"); NewWindow.document.close(); return false; } // end hiding from old browsers -->

Thursday 25 August 2005


Search

Regions

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 275 for 16-22 April 2005

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

CONTENTS:

DJIBOUTI: Thousands in need of food and water, says UN
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN investigates clashes on border
ERITREA: Recovery slowed by drought and military tensions - USAID official
ERITREA: UN food agency to feed 840,000 for another five months
ETHIOPIA: Humanitarian conditions to get worse - UNICEF
ETHIOPIA: Local observers to sue election board
SUDAN: Peacekeepers to arrive in the south within a month
SUDAN: Garang urges southern factions to reconcile
SUDAN: Violence continues to affect aid operations in Darfur - agencies

DJIBOUTI: Thousands in need of food and water, says UN

An estimated 28,650 people in Djibouti are experiencing severe food and water shortages, due to a drought that has depleted pastures and led to widespread livestock deaths, the UN’s humanitarian agency said on Friday.

"The income of households [in Djibouti] is dependent almost entirely on the health and productivity of their livestock," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report. "Since livestock productivity has been undermined by the consecutive deteriorating seasons, household income and food access has been severely constrained," it added.

According to the report, Djibouti’s coastal pastures and water sources have also been overburdened by herders from the neighbouring, drought-affected countries of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN investigates clashes on border

UN peacekeepers were investigating two recent armed clashes on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border that left up to four dead, a UN official said on Thursday. Gail Bindley Taylor Sainte, spokesperson for the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), said the incidents on 9 and 11 April were probably caused by cattle rustling. She added that Ethiopian authorities had categorically denied any involvement, and that UN peacekeepers had no evidence that Ethiopian troops were involved.

Eritrean authorities said they had killed one man in the first clash and captured another, while a third had escaped. In the second incident, they said three men were killed and two escaped. UN peacekeepers said they had seen the bodies of three men, and interviewed the captured man, having been informed of the fighting after the second clash. "Further investigations are continuing," Sainte told journalists in Addis Ababa and Asmara, the capitals of Ethiopia and Eritrea respectively, via video link from Asmara.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

ERITREA: Recovery slowed by drought and military tensions - USAID official

Since the border war with Ethiopia ended in 2000, drought and tensions with its larger neighbour have continued to take a heavy toll on Eritrea's economy and the welfare of its people, a USAID (US Agency for International Development) official told IRIN in an interview. "There was so much devastation [during the war]," Jatinder Cheema, USAID's outgoing mission director in Eritrea, said on Saturday. "There was so much rehabilitation to be done, and capacity to be built." The two-year war killed an estimated 70,000 people from both countries, displaced a third of Eritrea's population and caused large-scale destruction in Eritrea, where much of the fighting took place.

In December 2000, the two Horn of Africa countries agreed to accept as "final and binding" the decision of an independent boundary commission on where the border should lie. However, Ethiopia subsequently rejected the commission's ruling in April 2002. Military tensions between the two states have simmered ever since. Some of Eritrea's most fertile land lies along the border in the southwest of the country, but thousands of Eritreans were unable to return to their homes there, due to the destruction of the area and the lingering threat of landmines.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

ERITREA: UN food agency to feed 840,000 for another five months

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has decided to extend its emergency food-aid programme in Eritrea to mitigate the effects of drought, an official told IRIN on Friday. "We decided to extend for five months and to enlarge the existing emergency operation," Jean-Pierre Cebron, WFP's country director for Eritrea, said. He added that the five-month extension of WFP’s emergency activities was intended to provide food aid to around 840,000 people, at an estimated additional cost of US $25 million.

The aid will also be linked to programmes on adult literacy, education, malnutrition and HIV/AIDS, he added. According to the UN agency, an estimated 2.3 million Eritreans - roughly two-thirds of the population - will need food aid in 2005. Pastures in Eritrea are at their driest since 1998. WFP is also planning a two-year operation to start in September, which would cover all the agency's activities in the country, Cebron revealed. "It will be a unique operation for WFP," he said. "It is the missing link between pure emergency and development."

Full report

[Top of the Page]

ETHIOPIA: Humanitarian conditions to get worse - UNICEF

Humanitarian conditions in Ethiopia are set to get worse now that a scheme to end aid dependency has been delayed, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Thursday. According to UNICEF, malnutrition was increasing due to "difficulties" with the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), and funding shortfalls were holding up measles and polio vaccination campaigns. A lack of support from the international community in areas like health, water and nutrition was also hampering the humanitarian response, it added. Thursday’s warning came as the Ethiopian government prepared to make a new appeal for support on 2 May, to help the growing numbers needing food aid and emergency assistance.

