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IRIN-WA Update 528 of events in West Africa (Friday 13 August)
LIBERIA: government denies ex-fighters joining up
Liberia's deputy information minister has denied news reports that former combatants have been signing up for active duty in the capital to help the government fight rebels who invaded north-western Liberia earlier this week.
"It is incorrect to say ex-fighters are being recruited, the standard army can deal with the situation," Milton Teahjay told IRIN on Friday.
Humanitarian sources in Monrovia told IRIN on Friday
that former combatants were being recruited but that
they had no idea how many.
The government launched a counter-offensive on Thursday
and according to Teahjay, "the dissidents are
retreating and at least two towns have been retaken."
He was not able to give any details of casualties or
fatalities adding that the government still did not
know the identity of the rebels.
However the state of emergency, declared by President Charles Taylor on Wednesday, was still in effect and was helping the security forces bring the situation under control, Teahjay said.
On 11 August the government announced that armed men from neighbouring Guinea had infiltrated towns and villages in Lofa County. President Charles Taylor has repeatedly complained of the existence of training camps in Guinea for Liberian dissidents.
Liberia's Defence Minister said on Friday that there were an estimated 500 to 800 dissidents, but the rebels claimed that they numbered about 3000.
A rebel spokeman who gave his name as 'Mosquito Spray' confirmed to the BBC on Friday that dissidents were holding some 100 persons - around 50 aid workers and their families - whom they intercepted as they were trying to cross over into Guinea. 'Mosquito Spray' said they were being held in "protective custody'.
Their abduction had been reported in an update on the situation in north-western Liberia that had been sent to IRIN on Friday by UNHCR in Abidjan.
Responsibility for the abduction was claimed by a group called the Joint Forces of Liberation for Liberia (JFFL), which demanded assistance, such as fuel, in exchange for the freedom of the 100 captives, the update said.
Five UNHCR vehicles have also commandeered by unidentified men since the upheavals began.
MERLIN reports hostages heading towards border
Other aid workers kidnapped on Wednesday were also being moved towards the border with Guinea, a spokeswoman for Medical Emergency Relief International (MERLIN) in London told IRIN on Friday. These abductees are three Liberians, four British, one Norwegian and one Italian.
Britain sends team to aid release
The British Foreign Office Minister announced on Thursday that a small team led by Warren Haydon-Gash, Ambassador to Cote d'Ivoire, would travel from Abidjan to Monrovia "to maintain direct contact with the Liberian government and to offer any advice and assistance they need, as in similar situations."
UNHCR reports no general population movement
Meanwhile, there have been no reports of any refugees from Liberia crossing into Guinea along the Gueckedou/Macenta part of the border, according to UNHCR.
"There are no reports of general population movements in the area and I believe the refugees have remained in the camps," Marcellin Hepie, UNHCR Senior Programme Officer in West Africa, told IRIN.
Amnesty calls for respect for human rights
Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday called on Liberia's security forces to respect human rights in restoring law and order in Lofa County.
"Civilians, irrespective of their ethnic origin
or perceived stance towards the Liberian government,
must be protected from unlawful killings, torture and
ill treatment or detention without charge or trial
by the security forces," AI said.
Meanwhile the Centre for Law and Human Rights Education
wants the government to investigate alleged security
harassment of Sierra Leonean refugees in Lofa County,
Star Radio reported on Tuesday.
[See also separate item, titled 'Rebels capture NGO and agency staff' and Item: irin-english-1421, titled 'Government denies ex-fighters joining up']
CHAD: Floods render thousands homeless
Floods caused by heavy rains have destroyed an estimated 5,226 houses, rendering thousands of people homeless in 11 of Chad's 14 regions since the beginning of August, Information Minister Moussa Dago told IRIN on Friday.
"Globally we have about 30,000 persons who have been (directly) affected by the floods," he said. "Most of these have lost their homes while some have contracted malaria," added Dago, who led an assessment team that included representatives of UN agencies to the central region of Batha on 7 August.
Batha is the worst hit region and Chad's government has set aside 30 million CFA francs (about US$50,000) for emergency assistance to people there, Dago said. He added that the government planned to send a delegation on Saturday to the regional capital, Ati - about 600 km east of Ndjamena - to distribute food, mosquito nets and mats and other emergency supplies.
Dago said Chad hoped to receive assistance from the international community to cater for all the affected regions. The country's foreign minister launched an appeal for help at a meeting he had on Thursday with ambassadors and representatives of UN and other international organisations, he said.
This month's rains have been extremely heavy in much of Chad. Batha for example, usually gets about 40 mm on a good day in the rainy season but, according to Dago, it received about 150 mm on 3 to 4 August, causing the River Batha to overflow.
"The river has not reached that level in about 30 years," he said.
CAMEROON: Start cleaning up killer lake, government urged
A team of experts has called on Cameroon's government to start cleaning up Lake Nyos, which killed 1746 people within a radius of 20 kms when it belched out millions of cubic metres of carbon dioxide in 1986.
The three Cameroonian scientists said the elimination of poisonous gas from Nyos and another volcanic lake, Lake Monoum, should begin without delay, according to a communique containing their recommendations that the government published this week.
The government had sent the mission - a chemical engineer and two geophysicists - to Lake Nyos, some 600 km west of Yaounde, following an explosion heard there on 2 August.
The scientists found that "an enormous amount of carbon gas continues to accumulate in the depths of the lake and is growing at an alarming speed, which means there could be serious underwater eruptions at any moment".
The gas can be eliminated by sending pipes deep into the lake, where the gas collects, so as to allow it to escape. Limited tests using this process reportedly succeeded in 1995.
The experts also recommended a number of preliminary steps, which include creating an inter-ministerial steering committee for the de-gassing project and rehabilitating the roads to Lakes Nyos and Monoum.
WEST AFRICA: Making use of a resource that goes up in smoke
A pipeline that would feed Nigerian natural gas to three other West African countries is to be laid down within three years, according to a memorandum of understanding signed on Wednesday.
The agreement, signed in Cotonou by oil transnationals Chevron and Shell with representatives of the governments of Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana, envisages that the pipeline will be ready by 2002 to deliver gas to power stations and industries in the recipient countries.
"Chevron is proposing the construction of the US$ 400-million, 1,000-kilometre offshore pipeline to bring a massive supply of natural gas from reserves in Nigeria," Chevron, which will manage the project, said in a statement.
The immediate environmental benefits of the project would include reducing the amount of gas released during petroleum mining that is flared in Nigeria, the world's sixth biggest oil producer and Africa's largest.
Environmentalists have identified flares from Nigeria's
oil fields, where over 75 percent of natural gas occurring
with oil is burned off, as one of the world's major
sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
[See Item: irin-english-1419, titled 'IRIN Special Report
on gas pipeline']
Abidjan, 13 August 1999; 18:35 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1422
[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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