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WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 38 covering the period 18-24 September 1999
WEST AFRICA: Flash floods continue to strike the region
Rain fed flash floods struck other parts of West Africa this week causing heavy structural damage and making tens of thousand homeless, news reports said. At least 70 percent of farm crops have been lost in parts of Nigeria's northeastern Adamawa State raising fears of food shortages in the local government areas of Demsa, Numan and Lamurde, the state-run News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported on Monday.
NAN quoted experts as blaming the flooding on the unusually long break in the rainfall pattern, causing the River Benue breaking its banks. This submerged homes and farmlands in some 50 communities in the three areas.
Rail lines sweep away
In the north-western Nigerian state of Niger, floods washed away rail lines between Wushishi and Pakara in Niger State, disrupting train services. The managing director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Ayo Bakare, said temporary girders had been erected that would enable trains to run at a slow speed. Permanent repairs, expected to cost 43 million naira (US $460,879), are to be carried out after the end of the rainy season.
Gbarnga, Bong County - Liberia
In Liberia floods damaged several homes in Gbarnga, Bong County, when the Jor River broke its banks, independent Star radio reported on Wednesday. However, some residents have blamed the flood on sand mining along the river bank. The local Red Cross office has reportedly started to register victims.
Kaedi - Mauritania
In Mauritania, a largely arid country, unusually heavy rains on 18 September flooded an entire district of Kaedi, a town 520 km southeast of the capital Nouakchott, Reuters reported quoting local officials. It reported that 600 families were removed to temporary shelters.
UN/ NGO team assess damage in The Gambia
Prolonged and heavy rainfall between June and August caused heavy flooding in The Gambia, affecting 27,000 people and damaging roads and bridges in the country's Central River and Upper River divisions. These were the findings of a three-day interagency assessment mission to the affected areas at the end of August, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported.
Aid delivery
The UN, in coordination with national and local authorities, will assist the victims in these Gambian administrative divisions. WFP has distributed 27 mt of cereals and 17.5 mt of oil. UNICEF is providing drugs, health education, water chlorination and sanitation. WHO is giving 860 kg of drugs and UNDP is providing logistical support for the delivery of aid.
The extent of crop damage will be assessed jointly by FAO and WFP in October.
Niger needs US $89,227 for disaster victims
Niger says it needs 55.9 million franc CFA (US $89,227) in disaster relief for some 19,565 people made homeless by heavy rains as of 31 August in this semi-arid landlocked country.
A request by the office that coordinates emergency aid,
Le Secretariat Permanent du System d'Alerte Precoce
et de Gestion des Catastrophes, says the money would
be used to provide lamps, mats, blankets and food.
The office said rains this year damaged or destroyed
crops, granaries and dikes. The result has been increases
in the of incidence of malaria, malnutrition, diarrhoea.
Reuters reported on Monday that the minister for works, Ousmane Ahmed Abani, told the government daily newspaper, the `Sahel', that Niger needed at least 7.5 billion francs CFA (US $11.9 million) in aid to repair flood damaged roads and buildings.
The climate in this Sahalian country is characterised by periods of either heavy rains or drought.
LIBERIA: Thousands of refugees trek to Tarvey
At least 7,000 Sierra Leonean refugees are still on a five-day trek from Kolahun in Liberia's upper Lofa to Tarvey in lower Lofa, MSF said on Wednesday. The refugees told the UNHCR they were fleeing constant harassment by Liberian security forces.
The Paris-based MSF programme director for Liberia, Guillaume Le-Gallais, told IRIN on Thursday that MSF had established a presence in Gelena village, located in the bush between Kolahun and Tarvey, to provide medical care, food and drinking water for refugees passing through.
Government approves relocation of refugees
Liberian has approved the relocation of Sierra Leonean refugees from Lofa County to the Sinje refugee camp in Grand Cape Mount County, some 80 km north-west of Monrovia, UNHCR reported on Wednesday.
The executive director of the Liberia Refugee Repatriation Commission (LRRRC), Alexander Kulue, gave UNHCR officials in Monrovia approval for the move on Tuesday. Sinje camp hosts some 5,000 Sierra Leonean refugees but is able to hold an additional 15,000 to 20,000, according to UNHCR.
