| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
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IRIN-WA Update 563 for West Africa (Friday 1 October
1999)
SIERRA LEONE: Security deteriorates in Freetown, improves
elsewhere
Security has deteriorated in Freetown during the past week but has continued to improve elsewhere in Sierra Leone, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports.
Five security incidents of varying significance occurred in the capital in the past few days, OCHA quotes UNOMSIL as saying. These include attempts at armed robbery and the harassment of international and local staff of UN agencies and NGOs by unidentified youths, some of whom have been described as ex-combatants.
The situation continues to improve in other parts of the country, OCHA says. In the east, residents of previously insecure areas such as Segbwema, Tongo Fields and Daru have now resumed commercial activities.
People are now moving east of Kenema with goods ranging from food items to petroleum products for sale in rebel-held areas. Armed combatants in these areas seem willing to put down their weapons, OCHA reports.
Security forces in the Daru area are reportedly cooperating with an interagency humanitarian mission which left for the region on 29 September. The mission's main objectives are to assess the food situation, the number of refugee returnees, road conditions and the storage infrastructure for humanitarian aid.
Possible abductee sites located by human rights committee
Several sites have been noted as likely to contain significant numbers of abductees, the Sierra Leone Human Rights Committee (SLHRC) noted in a bulletin on 27 September.
These are Lunsar, Makeni, Magburaka and Matatoka in the Northern province and Kailahun in the Eastern province
The SLHRC, a group of local and international organisations committed to the promotion of human rights, adopted at the end of July a mechanism to keep track of the human rights provisions of the Lome peace accord, signed by the government and the RUF on 7 July. Its findings are published in a monthly bulletin.
NIGERIA: Many die as water spilled from dam sweeps away settlements
Many people are reported to have died in northern Nigeria
after water spilled from hydroelectric dams flooded
- and in some cases swept away - villages, news organisations
reported.
The disaster occurred when the National Electric Power
Authority (NEPA) opened the floodgates at dams along
the Niger River and a tributary of the Kaduna River
following exceptionally heavy rains. The states of
Koji, Niger, Kaduna and Kwara are reportedly affected,
a media source told IRIN.
NEPA had warned two weeks ago that it would be releasing water from the Shiroro, Kainji and Jebba reservoirs to ease the pressure on their dams. Many people apparently did not hear the warnings partly because the state radio has been plagued by problems and partly because not everyone in the fishing and farming hamlets in the affected areas has radios, the media source said.
Reuters reported that the official death toll stood at 39 on Wednesday, with more than 210 settlements submerged or washed away since the gates were opened last week, and that thousands have been left homeless.
The source said a food deficit was expected in the heavily agricultural area since the flood waters have washed away farmers' harvests.
GHANA: 144,000 displaced by floods in north
A month of floods in last August and September in northern Ghana has displaced nearly 144,000 people and destroyed some 13,000 houses, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) - the state agency responsible for disaster relief - reported.
The floods, which now threaten the south of the country, also swamped 68,000 acres (about 27,519 hectares) of farmland, according to an 18-member team that assessed the area from 15-25 September, and which included navy and air force personnel, engineers and health, construction and hydrometeorological specialists.
"Nearly 120,000 are displaced in the Northern Region, some 15,000 in Upper West Region and just over 9,000 in Upper East Region," team leader Kofi Portuphy, NADMO's National Coordinator, told IRIN. "Many farms and homes are still underwater."
Portuphy said initial news reports of more than 320,000 being made homeless referred to those who were "under threat" but the assessment revealed that they were not all subsequently displaced.
Thirteen people drowned or were killed when their homes collapsed and 43 died from cholera, according to NADMO's report.
Portuphy said that aid agencies were providing medical assistance, food and non-food aid to affected populations in the north.
In addition to providing emergency relief to those affected by the flooding, NADMO has recommended that farmers be resettled. Damaged dams, roads and bridges should be rebuilt and the resurgence of blackflies - aphids which infest beans, sugar beet and other plants - should be checked.
The Black Volta River in the Brong-Ahafo region in central Ghana is now in flood and this is a cause for concern, Portuphy added. "Standby teams are in place to evacuate those living on the banks of Lake Volta," he said.
Abidjan, 1 October 1999; 18:50 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1703
[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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