UNITED NATIONS
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
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LIBERIA: Fighting continues, according
to reports
Fighting continued in Liberia this week, with anti-government forces attacking the town of Tubmanburg on Wednesday, forcing 1,000 people who had sought refuge at a Roman Catholic mission there to flee, news organisations reported.
There were conflicting reports over who carried out the attack on the town, some 60 km north of the capital, Monrovia. Some reports blamed the rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). However, the BBC said the identity of the attackers was unclear. Liberian government officials could not be reached for comment.
Rebel activity, previously restricted to the north of the country, came to within 47 km of Monrovia last week when LURD fighters were reported in Klay Town. The government later said it had pushed back the dissidents to over 96 km north of Monrovia. The British NGO, ActionAid, said this week that one of its staff members, Togba Momoh, was killed in an ambush during last week's upheavals. Two of his colleagues escaped unhurt.
There were separate appeals this week for an end to the fighting by the secretaries-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and the Organisation of African Unity, Amara Essy.
Last week's fighting triggered an exodus of thousands of internally displaced people, villagers and refugees from the area, and was followed by the declaration of a state of emergency by President Charles Taylor on 8 February. Taylor accused the international community on Thursday of being part of a "conspiracy of silence" and called on it to help end the two-year-old rebellion against his government, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Since declaring a state of emergency, the government has announced that Liberians must now obtain exit visas to leave the country. A diplomat in Monrovia told IRIN on Friday that Liberians were forming long queues outside the Immigration Department. The diplomat said the "official reason" the government gave for introducing the exit visas was to prevent state officials from "spiriting away their friends and relatives" because of the state of emergency.
Amnesty International (AI) said on Monday that the state of emergency was being used as a justification by the security forces to abuse power and commit human rights violations against civilians. It said around 39 young men and boys "were reportedly rounded up" from churches around Monrovia on Sunday (10 February), taken to a field, forced to sit with their shirts tied together for several hours and told they had to fight with the army.
AP reported that police began raiding parts of Monrovia on Monday in search of rebels. The news agency quoted Police Chief Paul Mulbah as saying that 55 people were released on Tuesday after they were cleared of any association with the rebels.
Another watchdog, Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) urged the Liberian authorities not to use the state of emergency as a "pretext to censor and muzzle the independent press". RSF made the call on Wednesday in reaction to the arrest of several journalists and the government's closure of Analyst, a private newspaper, for publishing articles which, the state claimed, were "not out for peace". RSF also called for the journalists' immediate release.
RSF reported Mulbah as saying that several articles published by the paper "poisoned the minds of the people". Since the imposition of the state of emergency, the paper had printed articles with titles such as "Liberians drowning in horrors" and "What rights and freedoms can the President suspend?"
SIERRA LEONE: Voter registration ends; repatriations from Liberia begin
Over two million people are believed to have signed up to vote in upcoming presidential and legislative elections in Sierra Leone, the head of the country's National Electoral Commission (NEC), Walter Nicol, told IRIN on Monday.
The target of the exercise, which ended on Sunday, had been to register some 2.7 million people at about 4,910 centres, according to Nicol. Special provision has been made for refugees who hold a UNHCR registration card, allowing them to register "tentatively until a month before the election - 15 April", he said. About 50,000 to 70,000 Sierra Leonean refugees might be eligible to vote, he added.
Meanwhile, as part of efforts by the state to extend its authority across the country, a police station rehabilitated by former fighters was opened on Wednesday in Koidu, a former rebel stronghold in the east, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone reported.
Elections are scheduled to take place on 14 May, just over four months after President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah formally declared the end of a decade-long civil war.
The war forced hundreds of thousands of people to seek refuge in neighbouring countries, including Liberia, from where UNHCR began repatriating Sierra Leoneans this week. The first group - 243 refugees - arrived on Wednesday after a seven-hour trip from camps near the Liberian capital, Monrovia, UNHCR reported.
There are more than 30,000 Sierra Leoneans in Liberia.
TOGO: New electoral code draws criticism
Changes to Togo's electoral code, approved by parliament on 8 February ahead of legislative elections scheduled for next month, are aimed at facilitating the holding of polls and the functioning of the country's electoral commission, legislators said in a communique.
However, the changes have drawn a sharp reaction from the country's opposition parties and the international community with the EU announcing on Friday 8 February that it would suspend support to the electoral process. France regretted the changes and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern.
The new code states, among other things, that the National Electoral Commission (CENI - French acronym), responsible for organising and overseeing all activities related to the 10 March polls, will be reduced in size and future decisions by the CENI will no longer be taken by consensus but by simple majority. It also says that presidential and legislative candidates must be solely of Togolese nationality and those with multiple nationalities will be obliged to relinquish the others. To be eligible for the presidency, it adds, candidates must have resided in Togo for a full year before the poll.
President Gnassingbe Eyadema's main opponent, Gilchrist Olympio, has lived in exile for years, but the parliamentarians said all presidential candidates should be able to respect the new criteria before the next presidential election in July 2003.
