Nov 18, 2009

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Up to 2,700 Zimbabwean asylum seekers have set up a temporary "safety camp" at a rural South African town following xenophobic attacks on their shacks, a human rights group said on Wednesday.

South African police fired rubber bullets on Tuesday to disperse a mob who attacked shacks belonging to hundreds of migrants following several days of simmering tension over jobs.

The attacks in De Doorns, a town 150 km (90 miles) from Cape Town, was reminiscent of 2008 xenophobic riots in which at least 42 people died and tens of thousands were displaced across South Africa.

"At the moment between 1,300 and 2,700 people, mostly Zimbabwean asylum seekers, have set up an internally displaced persons camp site or safety site, at De Doorns sports ground," Braam Hanekom, co-ordinator of People Against Suffering Suppression Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) told Reuters.

Hanekom said the asylum seekers were housed in two large tents. There was limited water, poor security and a few portable toilets, he added.

"Today all the displaced asylum seekers refused to go to work for fear of being attacked," Hanekom said.

The attacks flared over competition for seasonal jobs at farms in the area, with the community arguing that Zimbabweans were "stealing jobs" by agreeing to work longer hours for less pay than locals were prepared to do.

De Doorns police station commander, Superintendent Desmond van der Westhuizen, told Reuters the displaced migrants would probably be held in tents for the next week, as discussions about their future continued with authorities.

"The were no new incidents reported over the last 24 hours," he said, adding that "there were... in the last 24 hours," he said, adding he estimated some 3,000 were affected by Tuesday's attacks.

Nov 18, 2009

LONDON (Reuters) - Sierra Leone, trying to rebuild an economy shattered by a decade-long civil war, is confident neighbouring Guinea can avert collapse and will not destabilise the fragile West African region, a senior minister said.

In an interview with Reuters Insider TV, Trade and Industry Minister David Carew said a standoff between Guinea's government and opposition could be solved without descending into the type of violence which tore his country apart in the 1990s.

"We are very concerned naturally," Carew said.

"We are certain that the situation will not deteriorate significantly because they have got experience of what happened to Sierra Leone and I don't think they'll allow that to happen."

Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war killed 50,000 people and pushed out many foreign investors. Carew said it was working with African bodies for a peaceful outcome to the Guinea crisis.

Guinea's opposition is demanding the military junta give up the power it seized last December. Tensions have risen since the September 28 killings of opposition protesters in a soccer stadium by security forces, an incident human rights groups described as a pre-planned massacre.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, attending an investment conference in London with Sierra Leone officials, said he was confident the Guinea crisis need not spill over into neighbouring countries.

Nov 18, 2009

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Land Claims Commission owes over 10 billion rand to beneficiaries and landowners for land it bought to give to blacks, the Business Day newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The commission, tasked with restoring to blacks land that was taken from them during apartheid, could not afford to pay about 8.8 billion rand in grants for post-settlement support to beneficiaries of the land restitution programme, the paper said.

The commission was also unable to pay 1.19 billion rand for land it bought because of a shortage of funds, while some land owners had gone to court to get the commission to pay 380 million rand for land it purchased from them, the Business Day said citing the commission's legal head, Thami Mdlalose.

The paper said the government had turned down the commission's request for an additional 10.3 billion rand for restitution over the next three years.

After the fall of apartheid in 1994, the African National Congress-led government set itself a target of handing 30 percent of all agricultural land to the black majority by 2014.

However, much of the land has not been used for farming and has lain idle for years, while the government is now considering pushing forward its deadline to 2025 in order to catch up with the huge backlog for land claims.

Land reform is a sensitive issue in South Africa and has been brought into focus by the decline in agriculture in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where white commercial farmers were often violently evicted by President Robert Mugabe's government.

Nov 18, 2009

By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Global carbon dioxide emissions are set to fall an estimated 2.8 percent this year because of the financial crisis, after having risen two percent in 2008, a leading annual report on the globe's "carbon budget" says.

The Global Carbon Project report, released just weeks before a major U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, shows emissions from developing nations continuing to soar, driven in large part by consumer demand in rich countries.

Developing nations are now responsible for 55 percent of mankind's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, said Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project.

And China is a key driver of rising emissions, says the report involving 31 authors and published in Nature Geoscience.

In 2005, nearly a third of China's emissions came from the production of exports, up from 16 percent in 1990, it says, with big-spending rich nations effectively exporting emissions to poorer nations to meet demand for TVs, cars and other goods.

The Global Carbon Project draws on the work and data from government agencies and research bodies around the world. It assesses CO2 emissions from human activities, such as burning coal and oil, and deforestation as well as how much planet-warming CO2 is taken up by nature.

The report says fossil fuel CO2 emissions rose 2 percent in 2008, more slowly than 2000-2007, when they increased 3.5 percent per year. Between 2000 and 2008, global fossil fuel emissions increased by 29 percent.

The findings closely match estimates by the International Energy Agency, which said in September global CO2 emissions would drop about 2.6 percent this year.

Nov 18, 2009

ROME (Reuters) - A new food price crisis is only a matter of time, the U.N. food envoy said on Tuesday, criticising world leaders for not tackling what he saw as the key factors behind price spikes in 2008 -- speculation and biofuels.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur Olivier De Schutter also said a U.N. food summit in Rome failed to address the domination of global food markets by large agri-business corporations.

"Maybe it will be April 2010, maybe April 2011, but we will have a new food price crisis because the direct causes of the 2008 spike are still there," De Schutter said in an interview.

"There are indications already, because oil prices are going up and they are very closely linked to agricultural commodities prices. As soon as a big producer will be in difficulty ...speculation will set in," he told Reuters.

He said commodity investment funds had invested massively in agricultural futures markets in late 2007, and were followed by a wave of speculative traders betting on continued food price rises. That contributed to pushing food prices to record highs last year, until the speculative bubble burst in the summer.

