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Friday 26 August 2005


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IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 277 for 30 April- 6 May 2005

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

CONTENTS:

DJIBOUTI: Livestock deaths threaten food security – UN
ERITREA: Government warns over looming hunger
ETHIOPIA: Rains pound Somali region as death toll rises
ETHIOPIA: Government appeals for more aid to combat malnutrition
ETHIOPIA: Court overturns controversial law
SOMALIA: CPJ concerned over attacks on reporters in Puntland
SOMALIA: Death toll in stadium explosion rises to 15
SUDAN: Meningitis reported in West Darfur IDP camps
SUDAN: Two aid workers killed in Kassala

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DJIBOUTI: Livestock deaths threaten food security – UN

The failure of three consecutive rainy seasons has led to widespread livestock deaths and a significant decline in milk production, creating serious food insecurity in Djibouti, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
"The pastoralist families are dependent on their livestock for food and income," Fernanda Guerrieri, chief of FAO's emergency operations, said in a statement on Friday.

"Many have lost their entire herds, leaving them with nothing to eat or trade." Delayed rains and erratic rainfall patterns had been insufficient to replenish water catchments or regenerate pastures, FAO said in a statement.

The agency said pastoralists from Djibouti and the neighbouring drought-affected countries of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia had been forced to graze in Djibouti's coastal areas, beyond the restorative capacities of the land.

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ERITREA: Government warns over looming hunger

An estimated one million Eritreans will go hungry unless the donor community can give the country further support, a senior government official in charge of food distribution, said on Tuesday. "We are reaching less than 60 percent of the needy population," Teclemichael Woldegeorgis, deputy commissioner at the Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission, told reporters in the capital, Asmara. "We are appealing to the donor community to continue their assistance," he added. "Now the hunger season starts, and that is the time when the majority of food is required."

Teclemichael said some 135,000 mt of cereals, pulses, and oils had already been pledged or delivered so far this year, but Eritrea needed another 221,000 mt. Last year's harvest had probably been consumed already, he added, and households would have to look for other sources of food.

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ETHIOPIA: Rains pound Somali region as death toll rises

The death toll from devastating floods that have hit eastern Ethiopia rose to 154 as heavy rains continued to hamper relief efforts, officials said on Wednesday. More than 150,000 had been affected by floodwaters and torrential rains that continued to pound the Somali region for a second week, officials added. Tens of thousands of livestock had also been killed.

"The rains are continuing and the flooding is continuing," Remedan Haji Ahmed, who heads the government's emergency response in the area, told IRIN. "In the last 24 hours, five people have died," he added. "There are still large areas that are cut off and now we are getting outbreaks of diseases like malaria and diarrhoea." The UN said access to some of the affected villages had been hindered because they were located in areas that had remained cut off.

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ETHIOPIA: Government appeals for more aid to combat malnutrition

Ethiopia on Wednesday launched an appeal for an extra US $48 million in foreign aid for tens of thousands of children amid worsening malnutrition across the country, officials said. The head of the government's emergency arm, Simon Mechale, said the government needed an extra 66,000 mt of food and $22 million for health, nutrition and water. The flash appeal, which was announced at the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC), came as the UN warned that thousands of children could die if help was not forthcoming.

Bjorn Ljungqvist, head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Ethiopia, said at least 60,000 children needed urgent therapeutic feeding because of growing malnutrition in the country. More than half a million children also needed urgent help, he added, as a result of growing hunger and diseases like measles and meningitis.

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ETHIOPIA: Court overturns controversial law

Ethiopia's high court on Tuesday overturned a controversial law that had effectively banned thousands of local observers from monitoring the country’s 15 May national election. Judge Brehanu Teshome said the new rule, introduced last month by the country's National Election Board, "contravened" the laws of the country.

The ruling, which came just 12 days before polling, meant local groups could now field election observers to monitor Ethiopia's third-ever democratic elections. However, the director of a coalition of local groups that had planned to field 3,000 observers, Netsanet Demissie, said they would not be able to deploy nearly as many monitors.

