UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
Great Lakes: IRIN Update 135, 3/25/97

Great Lakes: IRIN Update 135, 3/25/97

U N I T E D N A T I O N S Department of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for the Great Lakes

Tel: +254 2 622147 Fax: +254 2 622129 e-mail: irin@dha.unon.org

IRIN Emergency Update No. 135 on the Great Lakes (Tuesday 25 March 1997)

* Tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees in Uganda are on the move, following a change in the course of the war between the Sudanese Government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in favour of SPLA rebels. Up to 80,000 refugees are thought to be returning from Uganda, while internally displaced people in Sudan already number some 50,000.

WFP reports that two of the largest refugee camps in northwestern Uganda - Koboko (pop. 26,500) and Ikafe (pop. 55,000) - have virtually emptied over the last week, and the refugees are thought to be returning to Sudan. Uganda was hosting about 225,000 Sudanese refugees, many of whom left in 1989 when fighting between SPLA and Government forces escalated. The returnees are thought to be returning partly due to deteriorating conditions in the camps in Uganda. The SPLA's relief arm, the SRRA, reports that 40,000 returnees from Uganda and Zaire have been registered around Yei so far. According to a humanitarian report from the area, NGO and UN agencies operating in the area estimate that at least another 20,000-40,000 refugees could be on their way back to Yei district.

In addition to returning refugees, the SRRA report that 11,800 displaced civilians are in Yei town. About 6,000 are Ugandans, 4,000 Sudanese, 1,500 Zaireans and 246 are from West Africa. About 40,000 more internally displaced people are in camps in Kirwa, Bamurye, Mangalatore.

A WFP/OLS food assessment team set off yesterday for Yei, passing through Meridi. Bombing in SPLA-held Meridi was reported yesterday morning. An Antonov aircraft dropped six bombs, aid sources say. Kajo-Keji, close to Uganda's northern border also fell under SPLA control within the last two days, aid sources say.

* Two more landmines exploded in the Burundian capital Bujumbura early this morning. One was reported in Kwijabe area, and another near the beer factory. At least three deaths are reported. Three landmines killed seven people on the night of 12 March, and were linked to an attempted assasination of Pierre Buyoya.

* Zairean Prime Minister Kengo wa Dondo resigned yesterday evening, saying that he preferred to step down rather than be forced out "unconstitutionally and illegally". President Mobutu Sese Seko has accepted his resignation, but asked him to remain in office until a new government could be formed.

* US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appealed to President Mobutu at the weekend to appoint a negotiating team to meet with negotiators from the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL). Banza Mukalay, Vice-President of Mobutu's MPR party announced yesterday that the MPR was "ready to open negotiations" with the DFL. Kengo also told AFP he had recalled Foreign Minister Kamanda wa Kamanda, en route to Lome, to Kinshasa for consultations.

* Both sides in the Zairean conflict have named the teams who are to attend the Lome summit. Kinshasa will be represented by first deputy parliamentary speaker Bo Boliko Lokonga and close Mobutu advisor Honore Ngbanda. The rebel side is represented by Bizima Karaha and Gaetan Kakudji, generally known as the ADFL "foreign minister".

Opposition parties have started to react to rebel leader Laurent-Desire Kabila's announcements at the weekend on the status of political parties. He had implied that the ADFL would be the sole party in areas under ADFL control. The opposition UDPS party had last week said that its non-violent opposition had paved the way for the successes of the ADFL rebellion. The Zairean Le Potentiel newspaper yesterday, describing Kabila's pronouncements as his first "gaffe", wrote that "it is difficult to explain why a man, who picks up an almost ripe fruit, is so obsessed by military victories to not even see the great work done from the inside by the non-violent radical opposition".