Some 35,000 Sierra Leonean refugees were living in camps in Lofa County before the fighting in August. Liberia hosts about 90,000 Sierra Leonean refugees.
More Liberian Refugees in Sierra Leone return home
Seventy-one Liberian refugees arrived in Monrovia by boat from Sierra Leone on Monday, a refugee resettlement official, James Youquoi, told IRIN.
Youquoi, of the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC), said on Tuesday that those refugees who are residents of outlying counties had decided to stay with their relatives in the Monrovia area, for now.
Thousands want to return home
Some 2,000 of the 7,000 registered Liberian refugees in Sierra Leone had told the UNHCR they wanted to return home by the end of July 1999. However, voluntary repatriation was suspended for over six months in the wake of the rebel invasion of Freetown in January. The effort restarted on 4 September when 121 Liberians arrived by boat in Monrovia.
So far, at least 330,000 Liberian refugees of an estimated
480,000 have returned home either with UNHCR's help
or on their own. The UNHCR continues to assist Liberian
refugees who wish to return home.
Rise in food production
Rice production in Liberia has increased from 25 percent of its pre-war level in 1995 to 70 percent in 1998, the Country Representative of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Liberia, Kasa Kimoto, told IRIN on Monday.
The FAO is projecting a further increase to 255,000 mt in 1999, 85 percent of its pre-war level. He ascribed rising production largely to the positive response of the international community, including UN agencies, donors and NGOs.
Agricultural productivity has been increasing in Bong, Bomi, Montserrado and Nimba counties, he said, but not in Maryland, Sinoe and Grand Kru where poor roads have made access to farms difficult. In Lofa County, many of the estimated 25,000 displaced people are farmers which would prevent them from harvesting their crops in two weeks.
Cassava production was not as badly affected as rice
during the war and reached 96 percent of pre-war levels
in 1998, although it was 50 percent in 1995.
He said livestock production, with the exception of
chickens, needed improvement. The FAO is testing pigs
for African swine fever in Nimba County.
Annan calls for aid to Guinea and Liberia
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan joined West African leaders on Monday in a plea to the international community to help Guinea and Liberia cope with refugees and the growing humanitarian crisis resulting from armed dissident activity along their common border.
UN Spokesman Fred Eckhard said Annan had been following, with concern, the mounting tension between the two countries in the wake of attacks on towns and villages that had left many civilians dead.
The Ad Hoc Committee of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Heads of State and Government, adopted a declaration last week in which the leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone agreed to undertake confidence-building measures to re-establish an environment of peace, security and trust.
SIERRA LEONE: UNHCR urges start to disarmament and demobilisation
Meanwhile, the UN Assistant Higher Commissioner for Refugees, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said on Monday in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, that half a million Sierra Leonean refugees would have to wait until the disarmament and demobilisation of rival forces is close to completion and security assured before the UNHCR could help them to return home.
He told reporters in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, that the time was now right to "seize the moment" and implement the Lome peace accord between the government and the RUF rebels. A key aspect of this agreement, signed in July, calls for the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former combatants.
Just 40 percent of needs at hand
He said the UNHCR had received just 40 percent of what it needed to provide humanitarian help to Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees. In Guinea the decision to move refugees away from the border, where they have been victims of attacks by armed groups from Sierra Leone, has been hampered by the lack of funds.
Jessen-Petersen arrived in Cote d'Ivoire, from Freetown, for a meeting of UNHCR representatives from West and Central Africa to review the organisation's activities in these regions. He told reporters participants had discussed the possibility of establishing a "regional pact" that would create an environment for economic and political stability and deal with humanitarian issues.
ECOMOG denies readiness to break ceasefire
West Africa's Peace Monitoring Force, ECOMOG, denied on Wednesday news reports that it would violate a ceasefire accord if rebels fail to return arms and ammunition seized from Guinean troops last week.
The French news agency, AFP, on Thursday attributed the threat of retaliation to the leader of the Guinean contingent with ECOMOG, Lieutenant Colonel Haji Konte.