"Although this is a landmark decision, it is a ruling tinged with sadness," Netsanet said at the federal high court in Addis Ababa. He added: "We have shown that such arbitrary decisions will not be tolerated by the public, [but] we will not be able to deploy as many observers because we are so close to the elections and we do not have enough time for proper training."

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SOMALIA: CPJ concerned over attacks on reporters in Puntland

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern over what it said were attacks on the freedom of press in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia. Reporters there, it added, had been arrested and radio stations threatened with censorship. In a letter to the president of Puntland, Adde Muse Hirsi, dated 3 May, CPJ said two journalists from the weekly newspaper "Shacab" (Voice of the People), in the town of Garowe, were arrested in April and that there were threats to close the newspaper.

Authorities also planned to introduce identity cards for all journalists, according to CPJ, and that there had been attempts to censor radio coverage of sensitive political issues. "On April 20, security forces attacked the premises of Shacab, breaking the front gate and damaging the editor's car and other property, according to the newspaper's editor and local press freedom groups.

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SOMALIA: Death toll in stadium explosion rises to 15

The number of people killed in Tuesday's blast at a stadium in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, rose 15, sources told IRIN on Wednesday. The director of Mogadishu’s Madina hospital, Shaykhdon Salad Ilmi, said a number of people had died from injuries caused by the explosion. Of the 41 people brought to Madina hospital, Ilmi said, "six died of their injuries, while another one died in another hospital".

The explosion occured at a football stadium where the Somali transitional Prime Minister, Ali Muhammad Gedi, was addressing a public rally on his first visit to Mogadishu since being appointed by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in December 2004.

Gedi arrived in Mogadishu on 29 April accompanied by a team of ministers, legislators and members of the international community. "A hand grenade was accidentally dropped by a member of the security detail, which then went off as the Prime Minister started his speech," Abdi Hassan Qaybdid, a senior security official in Mogadishu, told IRIN by telephone.

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SUDAN: Meningitis reported in West Darfur IDP camps

Cases of meningitis have been confirmed in three camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, the World Health Organization (WHO), said. The cases, it added, were of the "Neisseria meningitides W135" type of the disease. They were found in Riyad, Adamata and Abu Seroj IDP camps in West Darfur State. "According to the Sudanese Federal Ministry of Health’s standard operating procedures, one laboratory confirmed meningitis case raises the alert flag in any IDP camp," Sacha Bootsma, WHO communications officer in Khartoum, told IRIN on Thursday.

The cases, however, Bootsma noted, did not occur in the same week and not in the same IDP camp, and could therefore not be considered an official outbreak. Meningitis is an infection of the meninges; the thin lining that surrounds the brain and the spinal cord and is caused by microbes that are often found in airborne dust. Several different bacteria can cause meningitis, but "Neisseria meningitides" is one of the most important because of its potential to cause epidemics.

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SUDAN: Two aid workers killed in Kassala

Two Sudanese aid workers were killed on Sunday when their vehicle was attacked near the eastern town of Kassala, close to the border with Eritrea, a spokesperson for the Sudanese Red Crescent (SRC), told IRIN. "Two staff members have been shot down, a third was injured and a fourth was abducted and is still missing," Asaf Bukhari, SRC spokesperson, said on Wednesday. "The attackers were driving a car when they suddenly opened fire on the SRC vehicle." The SRC driver and a nurse died on the spot from their wounds, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a separate statement, released on Tuesday.

An SRC medical assistant was severely injured in the attack and was recovering in a hospital, the ICRC said. A fourth man, also a passenger in the car, remained missing. The Sudanese army, Bukhari said, had found the vehicle and suspected that most of the attackers were from the local Rashida tribe. One attacker reportedly came from the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

Other recent HORN OF AFRICA reports:

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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

Other recent reports:

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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly 291 Covering 20 August to 26 August 2005, 26/Aug/05

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 245 for 20 - 26 August 2005, 26/Aug/05

BURUNDI: Profile of Pierre Nkurunziza, 26/Aug/05

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