Disagreement over a 1998 presidential election, which the opposition said was rigged, led the country's main opposition parties to boycott parliamentary polls in March 1999. A dialogue between the country's political forces, facilitated by France, Germany, the European Union and la Francophonie (the organisation of French-speaking countries), led to the signing in July 1999 of a framework agreement that has paved the way for the holding of the upcoming polls.
CHAD: European Commission funds development programme
The European Commission and the government of Chad signed a cooperation agreement on Monday that will enable the West African nation to benefit from European funds amounting to €202 million (US $176 million) over the next five years, the EC said. The money, drawn from the European Development Fund, will target various sectors, including poverty-reduction programmes, roads and transportation, health, good governance, promotion of democracy and civil society. The funds, which the EC says are non-repayable, will cover programmes from 2002 to 2007.
CHAD: Highest food harvest in five years expected
The 2002 food outlook for Chad is good, due mainly to steady rainfall last year, and grazing conditions are satisfactory, the Food Early Warning System (FEWS) reported on Tuesday. It said that yields of the main cereal in Chad, sorghum, were expected to be the highest in five years with at least 140,600 mt expected at the end of the harvest season.
The full report, produced by FEWS and Chad's Office of Water Resources and Meteorological Services can be found on http://www.fews.net/
NIGERIA: Local Red Cross aids 20,000 IDPs
The Nigerian Red Cross began distributing food aid on Thursday to more than 20,000 people displaced by unrest in central Nigeria since last year, the Red Cross said in a statement.
The displaced people live in camps in the central state of Benue, which is populated mainly by the Tiv ethnic group. Some fled clashes in June 2001 between Tivs and Azeris in Nasarawa State (west of Benue). Others were displaced by fighting between Tivs and Jukuns in Taraba State to the east. Still others fled reprisal attacks by the military against Tiv communities after 19 soldiers were killed by a Tiv militia.
The statement said that the food distribution, the fourth phase of relief assistance to victims of last year's clashes, was being done in collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies with financial assistance from the British Department for International Development.
NIGERIA: UNDAC issues a report following Lagos explosions
A UN team issued a report on Thursday following its humanitarian and environmental assessment mission to Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, where explosions at a munitions depot in late January left over 1,000 people dead.
Based on the 31 January - 7 February assessment in Lagos and analysis of in-country institutional capacity, the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team (UNDAC) recommended that in the short-term, the UN country team should continue to monitor the humanitarian situation which, it said, appeared to be largely under control. Other recommendations included further support for displaced people, the expansion of the current "exclusion zone" within the Ikeja military cantonment where there was still a significant problem with unexploded ordnance (UXO), and information and awareness campaigns, especially for children, about the dangers of touching UXO.
Longer term recommendations included support to relevant federal and state authorities to carry out environmental impact and structural damage assessments, and to clear the site of the explosions. Long-term ordnance issues in Nigeria also need to be addressed to prevent a similar incident happening in the future, UNDAC said.
NIGERIA: Boreholes to be sunk to stem disease
Some 3,500 boreholes will be drilled this year to supply clean drinking water to rural communities in southeastern Nigeria's Cross River State so as to prevent an outbreak of Guinea worm and other water-borne diseases, ThisDay newspaper reported on Tuesday.
One of the government's main objectives was to ensure that every community had access to potable water so as to eradicate Guinea worm, the Lagos-based daily reported the state's governor, Donald Duke, as saying. Each borehole, Duke said, would serve 200 people.
GUINEA-BISSAU: Government releases opposition leader
Guinea-Bissau's authorities have released on bail the head of the opposition Socialist Alliance of Guinea-Bissau, Fernando Gomes, who had been detained since 2 February. Gomes was released on 8 February. The goverment had accused him of misappropriating a donation of 50,000 euros (about US $44,000) while he headed the country's human rights league, the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, reported. Amnesty International had called for Gomes' unconditional release, stating that neither the foreign donor nor the league had complained about the alleged misappropriation.
GHANA: Cocoa farming can empower women - study
Cocoa farming in West Africa can empower women, reduce poverty and benefit the environment, according to a study published recently by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute. The report was based on the results of a survey of farmers in villages in Western Ghana which aimed to find out how cocoa benefits women, families, communities and the environment.
One of the ways women benefit, the 'Land, Trees and Women' report concludes, is through land acquisition, traditionally denied to women in many parts of West Africa. Through a process known as "gifting," husbands give their wives land rights to cocoa fields in exchange for labour during the early stages of cocoa farming. The report added that when poor women farmers grow cocoa, the whole family benefits as their increased income is more likely to be used to meet the family's basic needs, including nutrition, health care and education.
WEST AFRICA: Blair ends four-nation visit
British Prime Minister Tony Blair ended a four-day West African tour in Senegal on Sunday saying there should be a strengthened partnership between African countries and the world's richer countries to help Africa achieve greater stability and economic advancement, news organisations reported.
This partnership, he said, demanded that both sides carry out policy reforms designed to reduce poverty in Africa and spur the continent's development. The modern development concept, he said, was one that went beyond the transfer of resources and embraced issues of trade and investment, conflict, governance and the environment.
Blair also visited Ghana, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
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