UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-WA Update 551 for 15 September [19990915]

IRIN-WA Update 551 for 15 September [19990915]


UNITED NATIONS Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 21 73 54 Fax: +225 21 63 35

IRIN-WA Update 551 of events in West Africa (Wednesday 15 September 1999)

GHANA: Floods worsen cholera outbreak

A cholera outbreak in northern Ghana has intensified in the wake of two weeks of heavy flooding, relief workers and other sources told IRIN.

"Our teams have recorded 1,220 cholera cases and 27 deaths in Builsa district and 81 cases and eight deaths in Kassena Nankana District as at 12 September," Anthony Gyedu-Adomako, Secretary-General of the Ghanaian Red Cross, told IRIN.

Gyedu-Adomako said the Ghanaian Red Cross was running health education programmes and helping the Ministry of Health by providing nursing care in the two districts, which are in the northeast of the country.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) official in Ghana told IRIN the Ministry of Health notified WHO of a cholera outbreak in the two districts at the end of August, when approximately 200 cases had been recorded.

According to local newspapers, some 320,000 people have been made homeless by the floods in northern Ghana. They say the White Volta, Red Volta and Sissili rivers have burst their banks in the Upper East Region and so has the Black Volta river in Upper West. People in these areas and in parts of the Northern Region are those most severely affected by the flooding.

[See separate item titled 'Floods in the north worsen cholera outbreak']

University closed

The University of Ghana was closed and students ordered off campus on Tuesday following protests against a sharp increase in tuition fees, the official Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) reported.

In a statement, the university's Executive Committee said students failing to vacate the campus would be considered trespassers and subject to eviction. Foreign students are being allowed to stay on campus but are required to produce identification on demand.

The authorities said they closed the university after protesters destroyed university property and intimidated students who wanted to attend classes. University officials have also accused militant students of disrupting lectures, tearing up students' lecture notes, kidnapping and molestation.

An associate professor of social sciences at the university, Emmanuel Gyamah-Boadi, told IRIN on Wednesday at least 50 percent of the students supported the protests. The latest protest, staged on Tuesday, was led by women, which was an unusual development, he said.

The protests followed an increase in fees from the equivalent of US $120 to US $800 per year. The government decided to award bursaries totalling three billion cedis (US $ 1.1 million) to offset the hike, but the protesters want the amount increased to 13 billion cedis ($4.9 million).

[See separate item titled 'GHANA: University closed following protests']

WEST AFRICA: ECOWAS to meet on Liberia-Guinea rift

Heads of state and government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meet on Thursday in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss rising tension between Liberia and Guinea.

The summit - at the ECOWAS Executive Secretariat - comes less than a week after Guinea accused the Liberian army of crossing into its territory and killing 28 villagers in the border district of Macenta.

Liberia's government has denied attacking Guinea and says it has sent a team of investigators to the border area.

The summit is a follow-up to a meeting on 26 August of ECOWAS foreign ministers convened after Liberia accused Guinea of supporting dissidents who launched attacks in the county of Lofa in north-western Liberia on 10 August.

The meeting is to be attended by representatives of the governments of Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo.

NIGERIA: Four murders a day in Lagos

The Lagos area registered 7,380 murders from June 1994 to July this year, according to official crime statistics released by Lagos State Police Command Public Relations Officer Fabulous Enyaosah.

A total of 10,200 armed robberies were recorded during the period, while 769 people suffered bodily harm between February 1993 and July this year.

About 1,602 unspecified serious crimes were committed between July 1992 and July this year, while there were 2,600 burglaries and other cases of theft from February 1998 to July 1999.

About 6,300 vehicles were reported stolen at different locations in Lagos between June 1994 and July 1999, the statistics added.

COTE D'IVOIRE: Police arrest scores outside politician's home

Ivorian police on Tuesday arrested a number of people outside the residence of opposition politician Alassane Ouattara following an incident there between some of his supporters and officials of the Judicial Police.

In a broadcast on Tuesday on state-run television, Security Minister Marcel Kone said Ouattara's supporters beat up policemen who had gone to deliver a letter to the politician from the public prosecutor, forcing them to flee.

The letter, published on Wednesday in the official daily `Fraternite Matin', informed Ouattara, chair of the Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR), that he would be questioned on Thursday by police regarding the authenticity of some of his documents.

Ouattara's supporters seized and tore up the letter, Kone stated in a communique issued on Tuesday and also published in the official daily. Kone said extra gendarmes were then sent to the scene, a plush neighbourhood in Abidjan, where they arrested "several individuals armed with rifles, knives, axes, catapults and clubs".

Ouattara was prime minister under late President Felix Houphouet-Boigny. He has indicated his intention to contest next year's presidential polls but the state says he is ineligible since he is not an Ivoirian citizen of Ivoirian parentage.

After he produced documents in an attempt to prove his citizenship and parentage, an investigation was launched by the Justice Ministry into the authenticity of the documents.

Following rumours that he was to be arrested, scores of his supporters had congregated at his home this week.

WESTERN SAHARA: MINURSO's mandate extended

The UN Security Council has extended the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to 14 December as recommended by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a report on Thursday.

The extension, awarded on Monday, will enable the United Nations to finish registering voters, processing appeals and repatriating refugees ahead of the referendum - scheduled for the year 2000 - which will determine whether Western Sahara is to gain full independence or become part of Morocco.

MINURSO was set up under a 1988 Settlement Plan to monitor a ceasefire between the Moroccan army and guerrillas of the Polisario Front fighting for independence for the former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1975. Its tasks also include identifying and registering eligible voters.

UNITED NATIONS: Call for more protection for civilians in wars

Non-combatants are being deliberately targeted in today's wars, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a new report in which he proposes measures for improving the protection of civilians.

Annan says the "plight of civilians is no longer something which can be neglected, or made secondary because it complicates political negotiations or interests".

Responsibility for protecting civilians cannot be shifted as the United Nations is the "only international organisation with the reach and authority" to end practices aimed at jeopardising the protection of civilians in war situations, he adds.

[See separate Item: irin-english-1606, titled `Call for more protection for civilians caught up in wars']

AFRICA: World Bank launches AIDS plan

A new World Bank initiative that could serve as a blueprint for future aid to Africa is expected to boost the continent's fight against HIV/AIDS by making it the focus of all development efforts.

The initiative, launched on Tuesday, will see the World Bank allocating up to US $3 billion annually to the fight against HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

[See separate Item: irin-english-1602 titled 'AFRICA: World Bank launches US $3 billion-a-year AIDS plan']

Abidjan, 15 September 1999; 1840 GMT

[ENDS]

[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]

Item: irin-english-1618

[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, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org 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

Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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