UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-WA Update 594 [19991115]

IRIN-WA Update 594 [19991115]


U N I T E D N A T I O N S Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 21 73 54 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 594 (Monday 15 November 1999)

CONTENTS

SIERRA LEONE: Sankoh goes north on sensitization tour GUINEA: Counting the cost of Sierra Leone's war GUINEA: Counting the cost of Sierra Leone's war NIGERIA: Ijaws youths kill 10 soldiers COTE D'IVOIRE: Burkinabes displaced in the southwest HEALTH: Global alliance against leprosy

SIERRA LEONE: Sankoh goes north on sensitization tour

Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader Foday Sankoh was in the northern town of Makeni on Monday as part of a sensitization tour of areas under the control of the former rebel group, a humanitarian source told IRIN.

The source said the RUF leader received an enthusiastic welcome from a large crowd of supporters when he arrived in Makeni at the weekend, and that he was expected back in Freetown in Wednesday.

The former rebel leader has been travelling to various parts of the country with the stated aim of getting his troops to support the 7 July peace agreement between the RUF and Sierra Leone's government. Earlier last week he travelled to Daru and Segbwema in the east.

The UN Deputy Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Carolyn McAskie, who visited Sierra Leone on 8-11 November, told IRIN on Friday that "humanitarian agencies are still unable to go to large tracts of the north".

[See separate item titled 'SIERRA LEONE: IRIN Focus on the peace processs']

GUINEA: Counting the cost of Sierra Leone's war

The war in Sierra Leone has cost Guinea close to have a billion US dollars since it started in 1991, government officials in Guinea told a donor mission that visited the country last week, according to the head of the team.

That estimate includes the cost of hosting over 300,000 refugees and contributing to the Economic Community of West African States Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) peacekeepers, the UN Deputy Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Carolyn McAskie told IRIN.

In conversations with her mission, which included representatives of donor countries, Guinean officials drew attention to the fact that when there is a crisis, assistance needed to be given to both refugee-producing and host countries.

Before going to Guinea, the mission also travelled to Sierra Leone.

NIGERIA: Floods leave thousands homeless

Floods described as Nigeria's worst in 30 years, have left tens of thousands of people homeless in the Niger Delta, news reports said quoting local officials.

Reuters quoted Augustine Nwikinaka, a spokesman for the governor of Rivers State, as saying 68 communities had been made uninhabitable in one of four affected areas in the state.

The official said crops had been destroyed leaving people without food and that there was fear of an epidemic. An official of the National Emergency Management Agency, which handles disasters, told IRIN she had no information on details of the flooding and could not comment on threats to public health.

Asked whether the military was involved in rescue efforts, an official at the Nigerian Defence Ministry told IRIN on Monday that it had not received a request for help. Appeals, he said, would normally have to pass through the chain of authority from the concerned locality to the federal government.

"I am not aware they have complained that they cannot cope," he said.

Earlier in October, similar rain-fed floods in the north-western state of Niger forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and destroyed thousands of hectares of crops. AFP quoted local media as saying on Sunday that the federal government had approved 25 million naira (US $250,000) in emergency aid to flood victims in Niger State.

Floods have occurred in most other West African countries since July.

NIGERIA: Ijaws youths kill 10 soldiers

Angry Ijaw youths have killed at least 10 soldiers guarding oil facilities in Nigeria's troubled Niger Delta, an official in the Nigerian Defence Ministry told IRIN on Monday.

The `Post Express' newspaper also quoted chief of army staff Major General Victor Malu as saying on Friday that four of the victims were beheaded by Egbesu youths of Bayelsa State. Despite this, he said, the army would continued to defend oil installations.

The police and military have sent reinforcements to the area to prevent further loss of life and property.

The killings follow the murder last week of 12 policemen, triggered by ethnic clashes between young Ijaws and Yoruba youths in the Ajegunle slum area of Lagos city.

COTE D'IVOIRE: Burkinabes displaced in the southwest

Thousands of Burkinabe immigrants have been displaced by communal violence near Tabou, in southwest Cote d'Ivoire, during the past week following a dispute over land rights with members of an Ivoirian ethnic group, the Krumen, according to humanitarian and media sources.

The majority of the Burkinabe immigrants, some of whom arrived in the area more than 10 years ago, have been working on the cocoa plantations.

Boubacar Diabi, acting secretary-general of the Ivoirian Red Cross, which has an office in Tabou, told IRIN on Monday that some 2,500 displaced had arrived in the town from surrounding villages. Another 1,500, half of them children, were in Grabo, some 50 km north-west of Tabou.

The situation was discussed at a "crisis committee" held on Sunday in Tabou and attended by local officials, WFP, UNHCR, Ivoirian Red Cross, Caritas and MSF, Diabi said.

Diabi was unable to verify media reports that thousands of Burkinabes had returned to Burkina Faso. He said some had fled to Soubre, some 150 km north-east of Tabou, where a number opted to remain with relatives while others continued to travel north to their home country.

A statement issued by the government late last week confirmed that there had been an exodus of Burkinabe nationals from the Tabou area. The statement added that regional officials had been told to restore calm and that a ministerial delegation would visit the area to promote dialogue.

HEALTH: Global alliance against leprosy

A global alliance that aims to eliminate leprosy as a public health problem from every country by 2005, was officially launched here by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Monday at the start of three-day conference.

The Global Alliance for Leprosy Elimination and its partners aim to detect and cure some 2.5 million to 2.8 million leprosy sufferers in the world by the end of 2005, thereby eliminating the disease, WHO said in a news release. WHO defines elimination as less than one case per 10,000 persons.

[See separate item titled `IRIN Focus on new drive against leprosy']

Abidjan, 15 November 1999; 18:39 GMT

[ENDS]

[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]

Item: irin-english-1972

[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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