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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
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LIBERIA: Refugees on the move
Between 2,000 and 3,000 Sierra Leonean refugees have moved from Kolahun to Vahun in the troubled northwest Liberian county of Lofa, according to Action contre la Faim (ACF), one of the few NGOs still operating in the area.
Fighting this month between government troops and insurgents caused relief agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to pull out of Lofa. Only ACF and Medical Emergency Relief International (MERLIN) still have programmes running there.
The rebels launched their insurgency in the northwest about two weeks ago and went on to capture five localities which have since been retaken, according to the government. State officials said during the week that mopping up operations were continuing against the rebels.
Over 25,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, according to a report by an assessment mission that visited Zorzor in southeast Lofa on 20 August. The mission included representatives of the Lutheran World Service, International Rescue Committee, Liberian Red Cross, Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission and World Food Programme.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Liberia, Ebou Camara, told IRIN the insecurity in Lofa was a major setback for the UN agency's programmes in aid of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees.
"Everything that we need for the Sierra Leonean refugee care and maintenance programme has been looted," Camara told IRIN in Monrovia on 21 August.
SIERRA LEONE: Rebels attack food trucks
Rebels in Sierra Leone looted four trucks taking essential food to the north and east of the country in two separate attacks on Monday, AFP reported. AFP quoted witnesses as saying the attacks occurred along the eastern and northern highways in areas previously cut off by fighting between Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels and government troops.
UNOMSIL observers increased
The UN Security Council authorised the provisional expansion of the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) from 70 to 210 military observers in a motion adopted on 20 August. It also agreed to beef up UNOMSIL's political, civil affairs, information, human rights and child protection elements.
The Security Council also called for "urgent and substantial" humanitarian help for Sierra Leone, especially parts of the country that relief agencies have been unable to reach. The Council said generous long-term aid was also needed for reconstruction, and economic and social recovery.
The Netherlands' UN representative, Arnold Peter Van Walsum, told the Council that fighters who killed civilians, hacked off limbs, raped or committed other atrocities during the eight-year war should be tried and not given amnesty, which the Lome peace agreement provides for.
"There is no peace without justice," Van Walsum said. He said international tribunals had been set up to remedy the culture of impunity and "Council owed it to the people of Sierra Leone to allow them recourse to the same remedies now open to victims of similar crimes elsewhere".
Argentina's Fernando Enrique Petrella said: "Granting
a wide-ranging general amnesty raised very important
question marks."
NIGERIA: 2,000 troops to be withdrawn from ECOMOG
Information Minister Dapo Sarumi announced on Wednesday
that Nigeria would withdraw 2,000 troops from the West
African Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) serving in
Sierra Leone by the end of August, news reports said.
He said more troops would leave in September. Nigeria
fields an estimated 12,000 of the 15,000-strong ECOMOG
force, Reuters reported.
Police intercept weapons, discover arms factory in Ondo
Police this week seized weapons and ammunition reportedly bound for the southwest Nigerian state of Ondo, scene of recent communal clashes, news organisations reported on Thursday.
The weapons, including automatic rifles, and ammunition
were intercepted in Iguobazuwa in Edo state, east of
Ondo. Twenty-five people were arrested, 'The Guardian'
daily of Lagos reported.
In Ondo, a combined team of police detectives and military
intelligence officials have discovered an illegal arms
factory just two km from the state capital, Akure,
the daily reported Ondo Police Commissioner Chris Nyiam
as saying on Thursday.
A large number of single and double-barrel guns in various stages of completion were recovered at the factory, the paper said.
Ondo was the scene of clashes in September 1998 and again earlier this month between its Ijaw and Ilaje communities.
Additional troops were sent on Wednesday to the state
under a mid-August peace agreement between leaders
of the Ijaw and Ilaje communities that provided for
their deployment and brought some calm to the area.
Church, hotels torched in Katsina
Seven hotels and a church were torched by members of a Shi'ite Muslim sect protesting against the sale of alcohol in Katsina on 20 August, 'The Guardian' reported.
Non-indigenous merchants in the northern town hurriedly shut their shops and fled. Some moved their families to the local military headquarters and others took refuge in police barracks.
The police reinforced security in most of the churches in the town to prevent further attacks. Katsina Governor Umaru Musa Yar'Adua appealed for calm and understanding among the various ethnic groups in the state, urging them to continue to live together in peace and unity.
