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Source:
Integrated Regional Information Networks
Date: 8 Sept 2000
Horn of Africa: IRIN
Weekly Round-up 1 covering the period 4 - 8 Sep 2000
SOMALIA: Faction leaders condemn new interim authority
Faction leaders in Somalia
opposed to the newly elected interim authority have called for new
peace talks in which they should lead the process, the independent
daily 'Xog Ogaal' reported on Monday. It said the faction leaders,
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad, Husayn Aydid, Uthman Ato, Husayn Haji Bod, Adan
Gabiyow and Mawlid Ma'ni Mahmud, had issued a four-point statement
after meeting on Sunday in Garowe, capital of Puntland in northeastern
Somalia.
In a separate statement
carried by the independent Banaadir Radio, Husayn Aydid, reportedly
called on the international community not to recognise the newly
elected president. In a broadcast monitored by the BBC, he said such
recognition could lead to renewed faction fighting in Somalia which
has been without a central government during a decade of civil war and
anarchy.
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad, the
leader of Puntland in northeast Somalia, and the Mogadishu faction
leader Husayn Muhammad Aydid were reported subsequently to have
reached an agreement during a meeting in Nairobi to oppose the new
interim government, according to Wednesday's independent daily, 'Xog-Ogaal'.
SOMALIA: New premier to
be named after UN summit
In his first official
visit to a foreign country since his inauguration in Djibouti and a
visit to Somalia, interim President Abdulqasim Salad Hasan of Somalia
visited the Egyptian capital, Cairo, at the weekend, news reports said
on Monday.
At a news conference on
Sunday, he was quoted by the MENA Egyptian news agency as saying he
would appoint a new prime minister once he had returned from the UN
Millennium Summit, which opened in New York on Wednesday. Reacting to
the stance of the faction leaders, he urged them "to join him
during this crucial stage, assuring that the Somali people were the
party ruling the country".
He also said that the
Somali people needed Arab support in such difficult circumstances. The
Egyptian agency, MENA, said Abdiqasim Salad had also called on Arab
countries to deal with the new interim leadership elected in Djibouti
"as this was a request of the Somali people. The Somali people
want to live in peace," he said, adding that he would announce a
detailed plan to reconstruct war-ravaged Somalia.
SOMALIA: UN summit
marks end to diplomatic isolation
Ending nearly a decade of
diplomatic isolation, Somalia's newly elected president, Abdiqasim
Salad Hasan, gathered with world leaders in New York on Wednesday for
the opening of the UN Millennium Summit. "I am so happy that we
are back here after over 10 years of absence from the international
scene," he told Reuters. "The message we bring is one of
peace for Somalia, peace for the Horn of Africa and for Africa as a
whole. Let bygones be bygones and let us start a new relationship
between ourselves, with our neighbours and the international
community."
The reports said the
Somali flag was raised at the UN headquarters for the first time in 10
years as Abdiqasim Salad prepared for his speech before the summit on
Friday.
Abdiqasim Salad, also
apologised to the UN for the bloody clashes between UN peacekeepers
and Somalis in the 1990s. "Mistakes were made on both sides but I
would like to apologise to the United Nations and the world for the
errors committed by Somalis," he said.
SOMALIA: Egypt pledges
support for interim authority
Egyptian Foreign Minister
Amr Musa has pledged Egyptian support to help rebuild Somalia
following the election of a new transitional government, the MUSA
Egyptian news agency reported on Tuesday. It said the pledge was made
on Monday when visiting Somali President Abdiqasim Salad Hasan was
received by Amr Musa at the 114th ministerial session of the Arab
League.
Amr Musa also said the
Arab League would issue resolutions on Somalia that would promote
Abdiqasim Salad and pave the way for Arab participation in the
reconstruction of the capital, Mogadishu, much of which is in ruins
following a decade of war and anarchy.
SOMALIA: Hopes for
improved humanitarian access
Randolph Kent, the UN
Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, UNDP Resident Representative
and Designated Official for Somalia, has said he hoped that
humanitarian access in Somalia would improve now that a new president
and an interim parliament, the Transitional National Assembly (TNA)
had been elected. In an interview published by IRIN on Monday, Kent
cited at least three levels at which he saw hope for improvement.
SOMALIA: Somaliland
detains newly elected MP
The authorities in the
self-ruled northwestern territory of Somaliland have reportedly
arrested a newly elected MP serving with Somalia's new Transitional
National Assembly (TNA) and charged him with treason. According to a
broadcast on Monday by Hargeysa Radio, monitored by the BBC, the TNA
member, Garaad Abshir Salah, is a traditional leader, who travelled to
the Somali peace talks in neighbouring Djibouti.He was said "to
have undermined the sovereignty of the Republic of Somaliland. Mr
Salah will be arraigned in court and charged with treason for the
crime he committed against his country," the radio said, quoting
a statement issued by the Somaliland Ministry of Interior.
