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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 580 for West Africa (Tuesday 26 October 1999)
CONTENTS:
WEST AFRICA: Deputy UN high commissioner for refugees visits GHANA: US $21 million needed now for flood victims GABON: Gabonese, Congolese officials visit refugees NIGERIA: Obasanjo counts the cost of ECOMOG
WEST AFRICA: Deputy UN high commissioner for refugees visits
The new Deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Frederick Barton, arrives in Guinea on Monday night at the start of a week-long mission to West Africa, UNHCR reported on Monday.
Barton, who took up his post at the end of August, will also go to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire in that order. He will meet senior government officials, NGO representatives, the heads of UN agencies and UNHCR staff to review achievements UNHCR has made in the field and problems it has encountered with regard to repatriation and reintegration activities.
It is anticipated, UNHCR said, that by the end of his visit on 4 November, new solutions and approaches will be proposed for the refugee crisis in the subregion, which has one of the highest concentrations of refugees in Africa.
The four countries host a total of about 700,000 refugees, including around 500,000 in Guinea, according to the UNHCR.
Barton said: "For instance in Liberia, we need to think about how to bridge the gap between relief and development. So far, UNHCR has assisted in one way or another more than 300,000 Liberian refugees to go home, but in order to make the return sustainable, development programmes must follow the short-lived humanitarian assistance.
"Therefore, the dialogue with bilateral donors and multilateral organisations to muster their support for long-term economic activities in Liberia is essential."
GHANA: US $21 million needed now for flood victims
Ghana needs an initial US $21 million from the international community to care for flood victims in the country's three northern regions, the 'Daily Graphic' in Accra reported on Tuesday, quoting the chairman of the National Disaster Management Committee, Nii Okaija Adamafio.
Adamafio told diplomats in Accra on Monday at a briefing on the floods that the money was needed for "quick emergency rehabilitation" in the affected Upper West, Upper East and Northern regions.
Of the total relief money sought, he said, US $6 million would be for the immediate rehabilitation of roads, $2 million for drugs, $1 million for tents and another $6 million for relief food over the next six months.
Adamafio, who is also Ghana's minister of the interior, said the government had already spent "well beyond" $5 million on items like blankets, mats, roofing sheets, food medicines to aid the victims. This, he said, was just a fraction of the expected cost of reconstruction..
He said 32,6036 homes had collapsed and 282,227 people affected. So far, 116,579 acres (about 47,180 hectares) is affected. In addition, he said 52 people had died and 29 injured. There had been 1,500 reported cases of cholera and 225 settlements submerged in Upper East Region.
Foreign Minister James Gbeho told the diplomats that the floods followed the heaviest rains in the area in 30 years. The situation, he added, had been worsened by the opening of a hydroelectric dam spillway in neighbouring Burkina Faso.
In response to the crisis, Swiss Ambassador Peter Schwizer said, the Swiss Red Cross has airlifted relief items worth 400 million cedis (US $142,096) to Ghana.
GABON: Gabonese, Congolese officials visit refugees
Congolese, Gabonese government officials visited south-western Gabon at the weekend to look into the situation of Congolese refugees and study prospects for their return home, news organisations reported on Tuesday.
The delegation was accompanied by officials of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Gabon, according to a UNHCR source. It included the Congolese ministers of health/humanitarian action and trade, as well as the Gabonese interior minister.
According to the UNHCR, at least 10,000 people fleeing fighting in Congo have sought refuge in south-eastern Gabon while another 3,000 are estimated to be in Libreville.
The real figure is thought to be much higher since, a humanitarian source told IRIN, many refugees have been hiding from the authorities.
NIGERIA: Obasanjo counts the cost of ECOMOG
Nigeria had at least 500 soldiers killed, several hundred wounded and spent at least US $8 billion during its seven-year peacekeeping operation in Liberia, President Olusegun Obasanjo said on Monday.
`The Guardian', a Lagos newspaper, reported on Tuesday
that this was the first official casualty figure given
by any Nigerian leader since the ECOWAS Peace Monitoring
Group (ECOMOG) first landed in Liberia in 1990.
Nigeria largely paid for and led the force that peaked
at 15,000 in Liberia, and is still deployed in neighbouring
Sierra Leone.
Obasanjo, who has promised transparency during his tenure of office, made the disclosure at a reception held in Abuja on the arrival of the last Nigerian ECOMOG soldiers from Liberia. He said scores of soldiers had been maimed for life and many others went missing in action.
"We will never know the number of Nigerian civilians who lost their lives in the crisis in Liberia," he added.
Nigeria has also started its disengagement from ECOMOG's operations in Sierra Leone, following the recent signing of the Lome Peace Accord between the country's government and rebels.
However, the United Nations says it expects Nigerian troops to take part in a UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to be deployed in the country.
Abidjan, 26 October 1999; 17:05 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1853
[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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