It is expected to announce an increase in the number of people needing aid this year – which currently stands at around seven million. In December, the UN and the Ethiopian government appealed for US $112 million for health, nutrition, water and sanitation, but have so far received less than a quarter of that. Some $159 million was also requested to help feed 2.2 million people facing hunger. "Despite the mounting humanitarian needs, contributions have remained very low, especially in the non-food sector," UNICEF said in a report.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

ETHIOPIA: Local observers to sue election board

A coalition of Ethiopian groups announced plans on Wednesday to file a lawsuit against the country’s electoral commission, saying that new rules could prevent thousands of local observers from monitoring May’s legislative elections. "We believe this decision by the National Election Board [NEB] is in contravention of the national election law of Ethiopia, and violates our constitutional rights," said Netsanet Demissie, director of the Organisation for Social Justice (OSJ), which comprises 35 Ethiopian organisations. As many as 2,000 observers from the coalition could be barred from monitoring the elections because of the rule change, he added.

"It is going to be in the form of a class action," he added. "This litigation is very important in many ways, because it sends a message that contradictory directives will not be tolerated by the public and civil-society organisations."
Ethiopia will go to the polls on 15 May - the third democratic ballot in the history of the country. Netsanet said he was gathering written consent from all OSJ’s member associations, and would lodge papers at the end of this week or early next week. Meanwhile, the coalition was continuing to apply for accreditation for its domestic observers "under protest".

Full report

[Top of the Page]

SUDAN: Peacekeepers to arrive in the south within a month

The UN announced on Wednesday that it would have peacekeeping troops on the ground in south Sudan within a month, to monitor the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended 21 years of civil war in the south.

"Military observers and troops will start deploying in the mission area starting from next month," Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), told reporters in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. A humanitarian source in the central Sudanese garrison town of Malakal told IRIN on Thursday that a force of 1,000 Indian soldiers was expected to be deployed in the town, but the exact date of their arrival remained unclear.

"Military liaison officers have been deployed in most sectors, and staff officers are shuttling between Khartoum and [various] sectors to fine-tune the deployment schedule of troops," Achouri said, adding that 44 staff officers had arrived in Khartoum on Wednesday to help with preparations. According to Achouri, Gen Fazle Elahi Akbar, the Bangladeshi commander of the UNMIS force, would visit the main southern cities of Malakal, Wau and Juba on Thursday and Friday to "assess the ground preparations for UN troops' deployment."

Full report

[Top of the Page]

SUDAN: Garang urges southern factions to reconcile

The chairman of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), John Garang, appealed on Tuesday to all factions operating in south Sudan to put aside their differences and reconcile. "It is time to heal wounds and work in an atmosphere of fraternity and mutual respect, in order to create a healthy political environment," Garang said in a speech to the South-South Dialogue Conference taking place in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.

"Dialogue will ensure that the benefits of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement [CPA] signed on 9 January in Nairobi between the SPLM [/A] and the Khartoum government are enjoyed by all Sudanese for a long time," he added. "This is a rare opportunity to create greater unity of our people." Tuesday’s conference was meant to bring together more than 20 armed groups from south Sudan to develop a consensus on issues ranging from security, democracy and good governance to human rights, gender equality and economic development. Chaired by former Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, the conference was attended by members of Sudanese civil-society organisations, church groups and 11 political parties.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

SUDAN: Violence continues to affect aid operations in Darfur - agencies

Violence in the western Sudanese region of Darfur continued to affect humanitarian operations during the past two weeks, international humanitarian agencies said on Monday. The Danish Refugee Council reported that a local staff member was shot and killed on Friday evening in Golo, in the Jebel Marra region of West Darfur state. "We don't know who is responsible for this tragic incident, which happened when our staff member was off duty, but investigations are ongoing," Anne-Sophie Laenkholm, programme coordinator for the Danish Refugee Council, told IRIN.

The World Food Programme (WFP) reported ongoing insecurity in the region was adversely affecting its food distributions. On 6 April, a truck hired by a WFP partner organisation joined a WFP convoy travelling to Malha in North Darfur state. When the convoy stopped in Cindi town, the truck with 25 mt of food was detained along with the driver, while the WFP convoy was allowed to continue.

"We don't know exactly who did this or where the truck and the driver are at the moment," Peter Smerdon, senior WFP spokesperson, told IRIN. "Currently, we still have 12 WFP trucks missing, which have been stolen during various incidents in March, January and November."

Full report

[Top of the Page]

[ENDS]

Accessed	1433
Theme(s)	Other

Other recent HORN OF AFRICA reports:

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 290 for 13-19 August 2005, 19/Aug/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 289 for 6-12 August 2005, 12/Aug/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 288 for 30 July-5 August 2005, 5/Aug/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 288 for 23-29 July 2005, 29/Jul/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 287 for 16-22 July 2005, 22/Jul/05

Other recent reports:

MALAWI: Outrage over lenient fine for trafficking boys, 24/Aug/05

BOTSWANA: Alleged crackdown on Bushmen denied, 23/Aug/05

SWAZILAND: Traditional chastity vow may have lowered teenage HIV rates, 23/Aug/05

ZAMBIA: Chiluba rejects British judge in civil case, 23/Aug/05

ZIMBABWE: UN demands unfettered access to those in need, 22/Aug/05

[Back] [Home Page]

Click here to send any feedback, comments or questions you have about IRIN's Website or if you prefer you can send an Email to Webmaster

Copyright © IRIN 2005
The material contained on www.IRINnews.org comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies.
All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the IRIN copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.