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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 565 for West Africa (Tuesday 5 October 1999)
CONTENTS:
SIERRA LEONE: Annan calls on rebel leaders to work for peace SIERRA LEONE: Commonwealth calls for reconstruction aid SIERRA LEONE: Humanitarian situation in Kailahun "bad but not desperate" SIERRA LEONE: Cholera cases increase in Freetown, death rate down GUINEA-BISSAU: Humanitarian situation improves GUINEA-BISSAU: UNOGBIS organises training for 20 lawyers LIBERIA: Rehabilitation of basic services still needed - USAID LIBERIA: USAID promotes relief to recovery
SIERRA LEONE: Annan calls on rebel leaders to work for peace
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday he trusted Sierra Leone's former rebel leader and ex-junta chief would " work resolutely" to implement the Lome peace agreement.
The leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), Foday Sankoh and Johnny Paul Koroma, returned to Freetown on Monday, nearly three months after the accord was signed.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General
in Sierra Leone, Francis Okelo, reported that Sankoh
and Koroma's return to Freetown was greeted with a
"sigh of relief" by Freetown residents, a
UN spokesman said.
SIERRA LEONE: Commonwealth calls for reconstruction
aid
The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) has called on the international community to help Sierra Leone rebuild after its devastating war.
The latest appeal came in a statement issued on Monday at the end its 12th meeting that started on 30 September.
Established by the Commonwealth Heads of Government
in 1995 to review serious and persistent violations
of Commonwealth principles as outlined in the Harare
Declaration, CMAG comprises ministers from eight Commonwealth
countries and is chaired by the Commonwealth Secretary-General,
Emeka Anyaoku.
Commonwealth member countries are also urged to implement
the Commonwealth Action Plan for Sierra Leone, the
action group said.
"This plan aims to support United Nations and regional efforts to rehabilitate Sierra Leone beyond the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration phase," Kaye Whiteman, director of information at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, told IRIN.
"We are currently approaching a number of Commonwealth countries to provide assistance to help rebuild the Sierra Leone police force," he said.
He added that concrete commitments were expected to be made at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting scheduled for 12-15 November in Durban, South Africa.
The CMAG also called for the "full and effective implementation" of the Lome agreement and for Commonwealth governments to support the UN Secretary-General's recommendations in his report to the Security Council issued last week.
The Commonwealth is one of the 10 moral guarantors of
the Lome agreement signed on 7 July by the government
of Sierra Leone and the RUF.
SIERRA LEONE: Humanitarian situation in Kailahun "bad
but not desperate"
The overall humanitarian situation in RUF-held towns between Kenema and Kailahun in eastern Sierra Leone is "bad but not desperate", the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (HACU) said in a recent report.
However, interventions in the areas of health, water and sanitation, education and shelter are urgently needed. These were the preliminary findings and recommendations of an interagency mission which assessed the area from 29 September to 1 October.
Led by WFP the 10-member team - which included representatives from UNHCR, UNICEF, World Vision and HACU - flew to Kenema before travelling by road to Buedu and Kailahun, stopping en route in the towns of Segbwema, Daru, Kuiva, Mobai and Pendembu.
While missions had been undertaken by air to Buedu and Kailahun earlier this year, HACU said, the latest mission by road to Kailahun was the first in nearly a decade.
Accompanied by four UNOMSIL military observers and two members of the Sierra Leone Roads Authority the mission proceeded smoothly with the maximum cooperation of security forces in the area.
The mission reconfirmed that relief agencies could now move freely into Kailahun District provided prior information on their itineraries was given to the RUF's humanitarian wing, the Organisation for the Survival of Mankind (OSM).
The mission observed no signs of malnutrition among the population, although some essential food items, such as rice, were either not available or in short supply.
Considerable damage inflicted on buildings in some RUF-held towns in Kailahun District during the war caused residents to flee their homes for the bushes but, the mission reported, some 3,000 refugees had returned.
SIERRA LEONE: Cholera cases increase in Freetown, death rate down
Cholera cases have risen by nearly 25 percent in the Freetown peninsula from 633 on 22 September to 863 by 28 September, the United Nations Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (HACU) reports. However, the death rate is on the decline with 8 dead as at 30 September, OCHA says.