* Humanitarian agencies headed out from Kisangani today to assess needs in areas accessible from the city. A UN flight from Goma via Kisangani landed at Ubundu today, on the east of the river, and found that few refugees remained there. Zairean aid workers and local officials informed an inter-agency team led by UNHCR that most Rwandan refugees in the area had crossed the river, and that while ADFL rebels had not yet arrived and no FAZ military presence was reported. A large group (tens of thousands) of refugees was spotted from the air about 82 kms south of Kisangani on the west of the river. This group, local authorities said, were de-militarized and awaiting both humanitarian assistance and the arrival of the ADFL. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reports that 40 corpses were fished out of the river last week; many refugees were thought to have drowned while crossing the river. 120 MTs of pulses and cereals left Kisangani by rail today for Ubundu, accompanied by three WFP staff. The shipment is expected to be delivered to Kilometer 82 and 95 on the western side of the river

Up to 80,000 refugees were thought to be at Ubundu since rebels took Kisangani over a week ago. Up to 10,000 refugees are reported to be on the southern outskirts 7 kms from Kisangani, and were visited by UNHCR today. Another group of UN aid workers plans to go by road from Kisangani towards Lubutu, Walikale, and onwards to Bukavu. Well-placed sources report about 2,000 refugee arrivals in Mbuji-Mayi over the weekend.

* US troops in Africa dispatched to assist in a possible evacuation of its citizens from Zaire, are set to number 600 by the end of today, US Defence Secretary William Cohen told a press conference yesterday. Up to 1,000 foreign troops are now based in Brazzaville on standby. Kabila today denounced the preparations as a "threat to peace". Zambian radio, monitored by the BBC, reported today that families of staff of the consul-general's office in Lubumbashi had left by road for Chililabombwe over the border in Zambia.

* The trial of Georges Rutaganda, a former vice-president of the Interahamwe militia, continues at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania. The prosecution, led by James Stewart, intends to bring 35 witnesses. According to the East African weekly newspaper, defence lawyers Luc Temmermann of Belgium and Tiphaine Dickson of Canada say they will establish that the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994 was the work of the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front. Almost all accounts of the genocide in 1994 agree that the mass killings were led and organized by the Hutu-dominated Rwandan Armed Forces and Interahamwe militia.

* The situation in Uganda cannot accurately be described as famine, but between 700,000 and 800,000 people are highly vulnerable to hunger, according to the latest update from the USAID's Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) in Uganda (March 97). The report states that the food situation in Uganda is not as bad as the media is reporting, but that recent field missions suggest that nearly 600,000 Ugandans and 221,000 Sudanese refugees are `highly vulnerable to hunger' and will require some food assistance `over the next six months and possibly into 1998'. The current food shortages are the result of poorly distributed rains during the second half of 1996 in the east and northeast, the effects of cassava mosaic, and ongoing insecurity in northern Uganda, which has caused mass displacement and inhibited planting and cultivation.

* The impact of the Government of Kenya's relief food in addressing needs arising from the current drought is `severely hampered' by being `untargeted', according to the latest update from the Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) in Kenya (March 97). The Government of Kenya is currently providing food to 40 districts in the country and within these districts `blanket distribution of the relief food has severely hampered the impact of this intervention.'

The latest FEWS update describes the situation in Kajiado district and characterises conditions in the westerly Magadi division as `exceptionally poor', with conditions in Central and Loitokitok division described as `fair to poor'. Magadi division currently faces large numbers of livestock deaths, increasing child malnutrition and the erosion of pastoralists' purchasing power by the declining prices for livestock. The same report describes conditions in Taita Taveta district, also on Kenya's southern border with Tanzania, as similar to those in the drought-hit marginal agricultural areas of Eastern province (decribed in IRIN's February report on the Kenya drought). A FEWS assessment revealed a `near total crop failure in most areas' during the 1996/97 short rains season.

Nairobi, 25 March 1997, 15:30 GMT

[ENDS]

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Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 18:34:25 +0300 From: UN DHA IRIN - Great Lakes <irin@dha.unon.org> Subject: Great Lakes: IRIN Update 135 for 25 Mar 1997 97.3.25 Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.970325183422.21992f-100000@amahoro.dha.unon.org>

Editor: Ali Dinar, aadinar@mail.sas.upenn.edu