| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
CONTENTS:
SIERRA LEONE: RUF expels ex-AFRC from northern town SIERRA LEONE: Local organisation designs spoon for amputees LIBERIA: UN Secretary-General welcomes weapons disposal WEST AFRICA: Tripartite discussions on Ghanaian refugees in Togo WEST AFRICA: French development aid for Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana
SIERRA LEONE: RUF expels ex-AFRC from northern town
RUF rebels have occupied the northern town of Makeni expelling members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) who were previously based there, according to the director of CARITAS, Makeni, Ibrahim Sesay.
Sesay told IRIN that the fighting between the two groups
was sparked off by the arrival of a group of RUF from
Kailahun and a group from Magburaka, led by `Brigadier'
Issa Sesay. After taking over the Teko barracks on
the outskirts of Makeni they ended up moving into the
town itself.
A source in Freetown told IRIN: "This was a clash
between personalities, not an organisational skirmish."
However, RUF leader Foday Sankoh told reporters in the Sierra Leonean capital on Tuesday: "We will displace AFRC former soldiers once and for all if they continue to attack our positions in the north as they did on Friday at Makeni and yesterday in Lunsar."
[See separate item titled `SIERRA LEONE: Focus on developments in Makeni']
SIERRA LEONE: Local organisation designs spoon for amputees
An umbrella organisation for the disabled in Sierra
Leone is appealing for funds for the production of
a spoon it has designed to enable people who lost both
hands in the civil war to feed themselves.
The spoon can be attached to the stumps of amputees, enabling them to eat and drink unaided, Foday Kalako, executive director of the Organisation for the Homeless, Disabled and Rural Development (OHDRAD), told IRIN.
"We believe that this will increase the independence of the double amputee," Kalako, who is now in England, said. "We are looking for funding so that the spoons can be distributed free of cost."
Kalako said OHDRAD had already produced three prototypes of the spoons and was working on another device which would enable double amputees to write.
He added that OHDRAD had submitted a proposal to the National Commission for Reconstruction, Resettlement and Rehabilitation (NCRRR), the state body responsible for coordinating relief activities in Sierra Leone.
Some 16 disabled associations on the Freetown peninsula are affiliated to OHDRAD, according to Kalako. The organisation trains amputees and other disabled persons as carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors and in other crafts, and gives loans to some amputees. "We do not want to see the disabled begging on the street," Kalako said.
It also distributes "food for training" supplied by WFP to people in skills centres, while medical care for the amputees is provided by MSF-Belgium, Kalako said.
LIBERIA: UN Secretary-General welcomes weapons disposal
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed the completion of a weapon-destruction programme in Liberia that began on 25 July and ended on Monday.
The programme involved the destruction of over 19,000 small and heavy-calibre weapons and more than three million rounds of ammunition collected by the United Nations and Economic Community of West African States' Peace Monitoring Observer Group (ECOMOG) during a 1996-1997 disarmament exercise.
The weapons were left over from a civil war that started
in 1989 and ended officially in 1997.
Annan said on Tuesday that he believed the weapons disposal
in Liberia represented an important step towards curbing
the dangerous proliferation of weapons in West Africa
and enhancing confidence and cooperation among the
countries and peoples of the region.
WEST AFRICA: Tripartite discussions on Ghanaian refugees in Togo
Ghana, Togo and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) held talks last week on a request by the Ghanaian government for UNHCR assistance in repatriating refugees from Togo, a UNHCR source told IRIN.
Ghana had asked the UNHCR for help in the voluntary repatriation of some 11,000 Ghanaian refugees successfully settled in northern Togo, where they are involved in micro-credit projects, according to the UNHCR source. "We felt they were integrated and they expressed no desire to return," the official said.
The refugees fled Ghana in 1994, following clashes between ethnic communities in the northern, the Dagomba, Nanumba and Konkomba. The UNHCR official said very few wanted to return to Ghana. Most preferred to remain with their kinsmen in Togo, he explained.
WEST AFRICA: French development aid for Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana
Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana are among 11 developing countries to which the Agence francaise de developpement (ADF - French Development Agency) has awarded financial aid in October, the ADF reported.
The sum of 9.45 million euros will go to the rehabilitation of the Buyo hydroelectric dam in south-western Cote d'Ivoire, which accounts for 20 percent of the energy produced in the country, the AFD reported on 13 October. The dam, to which AFD had provided 32 million euros in financing in 1980, also supplies electricity to Ghana, Benin and Togo.
(1 euro is equivalent to US $1.08.)
Ghana is to receive 11 million euros for the second phase of a project to improve drainage infrastructure in Accra.
Other countries for which financing was approved in October include Algeria, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco and Mozambique.
Abidjan, 20 October 1999; 18:49 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1815
[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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