However, ECOMOG spokesman Lieutenant Chris Olukolade told IRIN "I don't believe he will have said such a thing. He cannot violate the ceasefire unilaterally." Olukolade said only the ECOMOG high command could take such a measure.
Rebels reportedly seized the weapons after temporarily detaining the Guineans who were deployed along the 30-km Mange-Kambia highway, north of the Freetown peninsula. Olukolade said ECOMOG was not thinking of taking strong action to recover the arms.
"The high command believes this issue will be resolved through negotiation," he said.
GHANA: Experts discuss arms register for Africa
Delegates from 20 African countries, subregional economic groupings, the UN and research institutions are due to end their discussions today on setting up an arms register and database facility in Africa.
The UN body organising the meeting, the Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa (UNRCPDA), said the two-day workshop that began on Thursday would debate details on a `Light Weapons Arms Register and Database' as a mechanism for greater transparency.
Opening the workshop in Accra, Ghanaian Vice President John Atta-Mills said: "Let us all join in the crusade to silence the guns of war, to make our streets, schools and homes free of violence, banditry and armed robbery."
The Accra workshop is being organised by UNRCPDA in collaboration with the Ghana government and ECOWAS. Funding is from the Netherlands government.
The workshop forms part of the activities of the Programme for Coordination and Assistance for Security and Development (PCASED). This body is the technical and secretariat arm established by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to implement the moratorium on the import, export and manufacture of light weapons, declared by ECOWAS on 31 October 1998 for a renewable three-year period.
Annan calls for global push to halt spread
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been calling for regional and subregional registers of small arms to complement the international conventional weapons register, which covers major weapons systems.
He told a ministerial-level meeting of the UN Security Council in New York on Friday that the world must seize every chance to reverse the global spread of light weapons.
"Our larger efforts to promote peace and security - whether through conflict prevention, development, diplomacy or, when necessary, intervention - depend to a great extent on how we tackle the smaller, more specific challenges of limiting the tools of war and violence," he said.
AFRICA: Nigeria calls for repatriation of stolen wealth
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo called for an international convention on Thursday that would ensure the repatriation of money stolen from Africa and other developing countries by corrupt regimes and individuals working in collaboration with foreign partners.
"Such an international convention or agreement is legally feasible and morally sustainable," he told the UN General Assembly.
He said the convention would compel banks to disclose the source of illegal accounts and repatriate capital to the countries of rightful ownership. He called for the guilty parties to be punished by national and international law.
Debt relief
He also called for the cancellation of Africa's US $300 billion debt, terming this liability as "the biggest monetary and financial obstacle confronting developing countries". He said in sub-Sahara Africa every person owed $357 in a continent where millions live in abject poverty earning around 27 US cents a day. "Some African countries now spend as much as four times on servicing debts as they do on education and health care," he said.
Equatorial Guinea's Nguema
The president of Equatorial Guinea, Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, said there was no political basis for North-South cooperation. Rather, he said, there was one of confrontation of selfish interests where the strongest or richest always succeeded. This unequal economic distribution worldwide had given rise to social and political insecurity in many parts of the world.
He told the Assembly that there was a lack of political will to foster economic development in Africa as its population suffered from hunger, poverty, war and epidemics. The continent, he said, needed economic input and the transfer of technology so that democracy could flourish.
Earlier this week Ghanaian Foreign Minister James Gbeho told the Assembly that the world needed to support Africa, particularly in dealing with its security crises.
"African member states feel discriminated against when the response of the international community to conflicts on the continent is muted or lukewarm," he said.
Ivorian Foreign Minister Amara Essy said that even if priority were given to regional efforts to solve crises, that would be an insufficient pretext for the Security Council's lack of involvement. Therefore, he called for further clarification of the UN Charter on cooperation with regional organisations.
Appealing for more development aid to Africa, Malian Foreign Minister Modibo Sidibe said industrial nations should honour their previous commitments. In addition, he added, rich nations should strengthen the production and marketing capabilities of poor countries and pay a fair price for African goods.
Abidjan, 24 September 1999; 19:38 GMT
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1665
[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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