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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 37 covering the period 11-17 September 1999
WEST AFRICA: Guinea, Liberia agree to live in peace
After weeks of trading accusations of supporting insurgents fighting each other's governments, Guinea and Liberia pledged on Thursday to end hostilities immediately and live in peace.
They made the undertaking at an emergency summit in Abuja, Nigeria, called by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to ease the tension between the two countries.
Presidents Lansana Conte of Guinea and Charles Taylor of Liberia agreed at the summit to abide by a mutual defence pact that requires members of the 16-nation community to refrain from supporting anti-government rebels.
Tensions rose to an all-time high this month when Guinea threatened to retaliate against Liberia for attacks on 10 September on three Guinean villages in which 28 people died. Earlier this week Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea denied his country's involvement. Presidents Conte and Taylor are now required to establish direct lines of communication for regular consultations, according to a communique issued at the end of the summit.
LIBERIA: Slow start to Sierra Leonean refugee relocation
Although UNHCR received an agreement in principle for the relocation of thousands of Sierra Leonean refugees fleeing insecurity in northern Liberia a month ago, it has yet to obtain clearance from the Liberian government for the move to a safer site nearer Monrovia, UNHCR reported.
Around 5,000 Sierra Leonean refugees have regrouped in Tarvey, some 200 km from Monrovia in Lower Lofa County. They fled there in August after armed attacks on villages in northern Lofa which forced the relocation of aid workers and left humanitarian stocks and offices looted. UNHCR is seeking to transfer these refugees and another 8,000 who remained in Kolahun in Upper Lofa.
UNDP to strengthen environmental commission
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is to help strengthen the Liberia National Commission on the Environment under a US $450,000-project. An agreement on this was signed on 2 September by the UNDP and the Ministry of Development.
The project will facilitate Liberia's signing and adherence to the international conventions on Climate Change and Biodiversity. It will also enable Liberia to implement a national environmental outreach programme aimed at informing the public on major environmental concerns.
SIERRA LEONE: Joint World Bank/donor assessment mission due Monday
A joint mission led by the World Bank to assess Sierra
Leone's reconstruction needs starts on Monday 20 September,
a World Bank official in Washington D.C. told IRIN.
The Bank considers timely donor aid as crucial to consolidating
the Lome peace accord signed by the government and
rebel forces and recent improvements in security in
the county.
The mission - led by World Bank Country Director for
Guinea Momodou Dia - will also enable the World Bank
and donors to define a framework for moving from humanitarian
to development assistance, the Bank said.
Dia is scheduled to leave Sierra Leone for Guinea on Thursday. The mission also includes representatives of Britain, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, The African Development Bank, UN Economic Commission for Africa, UN-OCHA, UNOMSIL, UNDP and USAID.
Food reaches Makeni
Relief agencies have distributed food to thousands of people in the rebel-controlled northern town of Makeni, humanitarian sources told IRIN on Monday. The World Food Programme (WFP) regional information officer in Abidjan, Wagdi Othman, told IRIN relief agencies sent a 65-truck convoy carrying 1,200 mt of food to the town on 11 September. He said distributions started on 13 September to a registered caseload of 97,000 in the Makeni area.
Registration completed in Mile 91 and Yele
CARE USA has completed the registration of internally displaced people in the towns of Yele and in the area of Mile 91, the NGO said on Monday. Until recently, these towns were inaccessible to humanitarian agencies due to armed conflict in the area. CARE issued emergency relief supplies, food for one month and identification cards to needy families. CARE described Mile 91, the distance east of Freetown, as a "strategic junction" of the country's northern and southern trucking routes.
Cholera kills 17
A cholera outbreak since 1 September has killed 17 people and infected 352 others, the head of disease prevention and control at the Ministry of Health in Freetown, Dr Haroun Thuray, told IRIN. From 9-10 September, 14 deaths and 29 cases were recorded in Port Loko district alone. A World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman in Freetown told IRIN that WHO was trying to determine whether cholera was also present in other parts of Sierra Leone, particularly Kambia district, 100 km north of Freetown on the border with Guinea, which WHO describes as a "reservoir of cholera".
Rebels release two Guinean ECOMOG troops
Former soldiers of the ousted ex-Sierra Leone military (ex-SLA) released on Monday two Guinean members of the West African Peace Monitoring Group, ECOMOG.
ECOMOG said that on Tuesday, the Inspector General of Guinea's army, Colonel Karfalla Kamara, welcomed the gesture. He said said it was a reflection of the genuine interest of all Sierra Leoneans in the restoration of peace in the country.
GHANA: Floods in the north worsen cholera outbreak
A cholera outbreak in northern Ghana has intensified
in the wake of two weeks of heavy flooding, relief
workers and other sources told IRIN. The secretary-general
of the Ghanaian Red Cross, Anthony Gyedu-Adomako, told
IRIN 1,220 cholera cases and 27 deaths had been recorded
in Builsa district. Another 81 cases and eight deaths
were recorded in Kassena Nankana District as at 12
September.
Local newspapers reported that some 320,000 people had
been made homeless by the floods in the north when
the White Volta, Red Volta and Sissili rivers burst
their banks in the Upper East region and the Black
Volta River in Upper West. Most affected are residents
of these areas and in parts of the Northern Region.
A local source told IRIN that the flooding in Ghana had been exacerbated by the opening of spillway outlets to relieve pressure in Burkina Faso's Bagre Dam.
Gyedu-Adomako said relief aid had been difficult to provide because roads and bridges had either been damaged or destroyed.
"Many places are only accessible by air," he said. The military has been flying relief sorties to sites inaccessible by road.