SOMALIA: Puntland
officers refuse to detain returning delegates
Meanwhile, in the
neighbouring northeast territory of Puntland, a local weekly, 'Yool',
reported on Monday that 11 senior security officers had been dismissed
following an incident in which security officers refused to arrest
delegates returning from the Djibouti conference.
SOMALIA: Over 23 killed
in clashes killed in clashes
Clashes between heavily
armed rival militias on Monday near the town of Jowhar about 90 km
north of the capital Mogadishu have resulted in at least 23 deaths and
18 wounded, news agencies reported. They said the fighting between
gunmen of the Galje'l and Hawadle sub-clans of the major Hawiye clan
and erupted after the Galje'l alleged attacked the Hawadle village of
Dai'f.
SOMALIA: Grenade
explodes in Mogadishu
At least two people were
killed and others were wounded on Tuesday night when a grenade
exploded at the Bakaaraha Market in the Somali capital, Mogadishu,
sources told IRIN on Wednesday. The sources said they did not have
details of incident or who was responsible for the detonation.
SOMALIA-ETHIOPIA: UNHCR
says voluntary repatriation of Somalis continuing
UNHCR has said that the
number of Somali refugees repatriated from Ethiopia this year has now
reached 30,000, following the voluntary repatriation of 1,539 people
from the Hartisheik camp on 18 August. In a statement on Friday, it
said that it had helped a total of 111,877 refugees return to Somalia
since 1997 when the repatriation programme started.
"As of today, there
are some 136,000 Somalis left in eight camps in eastern
Ethiopia," the UNHCR statement said. Citing the repatriation of
Somali refugees from Kenya, which started this year, it said that so
far some 800 people had returned home from the Dadaab and Kakuma
refugee camps: "We are waiting for conditions to improve in
southern Somalia before facilitating the return of another 140,000
Somalis still in Kenyan camps."
SOMALIA: Somaliland in
trade and transport agreements with Ethiopia
The Commercial Bank of
Ethiopia has signed an agreement on the transfer of business letters
of credit with the Bank of Somaliland, according to a report on
Wednesday by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
It said that the
infrastructure needed to develop Somaliland's trade with Ethiopia had
received a boost when the offices of the new Somaliland Roads
Authority (SRA), a joint venture between the government and private
sector, and supported by the European Union (EU), officially opened in
Hargeysa on 23 May.
The SRA had already begun
maintenance work on more than 150 km of road between Berber and
Kalabeit along the road corridor to Ethiopia. It said a second US $4
million road rehabilitation project by the EU and Denmark had also
been signed. The project would upgrade the road network between
Dila-Hargeisa-Berbera and Burao.
SUDAN: Rebel leader
Garang explains stalling of peace talks
John Garang, leaderof the
Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) has said some items on
the agenda and a two-track peace initiative were the main reasons for
the stalling of the peace efforts in Sudan. An SPLA spokesman in
Nairobi also told IRIN on Monday that the Sudanese government had
changed the timetable for peace talks three times.
SUDAN: Government to
attend peace talks
The government of Sudan
said on Monday it would attend scheduled peace talks on 21 September
in Nairobi, Kenya, with the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM),
state news media reported. Ahmad Ibrahim al-Tahir, presidential
adviser on peace issues, told Omdurman radio that talks would go ahead
as planned. The talks are to be held under the auspices of the
regional Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
SUDAN: Ummah to
participate in opposition umbrella group meetings
The Ummah party has
decided to participate in meetings of the opposition National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Asmara by virtue of its membership of the
domestic NDA, a senior official of the party was on Monday quoted by a
Khartoum newspaper as saying. News reports said Ummah Party
Vice-Chairman Umar Nur al-Da'im had decided the party would be
represented in a 21-member delegation of the domestic NDA which would
proceed on Wednesday to seek to take part in the NDA general
conference opening in the Eritrean capital on Friday.
SUDAN-ERITREA: Troops
move to eastern Sudanese border
Eritrean troops and
Eritrean-based Sudanese opposition forces have moved into positions
along the border with eastern Sudan, according to news reports on
Wednesday quoting the independent Sudanese daily, 'Al-Sahafi Al-Dawli'.
The reports, which were not independently confirmed, said the Eritrean
soldiers and opposition forces of the Sudan People's Liberation Army
(SPLA) had moved from the Eritrean interior to points just across the
border from Shelalub, Awad and Haferet in Sudan's eastern Kassala
state.
The newspaper, reporting
from Kassala, said the Eritrean and SPLA forces had taken up the new
positions to thwart Sudanese government army plans to retake
Hameshkoreb town, which the SPLA occupied last year.
SUDAN: New US envoy
appointed
A new US charge d'affaires,
Raymond Brown, has been appointed to Sudan, official media reports
said on Thursday. Brown will replace Donald Teitelbaum, who has been
posted to Uganda. The reports said he would be based in Nairobi,
Kenya, and travel regularly to Sudan.
