UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-West Africa Update 153, 98.2.25

IRIN-West Africa Update 153, 98.2.25


U N I T E D N A T I O N S Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 21-73-54 Fax: +225 21-63-35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci

IRIN-WA Update 153 of Events in West Africa, (Wednesday) 25 February 1998

SIERRA LEONE: Abductions raise new concerns

Armed groups battling West African ECOMOG peacekeepers in the interior of Sierra Leone have taken some 25 Western missionaries and aid workers hostage in the last ten days, media sources reported on Wednesday. A Catholic official coordinating reports of missing missionaries, Ercole Marcellini, quoted by Reuters, said a group of 25 Westerners and about 20 Sierra Leonean church workers had been captured since 14 February in Makeni and Lunsar in northeastern Sierra Leone.

Pope John Paul II, in a message from the Vatican, echoed the same concern on Wednesday over the abduction of five missionaries from Lunsar, 50 km north of Freetown. Calling for an end to the fighting, he said he was concerned about others also reported missing.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told IRIN on Wednesday that it was trying to establish contact with the abductors. Offering its services as a neutral intermediary for a "positive outcome", it also expressed concern for the hostages.

Earlier in the week, a second group of missionaries, five priests and four nuns, who had escaped Makeni, 140 km northeast of Freetown, were evacuated to Freetown by ECOMOG.

Reuters quoted the missionaries as saying Revolutionary United Front (RUF) fighters allied with the ousted Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) were going from "house to house in Makeni raping and looting". The report added that Makeni's Catholic bishop was trying to establish contacts with the RUF to negotiate the release of hostages.

Marcellini said the Catholic Church had been "clearly against the military takeover" in 1997 and had suffered at the hands of the AFRC and the RUF. Many Catholic missions and schools across the country were looted and destroyed, he said.

ECOMOG reportedly gains control Bo and Kenema

Meanwhile, ECOMOG forces regained control on Wednesday of Bo, Sierra Leone's second city, the BBC reported. Missionaries in radio contact with Bo, 170 km southeast of Freetown, said troops of the former military government had fled the town, and that civilians were starting to return. One Roman Catholic priest said that he had found bodies lying on the street and that homes and shops had been looted by the retreating troops.

Media sources reported on Wednesday that ECOMOG had also taken the diamond mining town of Kenema, 240 km east of Freetown. During a fierce battle for the control of the city, the AFRC and its RUF allies allegedly caused havoc and "terrorised" the civilian population, AFP reported.

Humanitarian sources in Freetown told IRIN that news from the interior was scant and unreliable, although they believed the fighting had been "extremely fierce". The source added that people were seeking refuge in the bush. In Freetown, however, the situation was quiet and slowly returning to normal. The source said that Freetown was expected its first commercial shipment of rice in coming days since the ECOMOG embargo was lifted on Tuesday.

Embargo on commercial flights also lifted

In a related development, the ban on commercial flights to Sierra Leone was lifted on Wednesday nine months after the AFRC coup, AFP reported. ECOMOG said commercial airlines had been cleared to fly in and out of Freetown between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. and that, for the timebeing, it would require 24 hours notice for night flights.

NIGER: Army mutiny spreads

A Niger army mutiny over pay which started in the remote east of the country at the weekend spread to the northern city of Agadez on Wednesday, media reports said. According to Reuters, mutineers had kidnapped the Agadez prefect. Soldiers were reportedly driving through the streets of the ancient city firing in the air as civilians fled. It said the fate of officers commanding the Agadez garrison was not immediately clear.

The action was reportedly in support of troops in Diffa, 1,000 km east of Agadez, who launched their own revolt at the weekend over late payment of salaries. Radio France Internationale reported on Tuesday that the Niger Defence Ministry had confirmed the Diffa rebellion, but said the crisis was being resolved. Soldiers' salaries would be paid "as early as tomorrow", the ministry said.

However, conflicting media reports said mutineers could still be holding military and civilian hostages at a camp near the border with Chad. On Tuesday soldiers also briefly occupied a radio station in Diffa to broadcast their salary demands.

According to Reuters, Niger has faced a prolonged political crisis compounded by severe economic hardship. The news agency said unpaid civil servants and workers at state corporations had often gone on strike in the past two years, seriously disrupting an already ailing economy. PANA also reported on Tuesday that an International Monetary Fund (IMF) team had been in the capital Niamey this week to evaluate Niger's implementation of an IMF economic and financial recovery programme.