Government deploys troops to stop Taraba communal clashes
In another troubled state, Taraba, the federal government deployed soldiers in mid-August to help restore peace in Takum town after violent clashes between two ethnic groups, the Jukun and Kutep, over chieftaincy titles and boundary adjustments.
'The Guardian' reported Governor Jolly Nyame as saying that the clashes had been recurring for about 10 years in the town, half of whose residents, he said, had fled.
Six die in student protest
At least six people were killed when police fired on
students demonstrating against the non-payment of teachers'
salaries at a polytechnic in Iree, some 200 km northeast
of Lagos, AFP reported on 21 August.
WEST AFRICA: Sahel states vow to modernise agriculture
Directors general of national agricultural research institutions in nine Sahelian countries have pledged to modernise agriculture over the next three years, AFP reported.
They made the pledge at a meeting on Wednesday in Nouakchott, Mauritania, of member countries of the Comite inter-etats de lutte contre la secheresse au Sahel (CILSS - the Permanent Inter-State Committee Against Drought in the Sahel).
The meeting also adopted a programme for 1999-2001, proposed by the Sahel Institute in Bamako, Mali, that institutionalises meetings of directors general of research bodies and the continued evaluation of agronomical research findings in the Sahel.
CILSS is made up of Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.
UN Security Council: New resolution on child soldiers
The UN Security Council on Wednesday passed a resolution calling on all nations to do more to protect children in war zones.
The resolution recommended the prosecution by governments of people who recruit children to fight, the provision of special protection for children against rape and other abuses and the incorporation of children's welfare into peace negotiations. It also called on the UN Secretary-General to make sure that peacekeeping forces receive special training in child protection.
Olara Otunnu, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, told the council that over the last decade two million children around the world had been killed in wars, one million orphaned, six million seriously injured, and over 10 million left suffering with grave psychological trauma.
The Council was also told that 300,000 children were currently serving as soldiers or guerrilla fighters or in support roles in more than 30 nations, including Sierra Leone, Angola, Liberia, Sudan, Kosovo, Colombia, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
Otunnu said the age limit for children recruited as soldiers should be raised from 15 to 18, a move opposed by the United States, which said it wanted to retain the ability to recruit for the military from high school.
WEST AFRICA: FLOODS
Appeals for help have been sounded following storms, heavier than usual rains and floods that have hit the Sahel in recent weeks, rendering many homeless in The Gambia and Senegal in the west and Chad in the east.
Gambia appeals for help
In Banjul, Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy appealed on Tuesday for assistance from international donors and the local business community. Rain-induced floods displaced up to 10,000 people in the countryside and sources said the country needed help with food, shelter, clothing and medicines.
The worst hit areas are the Central River, Upper River and Western administrative divisions where, humanitarian and media sources said, close to 3,000 homes have been swept away.
Schools and roads have been washed away and some communities have been cut off by flood waters. Parts of the capital, Banjul, and outlying towns were also flooded. "In some homes the water has reached the ceiling," one source in the capital said.
More than 30,000 reported homeless in Senegal
In central Senegal, heavy rains destroyed many houses, mainly mud huts, and killed at least three people, news organisations reported officials as saying on 21 August.
The private newspaper, 'Walfadjiri', reported that around 30,000 people were made homeless in the worst affected region, the area around Kaolack, some 200 km southeast of Dakar. The rains began falling in much of the country around the 13 August, it added.
The heavy rains and floods on land have been accompanied by coastal storms which have killed about 100 Senegalese and Gambian fishermen over the past one-week period, according to news reports.
Flood displaces 300, kills five in Nigeria
Five persons have been confirmed dead while no fewer than 60 houses were submerged after the River Obi overflowed its banks in Benue in Nigeria's middle belt, 'The Guardian' reported on 27 August.
The flood, said to be the area's worst in five years,
swamped farmland close to the river and rendered around
300 persons homeless, according to the paper. It was
caused by a downpour that created multiple flood channels
in the area.
OCHA calls for food for Chad's flood victims
The abnormally wet season, which has also caused floods in Timbuktu in northern Mali, was first reported in Chad.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a `Situation Report' on 23 August, that Chad urgently needed food for at least 128,000 flood victims in 11 of its 14 provinces.
OCHA said Chad needed 450 mt of cereals along with urgent supplies of medicines, tents, blankets and plastic sheets. "In order to allow the affected population to rebuild their homes quickly, hand tools are urgently needed," OCHA added.
