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Sunday 25 December 2005


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IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 290 for 13-19 August 2005

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

CONTENTS:

DJIBOUTI: Precarious food situation in rural areas
ERITREA: Food aid held for taxes to be released -gov't official
ETHIOPIA: Opposition parties to boycott Somali region polls
ETHIOPIA: Malaria campaign launched amid fears of an epidemic
SOMALIA: Close to a million in need of aid, says new UN report
SOMALIA: Hijackers of food-laden ship make new demands
SUDAN: African Union short of funds for Darfur mission
SUDAN: Fresh violence and looting reported in Darfur
SUDAN: Thousands of IDPs affected by floods in North Darfur

ALSO SEE:
ETHIOPIA: Interview with Congressman Chris Smith
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ETHIOPIA: Mixed signals ahead of Somali region poll
Full report

SUDAN: Focus: Fears of permanent dependency by IDPs
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DJIBOUTI: Precarious food situation in rural areas

The food situation in rural areas of Djibouti is precarious and there is a need to accelerate emergency food distribution in the tiny Horn of Africa country, an early warning network has reported.

"Prices for staple foods and non-foods are increasing significantly, with negative impacts on poor households in both rural and urban areas," the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) said in its food security update for August. A rural exodus had been witnessed in the majority of secondary cities, and even in the capital, Djibouti city, it added.

Full report

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ERITREA: Food aid held for taxes to be released, says Government official

Hundreds of tonnes of food relief held up since July at Eritrea's Massawa port under new laws that require aid to be taxed were to be released, a senior government official said on Monday. Eritrean labour and human welfare minister Askalu Menkerios told reporters in the capital, Asmara, that the standoff over taxes had been resolved. The ministry, she added, would pay any taxes due. "The law says they [NGOs] should pay tax, but if it is UN agencies or bilateral support - government to government - they do not pay," the minister said.

"Instead of [the NGOs] paying tax, the ministry pays." She added: "It is resolved. Technically, if they don't have it [the food] out now, it is because they don't have the paperwork from customs." Aid workers and diplomats in Asmara had called for the urgent release of the food - about 540 tonnes - to contain a precarious food security situation and rising malnutrition across the Red Sea state.

Full report

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ETHIOPIA: Opposition parties to boycott Somali region polls

Ethiopian opposition parties declared on Tuesday that they would boycott upcoming elections in 23 seats in the remote eastern Somali region, alleging that thousands of voter cards had been stolen and were on sale in local markets. The region's three main parties also claimed the armed forces had taken control of some polling stations and impounded ballots and registration books ahead of national and regional elections scheduled to take place on Sunday.

"We have decided to boycott the elections because of the serious violations that are taking place," Joseph Nur, vice chairman of the Western Somali Democratic Party, told a news conference in the capital, Addis Ababa. Nur claimed that in one town, 10,000 voter cards had been stolen and were on sale in local markets for the equivalent of US $3.

Full report

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ETHIOPIA: Malaria campaign launched amid fears of an epidemic

Ethiopia has launched its largest ever fight against malaria amidst warnings of a looming epidemic in the country, with infection rates up to 10 times the normal levels, officials said on Monday. More than two million chemically treated mosquito nets and 600,000 rapid test kits to diagnose the disease were being distributed around the country. "This is the largest anti-malaria programme in Ethiopia's history," said Bjorn Ljungqvist, representative for the UN Children's Fund in Ethiopia, which is helping the government's fight.

"As we brace ourselves to confront a possible epidemic this year we are better armed to prevent the mass deaths that occurred during previous epidemics," he added. Emergency drugs for 2.5 million people had also been imported to stave off the outbreak, which the government and UN were warning could happen as early as September.

Full report

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SOMALIA: Close to a million in need of aid, says new UN report

Some 919,000 people in Somalia are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance, with nearly 200,000 in a state of humanitarian emergency, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) for Somalia reported. In its monthly briefing on 10 August, FSAU said an estimated 343,000 people faced acute livelihood crises, while the war-scarred nation had 377,000 internally displaced persons.

FSAU noted, however, that in northern and central regions of the country, two exceptionally good rain seasons - the Deyr 2004/5, between November and March, and the Gu 2005, between April and June - had ended more than three consecutive years of drought. Nevertheless, the agency said it would take a considerable amount of time before full recovery was achieved.
Despite an increase in the overall number of people in need of assistance, the number of those in a state of humanitarian emergency had decreased from 275,000 in FSAU's 2004/5 post-Deyr assessment, to 197,000 in its 2005 post-Gu analysis.

Full report

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SOMALIA: Hijackers of food-laden ship make new demands

The hijackers of a vessel laden with food aid off Somalia's northeastern coast in June have demanded that the cargo be distributed to residents of Haradhere and the surrounding areas, where the ship was commandeered, one of the hijackers told IRIN on Monday. Muhammad Abdi Afweyne said they had refused to sign an agreement brokered by the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) with their representatives in the temporary seat of government, Jowhar, 90 km north of the capital, Mogadishu, last week.

"Our demand was for the ship to offload the food in Haradhere [central Somalia], not El-Maan [north Mogadishu beach port]," he said. "The deal that was reached in Jowhar was not what we asked for." An earlier agreement - reached at a meeting on 5 August in Jowhar between local leaders, diplomats from Kenya, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and UN World Food Programme (WFP) - called for the food to be handed over to the TFG in El Maan, where it would be distributed to communities in central Somalia.

Full report

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SUDAN: African Union short of funds for Darfur mission

The African Union (AU) is in urgent need of funds to sustain its operations in the war-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur and could soon fail to pay salaries for its troops deployed there, sources said on Thursday. "Within three months we will not be able to pay the wages of our troops who are on the ground there," an AU official said.

"Everyone knows this mission is important and we think the international community will support us, but they need to do it soon because the money is fast running out," he added. The 53-nation bloc, which has more than 5,000 troops in Darfur, also believes the international community has not pledged enough cash to finance the US $252 million-a-year mission.

Full report

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SUDAN: Fresh violence and looting reported in Darfur

The UN Mission in Sudan on Tuesday said violence in the war-ravaged western Sudanese region of Darfur had continued, with reports over the past week of looting and attacks on internally displaced persons' (IDP) camps. The mission said a Sudanese government police officer was killed and had his weapon stolen on Thursday by unidentified gunmen while en route to North Darfur's Zam Zam IDP camp.

In South Darfur, it added, armed tribesmen reportedly attacked returnees from South Darfur's Kalma IDP camp in their village of Sarman Jago. According to the mission, unidentified gunmen had killed four people on Saturday in a village close to Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. Several reports were also received indicating that banditry and armed attacks on vehicles - UN-hired trucks, as well as vehicles operated by NGOs and commercial enterprises - had continued in the three Darfur states.

Full report

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SUDAN: Thousands of IDPs affected by floods in North Darfur

Pounding rains on Friday night damaged a dam, causing heavy flooding that affected nearly 800 displaced families in Abu Shouk camp in the strife-torn Sudanese state of North Darfur, aid workers said. "According to a rapid assessment by the humanitarian agencies, 778 families were affected by the flooding," Lidia Hernandez Alonso, camp coordinator for the Spanish Red Cross in Abu Shouk, said.

"The rain damaged a dam that was built to prevent the wadi [seasonal riverbed] to the west of Abu Shouk from flooding," Alonso added. "When the dam broke, the IDP [internally displaced person] camp flooded." Sections of Abu Shouk were still under water on Monday and several parts of the nearby capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, were also flooded, according to Caesar Hall, the UN Children's Fund water and environmental sanitation project manager in the state.

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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