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation and health agencies have taken several initiatives to combat the disease. Large consignments of Oral Rehydration Salts and IV fluids have been prepositioned in affected areas and cholera preparedness campaigns have been launched in other parts of the country.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Humanitarian situation improves
Some US $4.4 million of humanitarian international aid is needed to help returning refugees and the internally displaced resettle, and the latter's host families recover from a military revolt that ended in May, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in his latest report on the country. . Quoting UNHCR, he said 1,137 of the estimated 1,572 people had so far have been repatriated from Cape Verde, The Gambia, Portugal and Senegal. "Many other refugees are returning of their own volition," he said. An estimated 50,000 internally displaced persons have decided to settle "at least temporarily" with host families, he said, thereby contributing to the ongoing farming activity.
The fighting left thousands of refugees and internally displaced homeless. Fewer than half of the estimated 5,000 homes destroyed in and around Bissau had been rebuilt, he said, and the lack of construction material had delayed reconstruction.
GUINEA-BISSAU: UNOGBIS organises training for 20 lawyers
The United Nations Peace-building Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS) is helping organise a training programme for 20 lawyers that will hopefully quicken trials in the country, Annan said in his report.
UNOGBIS is working with civil society groups, the Attorney General's office, the president of the Supreme Court and the justice minister, who are trying to speed up hearings for 600 political and military prisoners detained after the fall of ex-president Joao Bernardo Vieira, in May.
"However, concern continues to be raised about the sub-standard conditions of the detention of these prisoners. Many of the cells in which they are detained are ill-designed and ill-equipped for extended confinement," Annan said in his report of 29 September on the country and on UNOGBIS activities.
In a show of national reconciliation, Annan said, self-styled Military Junta leader Brigadier General Ansumane Mane met with two imprisoned senior military officers in the presence of their families, the Attorney General and an official of the presidency.
Subsequently, Annan said, his representatives and a human rights officer visited all prisoners to review their conditions of detention and recommend improvements.
"The visits were also meant to demonstrate to the prisoners that the international community cares about their fate," Annan said.
LIBERIA: Rehabilitation of basic services still needed - USAID
Restoration of basic services, destroyed during a nine-year civil war, would constitute a magnet home for Liberia's remaining refugees, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said in its latest situation report of 30 September.
In the report ranging from political affairs to the food situation in the country, USAID noted that most of the country's infrastructure was destroyed and that the conventional economy had virtually ceased to function. Supplies of potable water and electricity, food, shelter and health care are insufficient and a climate of insecurity hangs over the country.
Yet, USAID said, with three years of relative peace, conditions in Liberia no longer required emergency funding as they did at the height of the civil crisis.
LIBERIA: USAID promotes relief to recovery
USAID is helping Liberia move from receiving relief to recovery, the agency said in its situation report. USAID said it was encouraging these efforts through programmes in agriculture, education and other community reintegration activities for the victims of war: child soldiers and disabled veterans. In the fiscal year for 1999, the agency gave US $10.77 million to retrain demobilised soldiers, provided aid for agriculture, primary health care, disease control, good governance and the protection of human rights. In the same period, the US State Department's Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) gave US $7.78 million for the resettlement of Liberian refugees. The US government has, so far, for fiscal 1999 spent US $32.98 million in humanitarian aid to Liberia.
During this period, USAID and the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance reactivated primary care services in nine of Liberia's counties thereby, USAID said, "significantly improving" primary health care coverage. The activities funded included basic curative services, reproductive and maternal/child health care, and the training of health workers. Others are the extended programme of immunization, health and hygiene education, pharmaceutical distribution, training of traditional birth attendants, reestablishing cost recovery systems and community involvement.
USAID supported five health sector NGOs in fiscal year 1999 in reducing malnutrition-related deaths among children under five years old. They have done this by operating therapeutic and supplementary feeding centres in Montserrado, Bong, River Cess and Grand Bassa countries.
Abidjan, 5 October 1999; 18:52 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1719
[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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