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Sunday 25 December 2005


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IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 281 for 4-10 June 2005

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

CONTENTS:

DJIBOUTI: No response to funds appeal for desperate drought victims
ETHIOPIA: Uneasy calm in Addis, taxi drivers continue strike
ETHIOPIA: Scores reported killed in student unrest
ETHIOPIA: Poll results delayed after complaints from 299 constituencies
SOMALIA: Death toll rises as fighting continues in Beletweyne
SOMALIA: Vacate Kenyan hotels, MPs told
SOMALIA: Operation to remove illegal roadblocks begins
SUDAN: ICC launches Darfur investigation

ALSO SEE:

Feature: SUDAN: On patrol with AU troops in Darfur
Full report

DJIBOUTI: No response to funds appeal for desperate drought victims

An appeal for US $7.5 million in urgent drought relief for the tiny Horn of Africa country of Djibouti has received almost no response, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in New York reported on Monday. "A newly released nutrition and health assessment shows that malnutrition among children and women is widespread in drought-affected areas, with moderate acute malnutrition rates high in communities dependent on food aid," OCHA said in a statement. It said chronic malnutrition had reached over 40 percent in the communities it had surveyed in the country.

Six weeks after an urgent flash appeal was launched on 27 April, OCHA sounded the alarm when just 5.3 percent of the total needs were funded. While Germany and the US had agreed to pay for water, sanitation and some health projects of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), no money had been promised for food and agricultural relief.

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ETHIOPIA: Uneasy calm in Addis, taxi drivers continue strike

Most shops in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, remained closed on Thursday as taxi drivers maintained their strike a day after riots claimed the lives of 22 people and injured 40 more, the police said. A statement issued by the federal police said clashes that started in Addis Ababa on Monday between protesters and security forces, had now been brought under control. The violence erupted during protests, initially by students angry at what they said were rigged national elections last month. The taxi drivers joined the protest by calling a strike on Tuesday.

Shooting began on Wednesday when the army's special forces arrived at the central business district where protesters were throwing stones. Information minister Bereket Simon, who is also the governing party spokesman, said the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) had been behind the protests. "Some of their followers - and some who wanted to use this opportunity for looting - have gathered in some parts of Addis and disrupted the smooth functioning of life," he said. "The government had to use the anti-riot police to resolve the situation."

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ETHIOPIA: Scores reported killed in student unrest

At least 20 people were reported killed and others wounded following an outbreak of violence in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, as students demonstrated against alleged fraud in recent elections, hospital sources said on Tuesday. Police commander Mulgeta Shiferaw said the police had detained 520 students and protesters. A further 50 "hooligans" were also arrested, he added, without confirming the number of those killed. The deaths, according to sources, occurred during clashes between Ethiopian security forces and the stone-throwing students as well as other protesters at the main University in Addis Ababa and at a nearby college.

Monday's violence was followed by similar clashes at two other college campuses on Tuesday, which riot police quickly broke up. The students have accused the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front of election fraud after preliminary results showed that it had won the majority of provisional seats following elections on 15 May.

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ETHIOPIA: Poll results delayed after complaints from 299 constituencies

Results of parliamentary elections in Ethiopia, initially scheduled to be announced on Wednesday, will now be delayed by one month after the country's electoral board received complaints from more than half of the constituencies where elections were held in May, an official said on Monday. Electoral chief Kemal Bedri told a news conference at the National Election Board headquarters in the capital, Addis Ababa, that the scale of the complaints had necessitated the month long delay.

He made the remarks as police arrested several hundred university students at the main campus in Addis Ababa. The students' leaders said they were protesting the outcome of the elections, which, according to provisional results, the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front won. Police officers rounded up the students and took them away in eight trucks. The university was the scene of bloody clashes in 2001 where dozens of people were killed.

