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Sunday 25 December 2005


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IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 283 for 18-24 June 2005

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

CONTENTS:

SUDAN: Government camps destroyed during fighting in the east
SUDAN: Rebels attack government soldiers in South Darfur
SUDAN: Khartoum drops charges against MSF officials
SOMALIA: Transitional president meets speaker in Yemen
SOMALIA: TFG preparing to begin operating from Jowhar
SOMALIA: EC grants €20 million to fight rural poverty
ERITREA: International community urged to help end border dispute
ETHIOPIA: Critical malnutrition levels in refugee camps
ETHIOPIA: Poll body to probe complaints in 135 constituencies

SUDAN: Government camps destroyed during fighting in the east

Rebels of the Beja Congress group in eastern Sudan have destroyed three government military camps during fighting that broke out in the northeast on Sunday, one of the rebel leaders said on Thursday.

"Our forces destroyed three big camps and other smaller stations," said Salah Barqueen, secretary for legal affairs of the Beja Congress, which merged with the Rashaida Free Lions in February to form the Eastern Front.

The fighting started when the rebels launched a major offensive for control of the Red Sea town of Tokar, some 120 km south of Port Sudan.

In a statement issued on Monday, the Sudanese army claimed that it had dealt with the offensive and was in complete control of the area. Barqueen refuted the government claims. By Tuesday, he said, the rebels had captured 20 government soldiers and significant quantities of weapons and ammunition.

Speaking at the Beja Congress offices in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, he told IRIN that the attack involved both eastern rebels and those from the Justice and Equality Movement in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

The eastern rebels have clashed intermittently with government forces in eastern Sudan since 1996, Beja sources said, but tension has risen in recent months.

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SUDAN: Rebels attack government soldiers in South Darfur

Violence flared up in the western Sudanese state of South Darfur on Sunday when rebel fighters of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) attacked and killed a number of Sudanese soldiers, a UN spokesperson said.

The attack on government troops took place in the area of Manawashi, about 78 km north of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur State. "We know for a fact that an attack by SLA rebels took place, but we don’t know why they attacked or how many casualties there are," Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Sudan said on Wednesday.

A humanitarian source reported that four Sudanese soldiers were killed and three others wounded during the attack, adding that it was possible the SLA leadership had been unable to control its forces on the ground.

"As of yesterday [Tuesday] afternoon, the Sudanese military has sealed off the area and has restricted the movement of displaced persons (IDPs) as well as NGOs," the source added. "The IDPs are currently cut off from assistance."

The attack comes at a time when the AU, which is mediating in the Darfur peace talks in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, is attempting to bring back the warring parties to the negotiating table.

Full report

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SUDAN: Khartoum drops charges against MSF officials

The international medical charity, Medécins Sans Frontières (MSF), said on Monday the Sudanese authorities had dropped all charges against two of its senior officials accused by Khartoum of publishing false information.

MSF-Holland's head of mission in Sudan, Paul Foreman, and its regional co-coordinator in Darfur, Vincent Hoedt, were arrested at the end of May and charged with publishing false information, undermining the Sudanese society and spying.

The charges were related to the publication in March of a report entitled "The Crushing Burden of Rape" - on sexual violence in the strife-torn western region of Darfur. The two officials had been freed on bail and forbidden to leave the country.

Full report

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SOMALIA: Transitional president meets speaker in Yemen

The transitional Somali president and parliamentary speaker have met in Yemen to try and resolve disagreements that have split Somalia's fledgling government, the deputy prime minister said on Thursday.

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed travelled to Yemen after leaving the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 13 June. His Transitional Federal Government had been based in Nairobi since it was formed in October, 2004. Yusuf was later joined by the speaker, Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden.

"They are trying to formulate a framework for an agreement on all issues that have split the government," Mohamud Jama "Sifir", the deputy prime minister said by telephone from Mogadishu.

He said the Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh had offered to mediate in the "dialogue" between Yusuf and Aden after attempts by Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia to resolve the disagreement failed.

Full report

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SOMALIA: TFG preparing to begin operating from Jowhar

Somalia's interim government has begun establishing itself in the town of Jowhar, where it will be based until security is restored in the capital, Mogadishu, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

"The government is in the process of setting itself up in Jowhar and the prime minister [Ali Muhammad Gedi] laid the foundation for the construction of a larger airport yesterday [Tuesday]," Hussein Jabiri, director of information in the prime minister's office, said.

