockarie, threatened "all-out war" on Tuesday if Guinean soldiers continued their alleged attacks on his troops in the Koindu area near the border with Guinea and Liberia.
BENIN: Cholera outbreak
Sixteen people have died since mid-July in a cholera epidemic in Benin's coastal department of Atlantide, health officials in Cotonou told IRIN on Thursday.
Dr Comlanvi Comlan, World Health Organisation (WHO) adviser on disease control, told IRIN the epidemic peaked in the week of 26 July to 1 August, when about 12 people died out of a total of 145 cases registered, and has been receding since then.
Quoting health ministry figures, he said there were 22 cases and one death from 19 to 25 July, and three deaths for 252 cases registered on 2-8 August.
Dr Hortense Kossou, head of the epidemiological service in Benin's Health Ministry, confirmed to IRIN that the epidemic was under control and on the decline. She said water sources had been purified with chlorine, while sanitary awareness training was being provided on site by health ministry teams and also by radio.
The WHO has been providing technical support, including help in treating cholera patients, and material support in the form of emergency medical supplies, Comlan, an epidemiologist, said.
He said France had also been providing support.
NIGERIA: Senate absolves speaker
Nigeria's senate on Wednesday unanimously cleared its speaker, Evan Enwerem, of allegations levelled against him by a news magazine, which had claimed he had a criminal record, Nigerian TV reported.
The senate's ruling was based on the findings of three Senate committees which investigated the allegations and found them to be unfounded.
Presenting a joint report on behalf of the three committees, the chairman of the senate committee on the judiciary, Mike Ajegbo, said the national intelligence agency, the police and the state security service had all confirmed they had nothing on Enwerem.
The other two bodies were the committees on ethics, judiciary and legal matters, and national security and intelligence.
Posts for two former state officials
Former Nigerian foreign minister Joe Garba was on Wednesday appointed the new director-general of the country's National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), AFP quoted state officials as saying.
Garba was foreign minister from 1975 to 1978 and Nigeria's permanent representative at the United Nations from 1984 to 1989. AFP quoted the office of Vice President Atiku Abubakar as saying that he would take up the post on 1 December.
Meanwhile, the former spokesman of Vice President Abubakar was on Wednesday appointed managing director of the state-owned 'Daily Times' newspaper, AFP reported.
Abidjan, 12 August 1999, 18:38 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1413
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information or free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or fax: +254 2 622129 or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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