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IRIN-WA Update 496 of events in West Africa (Tuesday 29 June 1999)
SIERRA LEONE: Malnutrition reported in eastern town
A team from Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) that travelled at the weekend to Daru, near Sierra Leone's border with Liberia, saw signs of severe malnutrition in the eastern town, MSF said here.
The team went to assess the humanitarian situation in the town, which is controlled by ECOMOG. Visual observation of a small group of children, which was not necessarily representative of the entire population, showed that about 20 suffered from severe malnutrition, an MSF official said on Monday.
"This is not an emergency but it is very close. We are at the borderline," the MSF representative said at a meeting.
[See separate item titled 'MSF sees signs of severe hunger in eastern town']
Postal workers strike
At least 300 postal workers have begun an indefinite strike to protest low wages and poor benefits, union officials quoted by AFP said on Tuesday. Wages range from about US $10 to $20 a month, AFP said.
The president of the Union of Postal and Telecommunications Services, Sariwa Tarawally, said employees were also demanding promotions and medical benefits.
Postal Managing Director Kanji Daramy termed the strike "unnecessary". He said employees were being paid despite a bloody and costly rebel invasion of the capital in January. AFP reported him as adding that "colossal" amounts of money were being spent bringing mail to Sierra Leone from Ghana and Guinea. A large part of the country is without postal services due to rebel activity.
In a similar development, hospital workers launched a go-slow at the weekend demanding three months' back pay, AFP said. However, the agency said some had resumed regular work since the government began paying them on Monday.
Militia pledges to stop recruiting children
Sierra Leone's pro-government Kamajor militia has pledged to stop recruiting children into its ranks and will send home those already serving, a UNICEF official told IRIN on Tuesday.
UNICEF estimates that 3,000 children are with the anti-government Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and 1,500 with the Kamajors.
"We won't know the exact number until demobilisation," the UNICEF official said.
UNICEF has documented 3,867 children abducted by the RUF when the guerrillas invaded and occupied eastern Freetown on 6 January. So far 700 of the children have been returned to their families, UNICEF said.
The Kamajors made their undertaking at a workshop on 17-18 June in Bo, eastern Sierra Leone. The event, organised by the EU as part of a relief and rehabilitation programme, was also attended by Sierra Leone's Civil Defence Force, police, government ministers and humanitarian organisations.
The Kamajors' pledge was signed by Hinga Norman, the country's defence minister and coordinator of the secret hunter society.
In another development, the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone, UNOMSIL, has denied a media report that it had received complaints from the Kamajors about 1,000 RUF guerrillas attacking the militia's positions on Saturday in Rima, near the Diamond-rich town of Kono.
"We received no complaint," a senior UNOMSIL officer told IRIN on Tuesday. "We will investigate further."
SENEGAL: Unions end pay strike
Senegalese unions ended a general strike for more pay and other benefits on Tuesday, following a tentative agreement with government on improved conditions for public and private sector workers, a union leader in Dakar told IRIN.
The accord calls for an increase in family allowances from 1,000 francs cfa to 1,500 fcfa (US $1.66 to US $2.5) per child for the first six children, the establishment of a social security fund and a health insurance scheme, and an end to the system of issuing consumers with electricity bills based on estimates instead of metred consumption.
The general strike, by seven unions, started on Monday and was the first in seven years. It halted most economic activity and shut down the international airport in the capital, Dakar.
[See separate Item: irin-english-1119 titled 'Unions end pay strike']
BURKINA FASO: Unions launch 48-hour strike
Burkina Faso's state companies and two main banks were closed on Tuesday, day one of a 48-hour general strike, but most public offices were open, sources in Ouagadougou told IRIN.
The strike was organised by the country's seven labour federations and six autonomous unions, in a show of unity which, according to the media, the labour sector had not seen since 1975.
[See separate item titled 'Unions launch 48-hour strike']
MALI: Soldiers complete peacekeeping course
Forty-one Malian soldiers concluded a one-month peacekeeping training session at the National Gendarmerie School in Bamako on 25 June, Radio-Television Malienne reported.
The training course was part of the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), a programme mounted by the US military and aimed at helping African nations produce peacekeepers capable of facing the crises breaking out in Africa and in the world.
WESTERN SAHARA: Voter identification
Both Morocco and the Polisario Front have been cooperating with the identification of voters in preparation for a referendum on the future of Western Sahara, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a new report on the situation in the territory.
In May, the two sides accepted a UN-brokered package of measures to allow preparations for the referendum to go ahead and the process of identifying people eligible to vote in the referendum resumed on 15 June.
Annan stressed the importance of the parties staying the course leading up to 15 July, when the first part of the provisional voters' list will be published and the appeals process will begin.
According to the Secretary-General's report, over 2,300 people have been interviewed since 15 June, bringing the total number identified since the process began in August 1994 to nearly 150,000.
Under an August 1998 Settlement Plan, the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was set up to monitor a ceasefire and identify and register qualified voters for the referendum on whether the former Spanish colony would gain independence or become part of Morocco.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is preparing to repatriate refugees to the territory in accordance with the Settlement Plan. Pre-registration has begun to determine their willingness to return and their final destination in the territory.
ABIDJAN, 29 June 1999; 18:15 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1126
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information or free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or fax: +254 2 622129 or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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