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HORN OF AFRICA: IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 233 for 5-11 March 2005 - OCHA IRIN

Thursday 17 March 2005


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IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 233 for 5-11 March 2005

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

CONTENTS:

ERITREA: Malaria cases drop as households increase use of bednets
ERITREA: ACT appeals for $2 m to alleviate hunger and drought
ETHIOPIA: Government rejects US criticism on human rights
ETHIOPIA: Ban on media association lifted
SOMALIA: IGAD meeting asks for more details on proposed peace mission
SOMALIA: President and prime minister return to Nairobi
SOMALIA: Tsunami-affected fishing communities to continue receiving aid
SUDAN: Billions needed for initial recovery and development
SUDAN: No let up in sexual violence in Darfur - MSF
SUDAN: Funding shortfall may affect peace efforts, UN official warns

ALSO SEE:

SUDAN: Coping with disease and drought in Upper Nile
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SUDAN: Awaiting peace in the southern region
Full report

ERITREA: Malaria cases drop as households increase use of bednets

The number of reported malaria cases in Eritrea has fallen by 85 percent over the past five years due to the increased use of free bednets provided by the government, an official told IRIN.

Tewolde Ghebremeskel, head of Eritrea's National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), said on Thursday the reported cases of malaria at Eritrean health facilities had fallen from almost 180,000 in 1999, to 28,000 in 2004.

"In Eritrea, there are around 2.2 million people who live in the malaria-prone areas," said Ghebremeskel. He added that reported fatalities had also fallen from 176 in 1999 to 16 in 2004. "We have distributed more than one million treated bednets in the last four years," he said.

Full report

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ERITREA: ACT appeals for $2 m to alleviate hunger and drought

Action by Churches Together (ACT) appealed on Tuesday for more than US $2.2 million to fund projects aimed at alleviating food and water shortages in Eritrea, caused by four years of drought. According to an ACT press release, the Lutheran World Federation, an ACT member, intends to undertake various projects in four regions: Maekel, Anseba, Debub and Gash Barka. The statement said these projects would supply inhabitants with food, water and shelter, and restock their livestock.

Scarce rainfall had resulted in another poor harvest, thus food reserves had been depleted and the coping mechanisms of the population stretched to the limit, it added. Livestock had migrated to find more fertile grazing. Another affiliated body, the Norwegian Church AID (NCA-Eritrea), would provide targeted communities in the Zoba Senafe and Zoba Debub sub-regions with much-needed drinking water, said ACT. NCA-Eritrea would also address the problem of HIV/AIDS in those areas, which are located in the temporary security zone and host many displaced people.

Full report

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ETHIOPIA: Government rejects US criticism on human rights

The Ethiopian government reacted strongly on Friday to criticism of its human-rights record by the United States. A statement released by the foreign affairs ministry said the US condemnation of human rights in Ethiopia was "baseless and frivolous". The criticism came in the US State Department's annual human-rights report, released on Monday, detailing abuses in countries throughout the world in 2004.

"Security forces committed a number of unlawful killings - including alleged political killings - and beat, tortured, and mistreated detainees," it said. It added that the government had infringed privacy rights, restricted the press, "tightly controlled" news broadcasts and imprisoned thousands without charge. The government dismissed the report, saying it was based on "lies". "The report cannot, in any way, be taken as serious," the ministry stated. "It is essentially based on rumours, lies and innuendoes known to be peddled by those foreign-financed groups in Ethiopia who have an axe to grind against the government."

Full report

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ETHIOPIA: Ban on media association lifted

A 17-month ban imposed on Ethiopia's only independent journalists' association has been lifted by the federal high court, the president of the association told IRIN on Friday. "This is a new chapter for Ethiopian journalists, and this brings us to the forefront of the fight for freedom of expression in this country," Kifle Mulat, head of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association (EFPJA), said. "This is an important event in the country." Set up in 1993, the EFPJA was only granted its government licence three years ago. It aims to defend the rights of the independent press in Ethiopia.

In November 2003, it was ordered by the Ministry of Justice to suspend activities amid allegations that it was breaching Ethiopian law. The decision to suspend the organisation drew widespread criticism. The International Federation of Journalists, with 500,000 members in more than 100 countries, urged the government to reassess the move and expressed concern that it was trying to silence the EFPJA. The government initially said the association was banned because it had failed to meet its legal obligations regarding registration with the ministry. It said the EFPJA had been operating illegally after failing to renew its annual operating licence for the last three years.

Full report

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SOMALIA: IGAD meeting asks for more details on proposed peace mission

Senior defence officials from the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on Tuesday asked the African Union (AU) for further details about the proposed peace mission to Somalia.
"We need guidance from members of the AU [African Union] Commission to throw more light on what was discussed and agreed on in Abuja as far as the peace mission for Somalia is concerned," Aronda Nyakairima, Uganda's army commander, said at the official opening of the conference of IGAD defence experts.

"There are some issues which are not very clear to us and they include the following: troops contributing countries, mandate of the mission, size of the mission [and] its funding and logistics," he added. In February, the AU authorized IGAD - which comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda - to prepare to send a peace mission to Somalia. Its purpose would be to help the country's transitional federal government (TFG) get a foothold there when it relocates from Nairobi, Kenya.

