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IRIN Africa | West Africa | WEST AFRICA | WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly 280 covering 4-10 June 2005 | Children, Democracy, Early Warning, Economy, Education, Environment, Food Security, Gender issues, Health, HIV AIDS, Human Rights, Natural Disasters, Peace Security, Refugees IDPs, Other | Weekly

Sunday 25 December 2005


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IRIN-WA Weekly 280 covering 4-10 June 2005

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

CONTENTS:

TOGO: President snubs opponents for 'moderate' prime minister
NIGER: Failing food, toddlers may die, say doctors
COTE D IVOIRE: Lust for cocoa land feeds ethnic killings
MAURITANIA: Government organises anti-terror marches after barracks attack
LIBERIA: UN still needs $10 million for ex-combatants
NIGERIA: Darfur peace talks back on track in Abuja

TOGO: President snubs opponents for 'moderate' prime minister

Togo's President Faure Gnassingbe has named 'moderate' Edem Kodjo prime minister, leaving the opposition coalition that rallied against him in April polls wondering what to do next.

Although a member of the opposition, 67-year-old Kodjo, a former economist, served as prime minister in the mid-1990s with Gnassingbe’s father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, who died last February.

Gnassingbe took his father's job of 38 years following elections that the opposition denounced as being rigged. His presidential decree appointing Kodjo was read on state television on Wednesday night after weeks of consultations.

The so-called 'radical' six-member opposition coalition that countered his 24 April presidential bid with a unity candidate had expected one of their representatives to get the appointment. Without the top government job, they say they're back to square one.
One of the prime minister’s first jobs will be to head up a newly created High Commission for Refugees and Humanitarian Action that will "ensure protection and assistance to repatriated persons".

There are currently some 35,000 Togolese refugees in Ghana and Benin. The young men in the camps of Benin say they are opposition supporters who fled Faure Gnassingbe's Togo to escape state sponsored persecution.
The UN Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour on Friday said it was launching an investigation into what has driven 36,809 refugees into Benin and Ghana. A commission will arrive in Lome on Monday 13 June to carry out two weeks of investigations by human rights officers and forensic experts.

Full report

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[Top of the Page]

NIGER: Failing food, toddlers may die, say doctors

In these dusty scorching reaches of southern Niger, children are weak and underfed and risk dying in the next four months when malaria and diarrhoea reach their peak, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the international medical charity, warned.

With more than one out of four of Niger’s 12 million people facing a shortage of food this year, MSF on 3 June opened a new therapeutic feeding centre in Tahoua, Niger’s fourth biggest town.

“In the five days since we opened, more than 100 children have been taken into care in the centre,” Mohammed Mansour, a nutritional assistant, told IRIN.

Around 3.6 million people are facing hunger ahead of harvests next October because supplies have run out due to poor rains in 2004 combined with swarms of locusts that devoured crops.

Full report

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[Top of the Page]

COTE D IVOIRE: Lust for cocoa land feeds ethnic killings

The prime minister visited the scorched remains of this village in the volatile west of Cote d’Ivoire last week. The army chief of staff paid his respects. And the minister of administrative reform, who was born in the area, buried the dead.

The dozens of dead were laid to rest in a mass grave at the entrance of the village, next to the main road. The patch of freshly dug brown forest earth skirts a roadblock manned by Cote d'Ivoire security forces.

All that is left of Guitrozon today is burned huts, abandoned houses and the heavy smell of a disinfectant that was used to wash the victims' blood off the cement floors. Clothes, pots and pans are scattered outside some of the homes. Their owners have either died or fled.

At least 60 villagers were killed here last Wednesday in the worst ethnic revenge killing western Cote d'Ivoire has seen in years. A week later the massacre continues to stir political repercussions.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

MAURITANIA: Government organises anti-terror marches after barracks attack

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the dusty streets of the capital Nouakchott at the behest of the ruling party, with more marches planned across Mauritania to protest a fatal attack on a remote desert military base by an Algerian Islamist group.

According to police, more than 40,000 people braved the afternoon desert heat on Wednesday. President Maaouiya Ould Taya's Social Democratic Republican party (PRDS), which organised the event, pitched the figure closer to 60,000.

Even the opposition, known collectively as 'The Cavaliers for Change' and usually at loggerheads with the government, have echoed the Ould Taya's condemnation of the attack.

Full report

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Algerian group claims responsibility for attack on military barracks

15 dead in attack on military barracks, government blames Islamists

[Top of the Page]

LIBERIA: UN still needs $10 million for ex-combatants

The international community still needs to dig into its pocket for another US $10 million so that thousands of ex-combatants can be eased back into civilian life, UN officials said.

Almost two years after Liberia’s peace deal, around 43,000 former fighters who have been disarmed are still waiting for funds to go back to school or begin vocational training.

UN officials said the United States had recently stumped up $15 million to help reintegrate ex-combatants and Sweden had handed over $3.6 million. The European Commission, meanwhile, has pledged 7 million euros (US $8.5 million).

“(This) has helped us reduce the funding shortfall... but we still need about $10 million,” Abou Moussa, the acting head of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), told reporters on Friday.

“We are confident that other donors will follow through and help us breach this critical gap,” he said.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

NIGERIA: Darfur peace talks back on track in Abuja

Delegates representing Sudan's government and rebels fighting in the country's western Darfur region are set to resume talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Friday to seek an end to a conflict that has created Africa's worst humanitarian disaster.

Previous talks collapsed six months ago after the government broke a ceasefire deal and mounted an offensive that seriously weakened rebel positions on the ground.

With the government now withdrawn from the positions it acquired in December, African Union (AU) mediators are hopeful of a solution to the two-year conflict that has claimed more than 180,000 lives and forced two million people from their homes.

"We expect to continue the negotiations from where we left off by going straight into the negotiation of the key political issues, having reached a humanitarian agreement last year," said a senior AU official.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Children

Other recent WEST AFRICA reports:

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

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 308 covering 10-16 December 2005, 16/Dec/05

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 307 covering 3-9 December 2005, 9/Dec/05

Rejecting FGM not an affront to tradition, 7/Dec/05

Youth unemployment threatens regional stability, 2/Dec/05

Other recent Children reports:

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

SIERRA LEONE: With no prospects, youths are turning to crime and violence, 22/Dec/05

SENEGAL: Everyman’s library, 21/Dec/05

LIBERIA: UN renews ban on arms, diamonds and timber, 21/Dec/05

NIGERIA: Eight children die in attack on oil pipeline, 21/Dec/05

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