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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Update 600 (Tuesday 23 November 1999)
CONTENTS:
NIGERIA: Troop deployment to Bayelsa SENEGAL: Government raised US $1.9 for flood victims LIBERIA: Polio campaign launched LIBERIA: Donor assessment mission expresses satisfaction over security LIBERIA: Country faces long road to recovery WESTERN SAHARA: UNHCR Assistant Commissioner to go on five-day mission
NIGERIA: Troop deployment to Bayelsa
Government troops sent to Bayelsa State at the weekend are there to halt the growing lawlessness, protect residents of the area and not to make war, presidential spokesman Doyin Okupe said on Tuesday on state television.
"The security forces," he said, "were deployed to the area under the control of the state governor, who is the chief security officer of the state, primarily to ensure the enforcement of law and order, the speedy return of normalcy and peace."
Governor Diepreye Alameyeseigha said on television on Monday that the presence of soldiers in Odi, Koluma, Okokuma local government areas of the state was to arrest bandits in the area. Twelve policemen were kidnapped and killed by militant youths from the Ijaw ethnic group two weeks ago.
Human rights groups have criticised the use of troops, calling for regular law enforcement measures to be used to arrest the killers of the policemen.
"This is the worst possible response to the unrest in the Delta," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa Division of US-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement on Monday. "The rule of law clearly needs to be restored, but government lawlessness of this kind can only make the situation worse."
However, presidential spokesman Okupe said that police reinforcements sent to the area had been assaulted "and forcibly turned back at illegal road blocks mounted by armed hoodlums".
The Ijaw National Congress USA (INCUSA) said it supported a call by "several organisations and individuals" in Nigeria for a sovereign national conference to discuss the restructuring of the Nigerian federation in solving the problems in the Delta and elsewhere.
SENEGAL: Government raised US $1.9 for flood victims
Senegal has so far raised 1.2 billion francs (about US $ 1.9 million) for the tens of thousands of people made homeless by rain-caused floods in the country this year, an official heading a committee monitoring national disasters told IRIN on Tuesday.
The official, Colonel Mamadou Dione, said the committee needed some 3.2 billion CFA (about US $5.04 million) to care for the 23,400 homeless. He said Senegal had informed development partners of the country's needs.
Heavy rains caused flooding in many parts of West Africa this year and in some countries they were described as the worst downpours in 30 years. In Senegal, the worst hit area was the River Senegal valley in the north of the country where, during successive years of drought, families had settled sensing no potential danger from flooding.
An official in the governor's office in the northern city of St. Louis, Momodou Mustapha, told IRIN on Monday that 1,200 people were displaced by the flooding and 50,000 suffered property losses.
LIBERIA: Polio campaign launched
A campaign to sensitise the public about polio eradication was launched on Sunday in Tubmanburg, Bomi County, the National Coordinator of the National Immunisation Days (NIDs) told IRIN.
Social mobilisation activities preparing the population for vaccination will last until 15 January, Dr Abebu Hiedala said on Tuesday, "while the actual vaccination will take place over two days in each of the following months, January, February and March".
Parents will be encouraged to take their children to local sites, health centres, churches or markets, as designated by the county health officer. All children under the age of five are targeted for vaccination and some 700,000 are expected to receive the vaccine in the first three months of the year. Non-governmental organisations will provide logistical support such as fuel and vehicles, while employees will also be seconded as volunteers to help carry out the programme, he said.
In 1988 the World Health Assembly established a target to eradicate polio worldwide by the year 2000. Partners include the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and Rotary International. Liberia joined the global polio eradication project in 1998 and in January this year, Hiedala said, vaccinated some 650,000 children.
LIBERIA: Donor assessment mission expresses satisfaction over security
The multi-donor team which ended a four-day mission on Friday said that security was no longer an impediment to the country's economic development, independent Star Radio reported on Saturday.
However, the team urged the government to continue efforts to eliminate in security abuses and harassment of the public. The team also emphasised the need for training and the reduction of the security forces in the country, Star said. It called for an improved, independent and functional judiciary and recommended that priority be given to poverty alleviation and economic growth, the radio added.
Sources in Liberia said that the findings of the mission will inform donors how best to deliver on pledges made at a Paris conference in April 1998. At that meeting 11 countries agreed to provide Liberia with at least US $200 million in the first phase of a two-year national reconstruction programme.
LIBERIA: Country faces long road to recovery
Post-war Liberia still has a long way to go to recover from seven years of civil war, according to a report published on Sunday entitled "Future Unknown: Liberians face Fragile Transition to Peace," by Refugees Report (RR).
According to RR staff writer Jeff Drumtra, the country's infrastructure is still severely affected by years of war. The capital Monrovia remains without electricity, prices remain higher and supplies of staple foods and goods remain lower than pre-war level. He added that several key highways are impassable one-third of the year because of rains and years of neglect.
The report, based on interviews with former refugees, displaced persons and aid workers, found that "many Liberians expressed mixed emotions about their return home and their prospects for the future."
Drumtra said that post-civil war Liberia was left with "a tenuous peace that is threatened by undisciplined soldiers, disillusioned ex-combatants, pockets of ethnic hostility and economic hardship."
A full copy of the report can be found at http://www.reliefweb.int.
WESTERN SAHARA: UNHCR Assistant Commissioner to go on five-day mission
The UNHCR Assistant Commissioner, Soren Jessen-Petersen, leaves on Saturday for a five-day trip in the Western Sahara region, UNHCR spokesperson Kris Janowski said on Friday in Geneva.
UNHCR is the agency in charge of the repatriation to Western Sahara of some 100,000 Sahrawi who have been refugees in the Tindouf camps in Algeria for more than 25 years. Their return home will precede the referendum on self-determination for the Sahrawi population which is scheduled to take place in December 2000, Janowski said.
Jessen-Petersen will visit Algiers, Tindouf, Laayoune
and Rabat and discuss the preparatory work of the repatriation
programme with all parties involved, UNHCR said.
Abidjan, 23 November 1999; 18:50 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-2020
[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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