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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 567 for West Africa (Thursday 7 October 1999)
CONTENTS
SIERRA LEONE: Child soldiers released SIERRA LEONE: Britain to ship arms SIERRA LEONE: Anti-corruption workshop held by government GUINEA-BISSAU: Security Council appeals for financial help GABON: More refugees from Congo NIGERIA: Flood-ravaged communities sue NEPA, Niger State LIBERIA: Elections Commission calls for census LIBERIA: Suspected diarrhoea kills two in the southeast
SIERRA LEONE: Child soldiers released
Former rebels have released 70 child soldiers in Lunsar, some 70 km east of Freetown, Major Toby Lyle, military spokesman of the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) told IRIN on Thursday.
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC - Sierra Leone's former military junta) released the children on 2 October and handed them over to military observers of UNOMSIL and the ECOWAS Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).
"We expect more child soldiers to be released in Port Loko (northeast of Freetown) this Saturday," Lyle said.
The Committee on the Release of Prisoners of War and Non-combatants, chaired by UNOMSIL, has set up two reception centres for released abductees, one in Waterloo on the outskirts of Freetown and the other in the eastern town of Kenema.
[See separate item titled 'Seventy child soldiers released']
SIERRA LEONE: Britain to ship arms
Britain has notified a UN Security Council sanctions committee that it will be exporting live ammunition and military equipment to Sierra Leone for use by the new army, the second such shipment from the United Kingdom to Freetown this year.
"The supply of military equipment comprises a small part of Britain's pledge of 4.5 million pounds to help retrain the Sierra Leonean army," a British foreign ministry spokesman in London told IRIN. "Britain has given another 5.5 million pounds directly to ECOMOG," the spokesman added.
Paragraph four of UN Security Council Resolution 1171 in June 1998 says: "States shall notify all exports from their territories of arms or related materiel to Sierra Leone to the (sanctions) Committee established by resolution 1132 (1997)..."
Paragraph two of the June 1998 Resolution bans all arms exports to "Sierra Leone other than to the Government of Sierra Leone through named points of entry on a list to be supplied by that Government to the (UN) Secretary-General".
"We are notifying the UN sanctions committee out of courtesy and in the interest of transparency," the foreign ministry spokesman said.
Reuters reported that, according to a letter circulated by the sanctions committee's chairman, Britain notified the body that it was exporting 132 general purpose machine guns and two million rounds of ammunition for them, mortars, rifles and other military supplies. The Foreign Office spokesman told IRIN he was unable to confirm the details of the arms and ammunition.
SIERRA LEONE: Anti-corruption workshop held by government
Sierra Leone's government, with the support of Britain's Department for International Development, held an anti-corruption workshop on Tuesday as part of an ongoing effort to weed out corruption in the public services.
Launched by President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah the workshop was attended by cabinet ministers and other senior government officials, Septimus Kaikai, the presidential spokesman, told IRIN.
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader Foday Sankoh, and Johnny Paul Koroma, head of the former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), also attended.
"The workshop focused on three areas in the fight against corruption," Kaikai said "prevention, enforcement and education".
Kaikai said that an anti-corruption bill now before parliament would, when enacted, provide the legal basis for establishing an anti-corruption commission.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Security Council appeals for financial help
UN Security Council members appealed on Wednesday for contributions to a trust fund for Guinea-Bissau and urged those countries that have already made pledges to follow through.
In a press statement, Council President Sergey Lavrov of the Russian Federation said members noted the positive developments in Guinea-Bissau, particularly the stabilised political climate and the movement in a "peaceful and orderly fashion" towards legislative and presidential elections on 28 November.
Council members called on the transitional government and all political forces in the country to proceed in good faith with the implementation of the disarmament and demobilisation programme, Lavrov said.
They also called for a continuation of the reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation processes and for the elections to be held as scheduled in "free and transparent conditions".
GABON: More refugees from Congo
About 3,100 refugees fleeing the war-ravaged Republic of Congo arrived last week in Haut-Ogooue, south-eastern Gabon, bringing to 9,900 the number registered in the country so far, a UNHCR official told IRIN on Thursday.
"Lots more have not come out (to be registered) because they fear government may send them back," he said.
The official said that in a survey last week, UNHCR recorded another 3,000 refugees, 80 percent of them Congolese, in the Gabonese capital, Libreville.
The first wave of 3,800 Congolese refugees arrived in May at a site in the south-western region of Nyanga, near the border with Congo.
[See separate item titled 'Another 3,100 refugees arrive']
NIGERIA: Flood-ravaged communities sue NEPA, Niger State
Communities in northwest Nigeria have filed a lawsuit against the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA) and the Niger State government for opening sluice gates on two dams that submerged hundreds of villages, `The Guardian' newspaper in Lagos reported on Thursday.
Different sources have estimated the death toll at anywhere between 15 and hundreds. Tens of thousands of people have reportedly been forced to flee to higher ground.
The 33 communities sued NEPA and the state for 1.5 billion naira (US $15.77 million), according to 'The Guardian'. They are asking for special and general damages from NEPA and for the state government to provide immediate temporary shelter. They claim that under the terms of a land acquisition act, NEPA was legally bound to compensate them for loss of their land, the newspaper said.
The villages were submerged when NEPA opened sluice gates on its Jabba and Kainji dams on the River Niger to ease the pressure on them.
The flooding has affected a heavily populated area between the Niger River basin and the Kaduna River. The newspaper quoted officials of Niger and Kwara states as saying on Wednesday that the affected area stretched at least 200 km along the Niger River and 40 km on either side of it.
A news source told IRIN on Thursday that there was also severe flooding 40 km downstream of the Shiroro Dam near Minna, capital of Niger state.
"The flooding is a catastrophe," Niger State spokesman Shiabu Mohammed said. "There are hundreds of villages under water, fields of crops under water. People have lost their homes. People have lost their livelihoods."
LIBERIA: Elections Commission calls for census
Liberia's Elections Commission chairman, Paul Guah, has called for a national population census so that constituencies can be established across the country, independent Star radio reported on Wednesday.
Liberia last held a census in 1984 and was due for another 10 years later.
Guah's appeal on Tuesday was made at a meeting with political parties, called to discuss a senatorial bi-election due on 30 November in Grand Bassa County.
LIBERIA: Suspected diarrhoea kills two in the southeast
Two people have died of a disease thought to be diarrhoea in Buchanan, a town in Grand Bass County some 100 km southeast of Monrovia, the independent Star radio reported on Monday. Reports form the town said 38 more people were undergoing treatment at various health facilities
The administrator of the government hospital, Augustine Nagbe, said most patients were suffering from running stomachs and that many were infants and elderly people. The main cause of the disease, he said, had not yet been established, but health officials suspect contaminated food and pollution.
Abidjan, 7 October 1999; 18:37 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1738
[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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