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IRIN-HOA Weekly 223 for 11-17 December 2004

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN appeals for peaceful resolution of border dispute
ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Asmara tells Addis to comply with border ruling
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: German president makes a plea for peace
DJIBOUTI: Grappling with the demand for anti-AIDS drugs
ETHIOPIA-DJIBOUTI: Power link to boost electricity supply
ETHIOPIA: Plan launched to help orphans
SOMALIA: President reappoints interim prime minister
SOMALIA: IDPs, returnees desperate for assistance in Somaliland - UN
SUDAN: Clashes force suspension of South Darfur relief operations
SUDAN: Southern agreement key to Darfur peace - UN
SUDAN: Darfur rebels withdraw from peace talks citing government attacks
SUDAN: UN condemns killing of relief workers in Darfur

ALSO SEE:
SOMALIA: Q/A with WFP's regional director for East/Central Africa
Full report

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN appeals for peaceful resolution of border dispute

The UN has called on Ethiopia and Eritrea to stop an ongoing war of words over their border dispute that sparked fighting four years ago, and instead concentrate on the search for peace.
"I have personally pleaded with the two sides to lower the temperature, to make sure that we concentrate on the search for a peaceful end to this conflict," Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, head of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), told a news conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi warned Eritrea earlier this week that attempts to turn tough words into military action would "endanger the peace of the region". His comments followed demands by Eritrea that Ethiopia withdraws from territory along the 1,000-km border, which it says Addis Ababa had illegally occupied.

Full report

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ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Asmara tells Addis to comply with border ruling

Eritrea has called on Ethiopia to abide by the ruling of an independent commission that delineated their disputed border in 2002 and urged the international community to help secure peace and stability in the Horn of Africa. An Eritrean foreign ministry statement sent to IRIN on Tuesday said the wrangle over the 1,000-km border could be resolved if Addis Ababa withdrew "its forces from sovereign Eritrean territories".

It demanded Ethiopia's "cooperation with the Boundary Commission to ensure expeditious demarcation of the boundary" and called for "full and unconditional respect of the Algiers Agreement". "The government of Eritrea urges the international community to help secure peace and stability in our region by putting pressure on Ethiopia to ensure the long overdue demarcation of the boundary," the statement added.

Full report

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ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: German president makes a plea for peace

German President Horst Kohler made an impassioned plea on Monday for peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea, saying neither of the two countries could afford another war over their unresolved border dispute. "The most important reason why wars should not happen is because wars are against the interests of the people," Kohler, former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said in Addis Ababa on the first day of his four-day visit to Ethiopia. "In Eritrea, as in Ethiopia, there is poverty.

"Both countries - both peoples here in this region can’t think that war is in their interest," Kohler continued. "Therefore, I do think the desire for peace will and should come mainly from the people in the region." Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a two-and-a-half year border war that claimed an estimated 70,000 lives, The war ended in December 2000 with a peace plan that called for the establishment of an internationally recognised border between the two countries.

Full report

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DJIBOUTI: Grappling with the demand for anti-AIDS drugs

At one stage, Roda, a 24-year-old woman living in Djibouti, had tuberculosis, a skin disorder, and was disfigured with disease. In March she began receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) and has started leading a more normal life again. Roda, who declined to give her second name, is among the more fortunate in Africa. According to figures released by the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) in June, just four percent of HIV-positive people on the continent have access to antiretrovirals (ARVs), the drugs that inhibit HIV.

"Despite the subsequent successes of one-after-another, small-scale pilot projects, few countries have managed to deliver HIV treatment to all, or even the majority, of those in need," the WHO report said. In July the government of Djibouti - a small country in the Horn of Africa - announced that, with support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, funding was available to provide ARVs for those in need until 2007.

Full report

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ETHIOPIA-DJIBOUTI: Power link to boost electricity supply

Ethiopia and Djibouti are to link up their power generation in a bid to boost electricity access in both countries using loans worth US $32 million and $27 million respectively, the African Development Fund (ADF) said on Monday. "The common sector goal is to improve the population's access to electricity in Ethiopia and Djibouti through regional cooperation in the energy sector," the fund said.

Only 13 percent of the population in Ethiopia has access to electricity but that would rise to 20 percent by 2012. In Djibouti 49 percent of people have access to electricity, which would increase to 60 percent by 2015. The project includes development of power transmission network, electricity supply to border towns, project supervision and management and institutional support.

Full report

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ETHIOPIA: Plan launched to help orphans

One Ethiopian child out of 10 is an orphan, a report by the UN, the government and the NGO, Save the Children, said. The HIV/AIDS pandemic, appalling poverty and dire health conditions had left 4.6 million youngsters without parents, it added. "Ethiopia is facing a crisis of orphans," Bjorn Ljungqvist, head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Ethiopia, said at the launch of a national action plan to help children who have been orphaned and better protect them from HIV/AIDS.