Full report

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SOMALIA: President and prime minister return to Nairobi

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi returned to Nairobi on Friday, after a nine-day tour of various regions of Somalia, a senior official in Gedi's office told IRIN. The visit was part of the new government's relocation process. Yusuf and Gedi began their "meet-the-people tour" on 24 February and visited the towns of Jowhar, Beletweyn, Garowe, Bosasso, Galkayo and Baidao. The delegation, however, did not visit the capital, Mogadishu.

"The trip was very successful and the delegation was warmly welcomed by enthusiastic crowds wherever they went," Abdurrahman Ali "Malaysia", the special adviser to Gedi, told IRIN. It underscored the need for the government to relocate to Somalia "and the government intends to do that soon," Ali said. He also said no final decision had been made on where the government would be based, but added that "Mogadishu remains the capital of Somalia". However, if security in Mogadishu remained problematic, "there may be a need for an alterative temporary seat of government".

Full report

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SOMALIA: Tsunami-affected fishing communities to continue receiving aid

Somali coastal communities that lost their livelihoods in December's tsunami will continue to receive aid from the World Food Programme (WFP) until the next fishing season starts in October, the WFP country director, Robert Hauser, has said.
"The assistance that we have provided so far is purely survival assistance for the population because they have lost their livelihoods, their means of income and they have lost their fishing gear," Hauser told IRIN in an interview on 3 March. He expressed hope that other agencies, donors and the international community in general would rebuild infrastructure and help those affected by the tsunami to acquire new fishing gear so that they could become self-reliant again.

WFP, he added, had enough funds to sustain the tsunami relief effort, and donors were continuing to respond to the appeal for money to run other longer-term operations throughout the rest of Somalia. "The good thing for Somalia is also that despite the tsunami, the funding for the normal programme has also not suffered," said Hauser.

Full report

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SUDAN: Billions needed for initial recovery and development

Some US $7.8 billion is required to fund an initial post-war recovery and development plan for Sudan, an assessment report prepared by the government, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the World Bank and the UN said. The emergency reconstruction report, entitled: "Framework for Sustained Peace, Development and Poverty Eradication in Sudan", was officially launched at a news conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday. A statement released ahead of the launch said Sudanese government and SPLM/A teams had reached a consensus on major development challenges facing their country following 21 years of civil war in the south.

The war, which pitted the government against the SPLM/A, officially ended with the signing of a peace agreement between the two sides in Nairobi on 9 January. "The process started a year ago when the peace was not yet signed, but today the report has been endorsed and we are working as a team," Yahia Hossein Babiker, the chairman of the Joint Assessment Mission (JAM), whose membership includes the government, UN agencies, the SPLM/A and the World Bank, told reporters during the launch of the report.

Full report

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SUDAN: No let up in sexual violence in Darfur - MSF

The incidence of rape and sexual violence against women and girls, often perpetrated by armed men, continues to be high in the war-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur, according to the medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF). In a report released on Monday, the eve of International Women's Day, MSF reported that between October 2004 and mid-February 2005, doctors in several locations in North and South Darfur had treated almost 500 women and girls who had been raped.

"These women come to us for treatment of sexually-transmitted diseases, physical injuries and psychological trauma," Paul Foreman, MSF's head of mission in Khartoum, told IRIN on Tuesday. "The problem is massive." The report, entitled "The Crushing Burden of Rape: Sexual Violence in Darfur", said "MSF believes that these numbers reflect only a fraction of the total number of victims because many women are reluctant to report the crime or seek treatment." It called on local government and other health-care providers in Darfur to ensure full and appropriate treatment for victims of sexual violence.

Full report

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SUDAN: Funding shortfall may affect peace efforts in the south, UN official warns

Inadequate funding could undermine efforts to consolidate peace in southern Sudan following the signing in January of an accord that ended more than two decades of civil war there, a top UN official warned on Friday. "I was shocked to find that the south has only received 5 percent of what it needs to implement the [2005] Work Plan for Sudan," Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told staff of UN agencies and NGOs in the southern town of Rumbek.

"There is a disturbing discrepancy between what the world promised it would do once a peace agreement was signed, and what it has delivered," Egeland, who was on a three-day visit to Sudan, added. "Of the [US] $500 million that has been requested for recovery and development assistance in the south in 2005, only $25 million has been received and a further $25 million has been promised," Dawn Elizabeth Blalock, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, told IRIN on Monday.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Other recent HORN OF AFRICA reports:

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

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 229 for 29 January- 4 February 2005, 4/Feb/05

Other recent reports:

SWAZILAND: Govt embarks on anti-corruption drive, 16/Mar/05

NAMIBIA: Recount confirms ruling party victory, 16/Mar/05

ZIMBABWE: Govt begins investigating NGOs over funding, 16/Mar/05

MOZAMBIQUE: Maputo - overcrowded, underfunded, 14/Mar/05

SOUTH AFRICA: Johannesburg - a city of risk and opportunity, 14/Mar/05

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