Heavy rains in late July caused the rivers Batha and Bahr Azoum to flood, seriously affecting their basins.
In mid-August, Chad's Ministry of Interior noted that 5,200 homes had been destroyed, some 5,000 head of livestock lost and at least 165,000 ha of agricultural land flooded, the report said.
So far, the United States has contributed US $25,000 to the Chad Red Crescent Society. OCHA said it would serve as a channel to receive cash contributions for immediate relief and provide written confirmation of their use.
Funds should be transferred to OCHA Account No. CO-590.160.1 at the UBS AG, PO Box 2770, CH-1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland, with reference: OCHA -Chad - Floods 1999, the UN body said.
BENIN: Government agrees to accommodate ICTR genocide convicts
Benin has become the second country to conclude an agreement with the United Nations to accommodate in its prisons people convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the tribunal reported on Thursday.
The agreement was signed by Benin's foreign minister, Antoine Idji Kolawole, and Agwu Okali, Assistant Secretary-General and Registrar of the ICTR.
According to the Statute of the Tribunal, set up by the United Nations to try people accused of participating in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, sentences handed down by the ICTR "shall be served in Rwanda or any of the States on a list of States which have indicated to the Security Council their willingness to accept convicted persons, as designated by the ICTR."
So far the only other country to have concluded such an agreement with the United Nations is Mali, although other African states and some European countries have indicated their willingness to accommodate ICTR convicts.
GABON: UNHCR responds to influx of Congolese refugees
The UNHCR has sent additional staff to the town of Tchibanga, some 400 km south of the Gabonese capital, Libreville, in response to an influx of refugees from Congo-Brazzaville, according to Kris Janowski, UNHCR spokesperson in Geneva.
UNHCR will also open a second field office in the eastern town of Franceville to cater for the thousands of people who have fled fighting in the neighbouring country.
Janowski said on Tuesday that although the number of refugees had not increased "significantly" since the first groups crossed into Gabon in early July, there were now reports of tens of thousands of Congolese in dense forest close to the border, waiting for the fighting to end.
Some 10,000 refugees have already reached Gabon.
CAMEROON: Trial of alleged secessionists adjourned
The trial in Yaounde of English-speaking Cameroonians suspected of taking part in a secessionist rebellion has been adjourned to 28 September, media sources told IRIN on Monday.
The sources said most of the 57 accused have denied the charges against them, which include arson, illegal possession of arms, and murder. AFP reported that 18 of them denied taking part in armed attacks on 27-28 March 1997 in North-West Province, in the English-speaking part of the country.
The defendants are being tried by a military tribunal. However, their lawyer, Joseph Mbanda, said the cases were outside that tribunal's jurisdiction because his clients are accused of political offences. "It's a kangaroo court," he said.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Preparing for elections
Voter registration for November's presidential elections was launched on Sunday in Guinea-Bissau's capital, according to sources there.
Elsewhere in the country, election officials were undergoing three-day training programmes after which they were expected to register voters over a two-week period, a humanitarian source in Bissau told IRIN. Political parties have until 29 September to field candidates for the presidential race, the source said.
The elections are to be held on 28 November, according to an agreement signed late last year between then president Joao Bernardo Vieira and a Military Junta which mutinied against him in June 1998 and eventually overthrew him in May 1999.
Police confirm former minister was murdered
Preparations for the elections were clouded by the death on 22 August of former minister Nicandro Barreto. A Portuguese radio station quoted police as confirming that he had been murdered. Barreto was a former home affairs minister, attorney-general and justice minister under Vieira.
TOGO: UN Subcommission calls for respect for human rights
The UN Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights called on the Togolese government on 20 August to try to ensure that all human rights are respected and protected in Togo.
It also endorsed a proposal from Togo's government requesting the secretaries-general of the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity to create a commission of inquiry to help it comply with international human rights standards.
In May, Amnesty International had claimed in a report that hundreds of opposition activists had been killed in Togo after controversial presidential elections in mid-1998.
NIGER: Fraud commission recovers US $3.2 million
Niger's commission on economic crime has recovered US $3.2 million of public funds stolen by public officials, AFP said quoting the body's chairman, Colonel Lawel Kore. He said on 21 August that 800 people would appear before the commission.
In June, at least two former ministers who had served under the late Ibrahim Bare Mainassara - killed in a coup in April this year - were jailed for economic crimes.
Abidjan, 27 August 1999; 18:19 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1503
[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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