Human rights group denounces slavery in Niger

A Niger human rights group, l'Association pour la Defence des Droits de l'Homme, has denounced the continuing practice of slavery in Niger, Radio France Internationale said on Monday. In a letter to the Niger justice minister, the human rights group said slavery was still practised in the regional centres of Tchin-Tabaradene, Tamout and Agadez. The group asked the government to take legal action against suspected slave-owners.

SENEGAL: Government releases Casamance separatists

The Senegalese government has released some 16 Casamance separatists from detention, AFP reported on Tuesday. It said 13 of the prisoners were freed in the capital, Dakar, and taken to Ziguinchor, the main town in Casamance. Other prisoners were released in Casamance itself. A government spokesman described the move as a gesture of "goodwill" towards the Casamance separatist movement, which re-launched a guerilla war against the central government last July. The spokesman denied the prisoner release was in any way linked to an Amnesty International report last week, which strongly condemned Dakar's treatment of captured Mouvement des Forces Democratiques de la Casamance (MFDC) prisoners.

An MFDC leader, Abbot Augustin Diamacoune, also made an appeal for peace last month, calling on MFDC members to stop attacking the local civilian population.

NIGERIA: Fears for health of gaoled activists

A Nigerian human rights group said on Tuesday said it feared for the health of two activists detained by the military government, AFP reported. According to the Nigerian Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, Shehu Sani had contracted typhoid and hepatitis while serving a 15-year sentence for his part in an alleged coup in March 1995. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa had also fallen ill while "chained up" in a Lagos gaol. The Committee called for the immediate release of all political prisoners in Nigeria.

Armed robbers attack Swiss embassy

Armed robbers attacked the Swiss embassy in Nigeria's economic capital Lagos on Monday night, diplomats at the embassy told AFP. However, security guards managed to chase off the thieves, one of whom was armed with a pistol. It said the embassy had now asked for increased protection from Nigerian police. The South African and Sierra Leonean embassies have also been attacked in Lagos in recent weeks.

LIBERIA: UN envoy meets President Charles Taylor

The United Nations Special Envoy for Liberia, Felix Downes-Thomas, said on Wednesday that Liberians and the United Nations had to demonstrate that stability and progress could be achieved in order to attract funds, independent Star Radio reported. Speaking after his first meeting with Liberian President Charles Taylor, Downes-Thomas promised to obtain international aid for Liberia particularly for the resettlement and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced people.

GHANA: Judiciary asserts independence, rejects US report

Ghanaian Attorney-General Obed Assamoah rejected allegations on Tuesday that Ghana's judiciary was subject to the influence of the executive branch, AFP reported quoting the 'Daily Graphic'. "Reports of the judiciary being under the influence of the executive were not only false but absurd and mischievous," Assamoah said.

The US State Department questioned the Ghanaian judiciary's independence in its annual human rights report issued in January.

WEST AFRICA: Senegal river nations fail to agree

Senegal, Mali and Mauritania have failed to agree on how to restructure their joint Senegal river authority, AFP reported on Tuesday. It said that a ministerial meeting of the Organisation pour la mise en valeur du fleuve Senegal (OMVS) had ended in deadlock over how to meet reforms sought by international donors.

Quoting sources at an OMVS meeting in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, AFP said Senegal had apparently been unable to agree to a Mauritanian request granting it the same number of positions it used to hold in the OMVS. Last month, the outgoing Mauritanian head of the OMVS was arrested for "betraying" the interests of his country by agreeing to a reform in which Mauritania lost six positions. No further details were available on the deadlock, described as the first of its kind since the Dakar-based river authority was formed in 1972.

World Court to hear Cameroon-Nigeria border dispute

The International Court of Justice at The Hague will start hearings on a boundary dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria on 2 March. A court statement said the judges would consider an application by Cameroon instituting proceedings against Nigeria over sovereignty of the Bakassi Peninsula.

Abidjan, 25 February, 1998 1900 GNT

[ends]

[The material contained in this communication comes to you via IRIN West Africa, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci for more information or subscription. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this report, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. IRIN reports are archived on the Web at: http://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to archive@dha.unon.org . Mailing list: irin-wa-updates]

Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:04:48 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 153, 98.2.25 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980225185641.11653A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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