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SOMALIA: Death toll rises as fighting continues in Beletweyne

At least 30 people have died since inter-clan fighting broke out on Monday in the town of Beletweyne, south-central Somalia. More than 70 people have been wounded and hundreds more displaced in the violence, now in its fourth day, local sources told IRIN on Thursday. The fighting broke out when militias from the Galje'el and Jajele sub-clans clashed on the west side of the town. It was reportedly triggered by a land dispute and revenge killings for the deaths of two Jajele men last week and one Galje'el man on Sunday.

The violence subsided on Tuesday afternoon after elders from a neutral clan intervened, but "resumed with greater intensity on Wednesday", Abdullahi Muhammad, a local journalist told IRIN. "It was the most intense yesterday [Wednesday]." He added: "Beletweyne has seen fighting before, but never on this scale. It is as though they used the lull on Tuesday to reinforce their positions." Wednesday's clashes occurred after mediation efforts by a committee set up by a neutral clan failed, Abdullahi said.

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SOMALIA: Vacate Kenyan hotels, MPs told

Hotels in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have given members of Somalia's transitional government up to Wednesday to vacate the rooms they have occupied for almost three years, a Member of the Somali Parliament told IRIN. "We have been given a deadline of 10:00 a.m. today [Wednesday, 07:00 GMT] to vacate our rooms," the MP, who requested anonymity, said. "It is a bit embarrassing, but we are doing it." Another member of the Nairobi-based Transitional Federal Parliament, Khalid Omar Ali, who is a minister in the president's office, said the quit notice was not a surprise.

"All MPs and government officials were informed beforehand," Ali said. He added that they had been given enough money to pay their bills until next week, when they are expected to relocate to Somalia. Kenya's ambassador to Somalia, Muhammad Abdi Affey, told IRIN: "All Somali MPs and government officials must start leaving Kenya by 14 June. Where to go in Somalia is a decision for the Somali government."

Full report

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SOMALIA: Operation to remove illegal roadblocks begins

An operation by a section of the Somali government to rid the capital, Mogadishu, of illegal roadblocks manned by armed militia began on Tuesday, in a move aimed at restoring security to the war-torn city. "Many of them were removed overnight," Mohamud Jama Sifir, the deputy prime minister in the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) told IRIN from Mogadishu. "There is tremendous public support. The mood in the city is expectant, and there will be no room for those who try to resist." Government leaders who support the move said the initial stage of the exercise had been successful.

A crowd forced a group of militiamen who attempted to hold on to a roadblock on one of the city's thoroughfares to abandon it, local journalist Abdullahi Muhammad told IRIN on Tuesday. The decision to dismantle the roadblocks was made on Monday at a meeting of former faction leaders who are now members of the TFG in Mogadishu.

Full report

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SUDAN: ICC launches Darfur investigation

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, opened an investigation on Monday into the situation in the war-ravaged western Sudanese region of Darfur, where human rights abuses have allegedly been committed.
"The decision to launch the investigation came after the ICC had finished its analysis of the referral by the UN Security Council," Yves Sorokobi, spokesman for the ICC, said on Monday. "This included consultations with experts and ensuring we had met all our statutory requirements before beginning the investigations."

He added, "We will be taking all necessary steps in carrying out the investigation, including sending teams into the country and making arrangements for cooperation with all the stakeholders, both at the national and international level."
The UN Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC prosecutor on 31 March.

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

Other recent HORN OF AFRICA reports:

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 306 for 17-23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 305 for 10-16 December 2005, 17/Dec/05

UNMEE monitoring tense border despite setbacks, 16/Dec/05

UN relocates expelled staff from Eritrea to Ethiopia, 15/Dec/05

IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 304 for 3-9 December 2005, 12/Dec/05

Other recent reports:

RWANDA: Body found in Brussels canal confirmed that of ex-minister's, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 23/Dec/05

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 309 covering 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: IRIN-Asia Weekly Round-up 51 covering the period 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 262 for 17-23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

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