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HORN OF AFRICA: IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 233 for 26 February-4 March 2005 - OCHA IRIN

Sunday 20 March 2005


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IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 233 for 26 February-4 March 2005

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

CONTENTS:

DJIBOUTI: Poor rains threaten livelihoods in pastoral zones
ERITREA: Fears of widespread malnutrition as food shortages worsen
ETHIOPIA: Meles reaffirms readiness to send peacekeepers to Somalia
ETHIOPIA: Internet coffee sales expected to boost economy
ETHIOPIA: Two new polio cases reported
SOMALIA: Tsunami may have spread previously dumped hazardous wastes
SOMALIA: Somaliland bans use of plastic bags
SUDAN: IDPs report continuing killings by gunmen in Darfur
SUDAN: Government to withdraw troops from Darfur - Taha

DJIBOUTI: Poor rains threaten livelihoods in pastoral zones

Inadequate rainfall during the past two seasons has resulted in a serious food security situation in Djibouti’s pastoral zones, the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net) reported on Monday. In its February update on Djibouti, the USAID-funded famine alert agency said that a drastic decline in income and food sources, coupled with high staple food prices, had resulted in significant food deficits in the Southeast Pastoral and Northwest Pastoral Zones of the country.

The prevailing unfavourable food situation had led to massive migrations of people and livestock to coastal areas, where the carrying capacity of the ecosystem was low and limited. FEWS Net said pasture would be unable to support the increased number of livestock herds present in the traditional Heys/Dada grazing area. Migrations of Ethiopian and Somali pastoralists were also reportedly creating even more competition for scarce pastures, according to the FEWS Net report.

Food security was likely to deteriorate further and a crisis was imminent unless the Diraa/Sougoum rains came on time (March/April), it added.

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ERITREA: Fears of widespread malnutrition as food shortages worsen

Eritrea is in desperate need of assistance to pre-empt widespread malnutrition resulting from worsening food shortages as the country experiences a fourth consecutive drought cycle over the coming months, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said.

"We have met with donors and pleaded with them to come forward immediately or else the country will face a terrible food crisis later this year," Christian Balslev Olesen, UNICEF country representative for Eritrea, told IRIN on Wednesday.

"It is cheaper to give the support now to avoid starvation, rather than later, when an enormous amount of people are moving to hospitals for treatment for malnutrition," he added. "Then it will be much more expensive."

According to UNICEF, all six regions of Eritrea had malnutrition rates higher than 10 percent, and in three of them, the rates were above 15 percent. Olesen was particularly concerned about the alarmingly high levels of maternal malnutrition in the country. "We are specifically concerned about vulnerable groups, such as women and children," he said. "About 40 percent of lactating and pregnant women are malnourished, which is one of the highest global indicators."

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ETHIOPIA: Meles reaffirms readiness to send peacekeepers to Somalia

Ethiopia stands ready to send peacekeepers to war-ravaged Somalia, despite opposition from some Somali faction leaders, among others, to the potential move, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Wednesday. "The bottom line is our offer is still on the table, but we are not going to impose ourselves on Somalia," Meles told a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the capital, Addis Ababa. "It is up to the Somali government and the Somali people." Meles blamed "internal Somali politics" for the opposition in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, to the offer of Ethiopian peacekeepers.

"We have offered to send troops and cover the costs ourselves, until such time as the African Union or the United Nations can take over," he said. "Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Djibouti have also made the same offer. That offer is still on the table. It is up to the Somalis to take it or leave it." He added: "If they do not want Ethiopian peacekeeping troops in Somalia, then we have no problem with it because we will have saved some money. If they want to have our troops there, we have no problem with that because peace is of direct interest to us and whatever you do in that regard is worthwhile."

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ETHIOPIA: Internet coffee sales expected to boost economy

Ethiopia has turned to the Internet to help sell its finest beans, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday. In the first move of its kind in the country, the ministry is to start auctioning nine of its best quality coffee brands to help boost sales and reach a wider clientele, officials added. "This is the first time we have ever tried something like this," Abraham Begashawe, manager at the Coffee and Tea Quality Control Centre, told IRIN. "We are hoping the auction will attract a wider audience and also increase sales overall."

Ethiopia produces around 200,000 mt of coffee a year. It expects to sell around 30,000 kg in the auction, appealing mainly to small, specialised roasting companies in the US, Japan and Europe. Some nine different types of coffee have been selected for the auction from 196 different bean types. According to the government, coffee contributes 60 percent of Ethiopia's foreign earnings and supports 25 percent of its 70 million people. In recent years, however, the price has slumped, hitting export earnings, which dropped from 70 to 35 percent in five years. Ethiopia's finance ministry estimates the collapse in coffee prices has cost the country some US $830 million in lost export earnings over that same period.

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ETHIOPIA: Two new polio cases reported

Two children have contracted polio in Ethiopia, the first time the virus has been reported in the country in four years, a ministry of health official said on Monday. Almaz Gebre Senbet, a polio expert, said that a boy and a girl living close to the Sudanese border had contracted the crippling virus. The new outbreak occurred as the UN launched a mass polio immunisation campaign that began on Friday across Africa, targeting 100 million children. To be certified polio free, Ethiopia must have no cases of the virus for three years. A target date of 2005 has been set for the global eradication of the disease.