WEST AFRICA: Crop, pasture outlook good, despite excessive rains
Despite unusually heavy rains in July in seven Sahelian countries, crop and pasture outlook in the subregion is "generally favourable", the FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System says.
In its latest weather and crop situation report on 10 September it says the rains especially benefited farmers in Mauritania, northern Senegal and Mali.
However, it says excess water may reduce the yield potential in flooded fields in low-lying areas. The rains caused "substantial flooding" in Burkina Faso, Chad, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.
Grasshoppers in this zone thrive on good rains and healthy crops. Infestations of grasshoppers and army worms have been reported in Cape Verde, Niger and Senegal, while stem borers have caused damage to millet in northern Burkina Faso.
FAO warns that although no desert locusts have been reported in any country, small-scale breeding may occur although no significant developments are expected.
BENIN-TOGO: Specialists team up against the Guinea worm
Beninese and Togolese specialists have produced a six-point plan to reduce the already diminishing incidence of the Guinea worm disease in communities along their common border, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday.
Experts from both countries decided at a two-day meeting last week in Savalou, Benin, that village volunteers, community coordinators and health workers needed to be retrained on proper reporting of the disease.
Other preventive measures include getting experts on the disease in both countries to consult each other in their efforts to eradicate the worm. Another recommendation is to mobilise communities to pass on information on Guinea worm sufferers crossing their common border.
The Guinea worm parasite - dracunculus medinensis - lives beneath the skin of humans and other vertebrates. It remains a health hazard for the communities concerned, the experts said.
The number of communities reporting cases of the disease in Togo has declined. In 1998, the 215 villages reported cases and this year 92. Benin's Ministry of Public Health reported there were 37,474 cases of the disease in 1990 and 695 last year.
GHANA: University closed
The University of Ghana was closed and students ordered off campus on Tuesday following protests against a sharp increase in tuition fees, the official Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) reported.
In a statement, the university's Executive Committee said students failing to vacate the campus would be considered trespassers and subject to eviction. Foreign students are being allowed to stay on campus but are required to produce identification on demand.
The authorities closed the university after protesters destroyed university property and intimidated students who wanted to attend classes. University officials have also accused militant students of kidnapping.
An associate professor of social sciences at the university, Emmanuel Gyamah-Boadi, told IRIN on Wednesday at least 50 percent of the students supported the protests.
The protests followed an increase in fees from the equivalent of US $120 to US $800 per year. The government decided to award bursaries totalling three billion cedis (US $ 1.1 million) to offset the hike, but the protesters want the amount increased to 13 billion cedis ($4.9 million).
COTE D'IVOIRE: Police release 388 opposition supporters
Ivorian police released on Thursday 388 supporters of opposition politician Alassane Ouattara arrested two days earlier outside his home following a clash with policemen who had gone there to deliver a summons. The Ministry of Security said President Henri Konan Bedie took the measure in the interest of public peace.
Ouattara's supporters had begun an all-night vigil around
his home in Abidjan on Monday out of fear that he would
be arrested by police. When policemen arrived there
on Tuesday to deliver a letter from the public prosecutor,
they were beaten up, the Security Ministry said. Reinforcements
were then sent.
The letter informed Ouattara, leader of the Rassemblement
des Republicains (RDR), that he would be questioned
on Thursday by police regarding the authenticity of
some of his documents.
The documents, offered as proof of his Ivoirian nationality, are being contested by the state which says he is ineligible to run for president because he is not an Ivoirian citizen of Ivoirian parentage.
After he produced documents in an attempt to prove his citizenship and parentage, an investigation was launched by the Justice Ministry to determine whether his papers were authentic.
AFRICA: Search for vaccine dominates AIDS conference
An air of optimism dominated the 11th International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa (ICASA) in Lusaka as experts expressed growing confidence in the prospect of an early HIV vaccine.
Hopes were buoyed by the disclosure that production had started on the first HIV-vaccine to be developed in collaboration with African researchers, and that early clinical trials on human beings would begin in January in Britain.
The Executive Director of the UN Children's Fund, Carol Bellamy, told the conference on Wednesday that sub-Saharan African countries needed a massive infusion of resources if they were to make any significant headway against HIV/AIDS.
NIGERIA: Bitumen exploitation to displace 30 communities
Thirty communities in south-western Nigeria will be displaced when the oil-rich West African country starts the exploration and exploitation of its 42 billion barrels of bitumen deposits, a local government official in the area has said.
Bitumen exploitation in Irele, Ondo State, is expected to begin as soon as the federal Ministry of Solid Minerals allocates blocks to investors. Venezuela, among the world's largest producer of the mineral, used to produce asphalt, has expressed interest in the project.
The chairman of the Irele local government, Oluremi Ayeomo, said recently that people in at least half of the satellite towns and villages in his district would be affected, especially peasant farmers who grew mainly cocoa, palm produce, kola nut and cassava.
Nigeria's bitumen reserves are in the south-western states of Lagos, Ondo, Edo and Ogun.
GUINEA-BISSAU: IMF approves post-conflict aid
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to provide Guinea-Bissau with some US $3 million in post-conflict emergency aid for reconstruction and to revamp its war-shattered economy. The IMF said the package approved by its executive board on Tuesday would be available immediately.
The 1998-99 war caused considerable suffering to the population and damage to the economy and infrastructure.
First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF Stanley Fischer said the board approved the money because members were "encouraged by the determination shown by the government in seeking to redress the disruptions caused by the conflict, restore basic services, and rehabilitate the administrative structures, including the budget and tax offices."
Guinea-Bissau joined the IMF in March 1977.
Abidjan, 17 September 1999; 18:53 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1634
[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: nojie@who.ch Keyword: Nigeria
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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