Hassen Abdella, minister of Labour and Social Affairs, said the scale of the orphan crisis was "tearing at the very fabric of childhood" in Ethiopia. According to government statistics, 315 people die each day from AIDS-related illnesses. Some 1.5 million people are living with the virus. Save the Children estimates one in 14 women in Ethiopia will die during birth compared to developed countries where one in 2,800 women die during birth.

Full report

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SOMALIA: President reappoints interim prime minister

The interim Somali president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, reappointed Ali Muhammad Gedi as prime minister on Monday, two days after parliament had deemed Gedi's initial appointment unconstitutional and passed a vote of no confidence in the government, an official said.
The transitional parliament, which sits in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, had said on Saturday that Yusuf had not sought its approval for Gedi's appointment and therefore his government was not properly constituted. It also said Gedi had ignored clan quotas when appointing ministers and that his cabinet of nearly 80 was too large.

"The president reappointed Gedi on Monday evening in the presence of representatives from the international community," Hussein Jabiri, communication director in the office of the prime minister, told IRIN. One of the sponsors of the motion of no confidence, Ali Dasha, told IRIN that Gedi's new cabinet must be "viable, small in number and highly qualified".

Full report

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SOMALIA: IDPs, returnees desperate for assistance in Somaliland - UN

A senior UN official called on Friday for more international and local assistance for thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and returnees in the self-declared autonomous republic of Somaliland. “These IDPs and returnees are among the poorest of the poor,” Dennis McNamara, head of the UN Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division, said during a visit to returnee camps in Burao, 340 km east of the Somaliland capital, Hargeysa. “They desperately need assistance.”

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Norwegian Refugee Council, returnees, IDPs and refugees constitute about a fifth of the population of Somaliland’s major towns - Hargeysa, Burao, Berbera and Borama. In Hargeysa alone, Gashan, a local NGO that trains displaced persons in income-generating skills, estimated that 7,200 displaced families lived within the municipality.

Full report

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SUDAN: Clashes force suspension of South Darfur relief operations

The UN has suspended its relief operations in parts of the Sudanese state of South Darfur due to fighting between government and rebel forces, and a reported build-up of armed groups in the area, a spokesperson said. Radia Achouri, spokesperson for the UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS), told IRIN on Thursday that fighting between government troops and the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) had continued in areas east and southeast of Nyala town.

"The security situation is particularly tense around the town of Muhujariya and two international NGOs have relocated staff from Muhujariya to Sheriya as a result," Achouri said. Fighting, UNAMIS reported, had also occurred in the South Darfur villages of Bashom, Eida, Ishma, Um Zehefa, Reil and surrounding areas on Monday and Tuesday. The clashes intensified days after two relief workers employed by the NGO, Save the Children (SC-UK), were killed.

Full report

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SUDAN: Southern agreement key to Darfur peace - UN

The settlement of the long-running conflict in southern Sudan between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), is key to solving the humanitarian crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, a UN envoy said. Jan Pronk, the Secretary-General's representative in Sudan, told a news conference in New York on Tuesday that a peace accord in the south would lead to a new constitution and a new government which would be sympathetic to the situation in Darfur and more open to negotiation.

With a 31 December deadline for concluding a peace agreement between the government and the SPLM/A fast approaching, Pronk urged the major global players - including the five permanent members of the Security Council - to present a unified position. "If the Sudanese government and the rebels were faced with a unified front, with the powerful nations in the world saying that they would not tolerate non-compliance with the Council's resolution, the parties would have no choice but to come up with a negotiated political solution," Pronk was quoted by UN News service as saying.

Full report

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SUDAN: Darfur rebels withdraw from peace talks citing government attacks

Peace talks to end the Darfur conflict were stalled on Tuesday after rebel groups withdrew in protest at ceasefire violations by the government in Khartoum. The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) walked out of talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, late Monday -- the first day of face-to-face negotiations.

"We’re suspending the talks until the situation on the ground improves and there is a clear commitment that the Sudanese government will stop the offensive,” SLM/A spokesman Bahar Ibrahim told IRIN on Tuesday. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said it was suspending participation because of ceasefire violations but also because it wants Khartoum to release those of its members being held in prison. “If these two conditions are met, we will go back to the talks,” JEM spokesman Ahmed Tugod Lissan said.

Full report

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SUDAN: UN condemns killing of relief workers in Darfur

The UN has strongly condemned the murder of two relief workers in the western Sudanese region of Darfur and called on the Khartoum government, rebels and militia to respect the principles of international humanitarian law. "The fact that [relief] workers themselves seem to have become the target of fighting poses severe difficulties for humanitarian access, with grave consequences for assistance in the future," Jan Pronk, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sudan, said in a statement.

The two Sudanese employees of the international relief organisation, Save the Children UK (SC-UK), were killed on Monday in South Darfur state, after coming under fire while travelling in a convoy of three clearly marked humanitarian vehicles on the main road between the localities of Mershing and Duma. "Two other vehicles in the convoy managed to flee the scene unharmed," Radia Achouri, spokeswoman for the United Nations Advance Mission in Sudan, told IRIN on Tuesday.

Full story

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

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