Sudanese deputy Foreign
Minister Gebriel Rorec, who met with the two envoys Wednesday, told
them of Khartoum's readiness for "continued" negotiations
with the US to "remove obstacles that hinder the normalisation of
ties with Washington."
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: ICRC
visits Ethiopian POWs
The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said it had been able visit
Ethiopian POWs held at various locations in Eritrea. In a statement on
Friday, it said ICRC delegates between 29 August and 1 September had
visited Ethiopian POWs held at Nakfa camp, as well as Ethiopian
inmates at a prison and two other internment camps, where its staff
had been registering civilian internees.
ETHIOPIA: Newspapers to
shut down
Private newspapers in
Ethiopia have said they will stop publishing for one week when the
country celebrates its new year on 11 September in protest at the
rising costs of printing, news reports said on Tuesday. The reports
said the decision had been taken at an emergency meeting in Addis
Ababa on Saturday attended by more than 40 representatives of the
Amharic language press and distributors of independent newspapers.
ETHIOPIA: Donor
humanitarian contributions sought
Following a UN appeal on
24 August for drought victims in Ethiopia, WFP said contributions were
being sought from donors for US $30.5 million, for the period
September to January. Some US $15.1 million was required for food
needs and related costs and US $15.4 million for the agriculture,
health, nutrition, water and sanitation, emergency education,
humanitarian mine action, and HIV/AIDS sectors.
For details see: http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/1c292ebb
87392c278525694d00655c1e?OpenDocument]
ERITREA: WFP assistance
to war victims
WFP has said it has
distributed 9,357 mt of food to 388,737 war victims in Debub, Gash
Barka and Mekete camps in Northern Red Sea Region and 50,780 drought
victims in Anseba in August.
In its latest monthly
emergency report, it said a crop performance assessment and
post-distribution monitoring project had been conducted in Afabet,
Kamchewa, Felket and Northern Red Sea. It found that late rainfall had
delayed cultivation and planting and that the majority of farmers had
no seeds. It also found that 10 percent of arable land had not been
cultivated.
[For details see: http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/1c292ebb
87392c278525694d00655c1e?OpenDocument]
HORN OF AFRICA: New
humanitarian reports
UNICEF, in its latest
series of situation reports, said it had dispatched over nine relief
flights into Horn of Africa countries since April. These included four
to Eritrea, three to Ethiopia, and one each to Kenya and Djibouti.
Each flight carried up to 40 mt of relief supplies, including
therapeutic milk and biscuits for malnourished children, medical
equipment, and water purification supplies. It said the bulk was being
procured locally within each country, speeding delivery and supporting
the local economy.
Manuel Aranda da Silva,
the United Nations Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Horn of
Africa, said: "Generous donor support is absolutely essential if
we are to avert the current crisis from degenerating into widespread
famine."
Somalia
UNICEF said a decade of
conflict had left villages, schools, and health facilities looted and
destroyed. Crop production and livestock trade had suffered as
families had been forced to abandon their home communites for security
reasons. Nationwide, Somalia's infrastructure was in need of major
repairs. The current state of the infrastructure, it said, made the
distribution of humanitarian assistance even more difficult.
Sudan
Sudan, it said, was one of
the six countries most at risk in the Horn of Africa facing a
potential famine. The UN estimated that 1.7 million people in Sudan
would need food aid this year, with 75,000 at immediate risk. UNICEF,
for its part, was concentrating its emergency efforts on supplementary
and therapeutic feeding, providing essential drugs and vaccinations,
and ensuring access to clean water supplies.
Ethiopia
The UNICEF report said
more than half of the Ethiopian population - over 10 million people -
were at risk of starvation. It said 1.4 million of them were children
under five. Aid workers reported that dozens of children in regions of
southern Ethiopia were dying each day from malnutrition and diseases
such as measles and tuberculosis. "While food is necessary, it is
by no means alone," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said
after a recent five-nation tour of the Horn of Africa. "Malnourished
children need supplemental feeding and special attention.
Immunisations are required against disease. Sanitation and clean water
prevent the spread of disease to begin with."
UNICEF said its response
to the situation in Ethiopia was therefore multi-faceted, and included
nutrition, health, water and environmental sanitation, shelter and
agriculural needs, as well as education, landmine awareness, and women
and children in need of special protection.
Eritrea
The report said that out
of a population of 3.1 million, 1.5 million people were in urgent need
of humanitarian assistance because of the border conflict with
Ethiopia and severe drought conditions which had hit the country.
Ninety percent of those in urgent need were women and children, the
report said.
[For the full report, see:
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/vLCE/Horn+of+Africa+Drought?OpenDocument&
StartKey=Horn+of+Africa+Drought&Expandview]
[ENDS]
[IRIN-CEA: Tel: +254 2
622147 Fax: +254 2 622129 e-mail: irin-cea@ocha.unon.org
]
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Copyright (c) UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2000
Link : http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/s/5DA498EB56C1F1508525695700573869
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