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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 569 for West Africa (Monday 11 October 1999)
CONTENTS:
SIERRA LEONE: Polio vaccination campaign kicks off SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG to form nucleus of new peacekeeping force SIERRA LEONE: US gives $34.2 million in humanitarian aid in 1999 GUINEA-BISSAU: Refugees ready to return home from Guinea GUINEA-BISSAU: EU grants US $5 million GUINEA-BISSAU: Mass Grave LIBERIA: Monrovia plans to improve water, electricity NIGERIA: State government seeks help to resettle flood victims
SIERRA LEONE: Polio vaccination campaign kicks off
Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah on Saturday launched a nationwide polio vaccination campaign, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official in Freetown told IRIN.
The launch was also attended by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader Foday Sankoh and Johnny Paul Koroma, head of the former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), the military junta that ruled Sierra Leone from May 1997 to February 1998.
The five-day campaign will target 800,000 children under the age of five years and is a major step forward in the global fight to eradicate polio, according to a statement issued by WHO's headquarters in Geneva.
Sierra Leone is the last country to begin a nationwide polio eradication campaign. "As we are behind other countries the second and third phases of the campaign will be launched in November and December," the WHO official in Freetown said.
The campaign involves thousands of health workers and volunteers. It is one of the first national civilian undertakings in Sierra Leone since 7 July, when the RUF and the government signed an agreement in Lome to end an eight-year rebel war.
WHO, UNICEF and Rotary International are spearheading a global campaign to eradicate polio by next year. Since 1998, when this goal was set, the estimated number of paralytic polio cases worldwide has fallen from almost 400,000 to 20,000, WHO said.
SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG to form nucleus of new peacekeeping force
ECOMOG will form the nucleus of the proposed 6,000-strong UN peace-keeping force in Sierra Leone, Radio Nigeria quoted Colonel Godwin Ugbo, Nigeria's director of defence information, as saying at a briefing.
However, Ugbo said the structure, control and command of the new force would be determined by the United Nations.
The UN Security Council is considering a 23-September report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in which he recommended the deployment of the force.
SIERRA LEONE: US gives $34.2 million in humanitarian aid in 1999
The United States earmarked US $34.2 million in humanitarian assistance for Sierra Leone in fiscal 1999, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said in its most recent fact sheet.
USAID's Food for Peace (FFP) programme provided US $15.4 million in food aid while the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), another section of the USAID, gave US $13.89 million in humanitarian assistance.
Following the signing of the Lome accord, OFDA gave additional funds to its partners to enable emergency programmes to be undertaken in previously inaccessible areas, USAID said. Health, nutrition, water and sanitation,agriculture and the provision of non-food relief items are the sectors targeted for support.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Refugees ready to return home from Guinea
For the first time since they fled their country in 1998, Guinea-Bissau refugees in neighboring Guinea (Conakry) have told the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that they want to go home, UNHCR reported on Friday.
UNHCR staff who surveyed the group of 1,800 refugees
during a mission to the border town of Boke, 200 km
north of Conakry, registered 600 volunteers for repatriation,
UNHCR said.
Up to the previous week, the group had said they would
not return even though refugees had begun going back
to Guinea-Bissau from other countries earlier this
year: UNHCR completed a return operation from Senegal
at the end of July, with more than 700 refugees returning
home from Dakar by boat.
The first repatriations from Boke are expected to take place later this month.
UNHCR has also been caring for 700 Guinea-Bissau refugees in Gambia and 600 in Cape Verde since civil war broke out in the West African nation in June last year, culminating in the overthrow of President Joao Bernardo Vieira in May 1999.
GUINEA-BISSAU: EU grants US $5 million
The European Union (EU) has provided Guinea-Bissau with US $5 million for its national reconstruction programme, a humanitarian source told IRIN.
According to AFP, the aid is the first tranche of an
aid package totalling US $11 million which the EU has
decided to grant to the country. Much of it will go
towards reestablishing electricity services and reconstructing
public buildings in the capital, Bissau, and the main
provincial centres. AFP said the office of Bissau's
mayor will also receive assistance to help it clean
up the city.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Mass Grave
At least 22 bodies, said to be those of people killed following an aborted coup in 1985, have been found in a mass grave in Mansoa, 65 km northeast of the capital, after a search ordered by Attorney-General Amine Saad, various sources reported.
According to Lusa, two of the bodies were those of former Justice Minister and Vice President Paulo Correia, and Viriato Pam, a former attorney general, both of whom disappeared after being sentenced to death by a military tribunal in 1986.
The AssociaÁ"o para a CooperaÁ"o Entre os Povos (ACEP - an umbrella of lusophone NGOs) reported on Monday that the identities of 16 of the victims were unknown since officially, only six people had been executed in 1986.
In September, another mass grave containing 14 bodies was found in Bissau. Police said the victims, whose bodies had been tied up, may have been political prisoners executed before Vieira's overthrow.
LIBERIA: Monrovia plans to improve water, electricity
The Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) is working with a presidential task force to repair the Monrovia water supply system, independent Star radio reported.
Most residents of the Liberian capital do not receive piped water but have to buy it from reservoirs borne by trucks or pump it by hand from poorly-treated wells.
LWSC said on Sunday that it had awarded contracts to
local companies to implement the rehabilitation programme,
which currently focuses on the repair of a treatment
plant and a pipeline.
Meanwhile, Star quoted Joseph Mayah, Managing Director
of the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC), as saying
that LEC is to change from the 110- to the 220-volt
system. This, Mayah said, would facilitate investment
in hydro energy, which would enable LEC to make a profit
from the generation and sale of electricity at affordable
costs.
Monrovia has been without power since 1992 when faction fighters destroyed the hydro-electric plant which used to provide energy to the city. Since his inauguration in August 1997 President Charles Taylor has repeatedly promised to bring power to the capital.
NIGERIA: State government seeks help to resettle flood victims
The government of Niger state in northern Nigeria says it is seeking assistance to resettle and provide supplies for the victims of the worst flooding there in three decades.
The state government said the disaster - caused by the spillage of water from the Kainji hydroelectric dam on the Niger river - was more than it could handle and required federal and international assistance, a media source in Lagos told IRIN.
Tens of thousands of people in 15 of Niger state's 25 local government areas have been made homeless, and entire harvests - mostly millet, rice and wheat - have been wiped out, the source said. News organisations quoted state governor Abdulkhadir Kure as saying about 100,000 hectares of farmland were under water.
Estimates of the death toll vary from the official figure of 18 to dozens. The media source told IRIN the most credible estimate appeared to be around 50. The flooding has contaminated drinking water sources and there is a danger of epidemics, especially cholera, according to the state authorities.
Abidjan, 11 October 1999; 18:10 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1780
[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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