The Transitional Federal Government has been based in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, for the eight months since its formation, and only began relocating to Somalia on 13 June.

Jabiri said the entire cabinet was expected to move to Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu, by 1 July, Somalia's independence day.

Somalia had no functional central authority for the 14 years following the collapse in 1991 of the government of Muhammad Siyad Barre. Civil war erupted in the Horn of Africa state soon after Barre was toppled as various factions and rival warlords fought for power.

Full report

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SOMALIA: EC grants €20 million to fight rural poverty

The European Commission (EC) has awarded Somalia two grants worth a total of €20 million (US $24.6 million) to fight rural poverty and strengthen the development of water and sanitation services, the EC Somalia operations office announced on Friday.

"Assistance to Somalia supports food security and rural development interventions which contribute to poverty reduction in rural areas where 66 percent of all Somalis live," the Kenya-based office said in a statement.

The EC has awarded seven grants, totalling €10 million ($12.3 million), to international NGOs to assist Somalia’s rural poor.

CARE and VETAID would target 35,000 drought-affected pastoralists in the northeast, while CEFA, an Italian NGO, and Save the Children – UK will target 5,400 vulnerable farmers in the Hiraan and Middle Shabelle regions of central Somalia.

An education project sponsored by the British Broadcasting Corporation would train 63,000 livestock-dependent households in animal breeding and care, natural-resource management, marketing and product diversification.

Full report

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ERITREA: International community urged to help end border dispute

Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki on Monday urged the international community to pressure Ethiopia to end a border stand-off between the two countries, and claimed that the world seemed to favour Addis Ababa in the dispute.

"We call on those that claim to tag themselves with the label of ‘the international community’- and who continue to allow that the rule of law be violated and our sovereign territories remain under occupation -to shoulder their responsibilities before it is too late," Isayas said at a gathering to mark Martyrs’ Day in the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

The day is observed in remembrance of citizens who died during Eritrea’s three-decade war for independence from Ethiopia.

Eritrea attained sovereignty in 1991, but the two countries took up arms again in 1998 over a border dispute. Although that conflict ended in a truce in 2000, a disagreement over the demarcation of the boundary has kept tensions between the two states high.

In the December 2000 peace accord, both sides agreed that the ruling of an independent boundary commission would be "final and binding". When the commission made its ruling in April 2002, however, Ethiopia rejected it. Eritrea has refused to negotiate an international treaty.

More than 70,000 people were killed during the 1998-2000 war. The armies of the two states now face each other across a 25 km-wide demilitarised zone that is patrolled by some UN 3,300 peacekeepers.

Full report

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ETHIOPIA: Critical malnutrition levels in refugee camps

Malnutrition has reached critical levels in Fugnido and Bonga refugee camps, which are in an area wracked by ethnic violence in recent years, the UN said on Wednesday. The two camps, located close to the Sudanese border in the Gambella region, are home to almost 48,000 people.

"A combination of factors have led to this severe situation, including delayed delivery of food due to transport problems, insecurity both inside and outside the Fugnido camp, and a lack of basic health and safe water services," the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report.

"In Bonga camp, food deliveries have also been delayed and crops have not been planted due to restrictions in movement outside the camp," OCHA added.

Emergency feeding centres had been set up for 170 children in the camps. Clean water was being trucked in by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), while the UN World Food Programme was trying to transport supplies to the refugees.

Full report

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ETHIOPIA: Poll body to probe complaints in 135 constituencies

Ethiopia's electoral board said on Monday it would investigate allegations of vote rigging in 135 constituencies out of the 299 where complaints were lodged following parliamentary elections on 15 May.

"Of the 299 constituencies where it was alleged that fraud had taken place, investigations will take place only in 135 constituencies," Getahun Amogne, spokesman for the National Electoral Board (NEB), told IRIN.

"Complaints lodged for the rest of the constituencies were not properly documented and [were] unsubstantiated according to the review body," he added.

The investigations are expected to start next week, but political parties were on Monday given 48 hours to appeal against NEB's rejection of 164 complaints.

Rival political parties have lodged 61 types of complaints, including gunmen intimidating voters, people being forced to vote for certain parties, ballot boxes being stuffed or disappearing and the number of ballots exceeding those of registered voters.

The ruling party has won 302 seats and its allies 26, according to the provisional results released so far. Opposition parties got 194 seats in the 547-seat lower house of parliament, up from the 12 seats they won during elections in 2000.

Full report

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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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