“It is extremely unfortunate because we were just on the verge of being declared polio free,” Bjorn Ljungqvist, the head of the UN Children’s Fund told IRIN. “This has put us back several years and now means we have to start full-scale immunisations again.” The new cases are another sign that the epidemic is spreading across Africa. Ethiopia is the 14th African country, previously polio free, to record new cases. It is believed the new epidemic originated in northern Nigeria 18 months ago. Ethiopia had itself launched a massive vaccination campaign along its border region with Sudan late last year, fearing it would spread across the frontier.

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SOMALIA: Tsunami may have spread previously dumped hazardous wastes

The Indian Ocean tsunami that hit the Somali coast in December may have spread hazardous wastes dumped there earlier, exposing residents to possible health problems, the UN environment agency, UNEP, said on Thursday. Nick Nuttall, UNEP head of media services, told IRIN that preliminary reports had shown that waste containers on the Somali coast may have been damaged by the tsunami and toxic chemicals blown around by the wind. "Our experts believe that a wide range of wastes had been dumped there," Nuttall said. "Radioactive wastes, hospital wastes, heavy metals like lead and Cadmium, chemical wastes and leather treatment wastes."

The issue of hazardous waste in Somalia dates back to the early 1990s, when foreign companies - taking advantage of the lack of government - dumped unknown quantities of waste. "There have been reports from time to time of dumping," Nuttall added. "It costs [US] $2.50 a tonne to get rid of waste in Africa, whereas to dispose of the same waste in Europe costs more like $250 a tonne." Nuttall said that it was not clear where the waste originated. "All we know of country of origin is that they are likely to have been European countries," he said.

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SOMALIA: Somaliland bans use of plastic bags

Authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland on Monday banned the use of all types of plastic bags, information minister, Abdillahi Duale, told IRIN. "The bags have not only become an environmental problem, but also an eyesore," he said on Tuesday from the Somaliland capital, Hargeysa. The Somaliland cabinet, he added, made the decision to ban the bags, which had been nicknamed "the Hargeysa flower", following an assessment of the damage they caused to the environment. The ban marked the end of a 120-day grace period that the government had given to the public to get rid of their stocks.

The bags were mostly used to carry groceries and other goods. They were often discarded and litter most streets and landscapes across Somaliland. Many of them ended up being blown around and deposited on trees or shrubs, posing a danger to livestock because the animals that feed on the leaves in the shrubs often ingest the bags accidentally. The Ministry of Trade and Industries announced the decision in a decree titled: "Banning importation, production and use of plastic bags in the country".

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SUDAN: IDPs report continuing killings by gunmen in Darfur

At least 16 people have been killed by unidentified gunmen in South Darfur state amidst reports of continuing violence in western Sudan, UN officials told IRIN in the capital, Khartoum. "A number of IDPs [internally displaced persons] reported that in an attack in Thur, 20 km north of the town of Kas in South Darfur, approximately 16 people were killed on 23 February," Leon Willems, spokesperson for the UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS), said on Wednesday. Those killed, Willems added, were apparently attacked while on their way to tend to their land in nearby place called Salakoyo.

"The AU is aware of these reports and investigations are ongoing," Nourreddine Mezni, a spokesperson for the African Union (AU) in Khartoum, told IRIN. Reports of more armed clashes and other ceasefire violations in Darfur had continued to be received even as the AU was attempting to bring the warring parties back to the negotiation table, the officials said. During the weekend of 26 and 27 February, a number of incidents were reported, including an attack by tribal militias on a village called Aduana, in South Darfur. The monitoring team of the AU, which investigated the report, established that two villagers were killed and two others injured. The attackers fled after looting livestock.

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SUDAN: Government to withdraw troops from Darfur - Taha

Sudanese vice president, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, reaffirmed Khartoum's commitment on Friday to the withdrawal of government forces from the troubled western region of Darfur. Speaking in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Taha said his government had already started to pull back its forces as part of an African Union-backed ceasefire agreement, whereby Khartoum agreed to withdraw troops to lines occupied before it launched a major offensive on 8 December.

"We have started," the vice president told journalists after two hours of talks with AU commission chairman, Alpha Oumar Konare. The move paves the way for the resumption of peace talks between the government and rebels, according to the AU.

"The withdrawal will help facilitate the peace talks to resume," the AU spokesman, Assane Ba, told IRIN. Taha said a date for the talks between rebels and the government would be announced after the Cairo mini-summit on 5 March. The talks are aimed at ending a conflict that started in February 2003, when rebels began attacking government targets, claiming that the region was being neglected by Khartoum.

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[ENDS]

Other recent HORN OF AFRICA reports:

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 234 for 12-18 March 2005, 18/Mar/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 233 for 5-11 March 2005, 11/Mar/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 232 for 19-25 February 2005, 25/Feb/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 231 for 12-18 February 2005, 18/Feb/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 230 for 5-11 February 2005, 11/Feb/05

Other recent reports:

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 222 for 12-18 March 2005, 19/Mar/05

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 18/Mar/05

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly 268 round-up for 12-18 March 2005, 18/Mar/05

HORN OF AFRICA: IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 234 for 12-18 March 2005, 18/Mar/05

ANGOLA: Report highlights plight of returnees, 17/Mar/05

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