An increase in the production and use of biofuels based on agricultural commodities was also instrumental in driving food and land prices up, he said.

De Schutter said a Rome summit declaration was weak on both issues. He mentioned commodity reserves and quotas for biofuels as possible measures to keep a lid on prices.

Nov 18, 2009

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - A priest accused of genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1994 Rwandan genocide has been acquitted, the second release in as many days, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said on Tuesday.

The U.N. court ordered the immediate release of Father Hormisdas Nsengimana, who was a priest at a Catholic secondary school during the three months of slaughter of some 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus in 1994.

The court said it could not conclude that Nsengimana, 55, was guilty of any of the crimes, which included killing Tutsi priests, a judge and other Tutsi victims.

"The Chamber did not find a sufficient factual and legal basis for concluding that Nsengimana was guilty of any of the crimes," the tribunal said.

The prosecution said Nsengimana was at the centre of a group of Hutu extremists that planned and carried out targeted attacks and participated directly in killings.

Nsengimana has been in prison since his arrest in Cameroon in 2002. He is the second indicted person to be released by the ICTR, based in Arusha in northern Tanzania, in as many days.

On Monday an appeals chamber acquitted Protais Zigiranyirazo, known as "Mr. Z", of genocide and extermination after he was previously sentenced to 20 years.

Judges reversed the conviction citing several serious factual and legal errors.

ICTR spokesman Roland Amoussouga told Reuters the acquittals were not a disappointment for the court.

Nov 18, 2009

FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's parliament has passed a new mining act that raises royalties and increases community benefits despite the opposition walking out, a senior minister said late on Tuesday.

The new Mines and Minerals Act 2009 will hike diamond and gold royalties, give the government the right to take a stake in big mining projects and require companies to contribute to local community funds.

The bill aims to remedy the effects of years of mismanagement, corruption and a 1991-2002 civil war that have hamstrung the West African nation's mining potential, leaving it among the world's poorest countries despite vast resources.

Passage came on the eve of the Sierra Leone Trade and Investment Forum in London, which the country hopes will attract a raft of interest in an economy still emerging from civil war.

"We got the bill through parliament," Minister of Minerals and Presidential Affairs Alpha Kanu told Reuters by telephone. "There was a lot of opposition because of a procedural issue but everyone liked the bill itself."

Members of the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) walked out one by one and did not return, citing a procedural complaint that the gazette had been published only once.

Kanu had to re-introduce the bill, which passed with 58 members, beyond the required quorum of 33, thanks to the support of traditional paramount chiefs and sympathetic members of the People's Movement for Democratic Change.

"This act means a lot. We now can control our environment, there's a new provision for the health and safety of our workers and every company will contribute to community development funds," Kanu added.

Sierra Leone's gem-fueled civil war killed some 50,000 people and left infrastructure and farmlands in ruins, pushing out many large foreign companies that had sought to develop the country's vast minerals deposits. Companies that remained sought favourable terms for their operations.

Nov 18, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's North African wing is less likely now to carry out attacks in Europe, mainly because of pressure on the group from Algerian security forces, a U.S. counter-terrorism official said on Tuesday.

But the militants have stepped up operations in the vast African region known as the Sahel, on the southern edge and directly south of the Sahara desert, said Daniel Benjamin, the coordinator for counter-terrorism at the State Department.

Some of Washington's closest counter-terrorism partners in Europe have worried that militants operating under the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) banner could establish themselves in Europe and carry out attacks there, Benjamin said.

"We currently view the near-term possibility of such an expansion of operations as less likely than it was just a few years ago," Benjamin told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee.

"This, in large measure, is because of the pressure on the group in Algeria."

Security forces in Algeria, an oil and gas producer, have been relatively successful in containing and marginalizing AQIM in the northeastern part of the country by breaking up extremist cells and disrupting operations, Benjamin said.

Farther south, in areas of Mauritania, Mali and Niger, the Islamist militant group has increased attacks in recent years, including against Westerners, Benjamin told senators.

This year the group killed a British hostage who had been kidnapped on the border between Mali and Niger, a violent shift from their previous tactics of taking hostages and demanding ransoms.

While the militants were a persistent threat to Westerners, they could not seriously threaten governments or regional stability, and were not poised to gain significant support among the region's population, Benjamin said.

Nov 18, 2009

MORONI (Reuters) - Comoran authorities arrested a prominent opposition leader on Tuesday, less than a month ahead of legislative elections on the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Said Larifou, head of the Rally for a Development Initiative with an Enlightened Youth (RIDJA) is accused of calling President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi an infidel at a campaign rally on Sunday on the largest of the three islands, Grand Comore.

The opposition said his detention was a political arrest.

"Larifou is still in the hands of the police. He is accused of declaring that President Sambi is an infidel during an opposition meeting," Houmed Msaidie, secretary general of the leading opposition CRC party, told Reuters.

"He is also accused of stating that Sambi would leave power at the end of his mandate either by a legal path or by force," he said.

The Comoros, a former French colony which has witnessed some 20 coups or attempted coups since declaring independence in 1975, will hold legislative elections on December 6.

Msaidie said the opposition had written to the international community, describing Larifou's arrest as intimidation.

Comorans voted in May to extend Sambi's mandate by a year but the opposition said at the time that the low turnout was an indictment on his leadership.

Nov 18, 2009

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) - Twelve people were killed and a government minister wounded in clashes in south Sudan, which is preparing for a referendum on whether to split off as an independent state.

A surge of ethnic violence has killed more than 2,000 people this year, the United Nations estimates, raising fears for the stability of the oil-producing territory which secured the referendum and a semi-autonomous government in a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war with the north.

The conflict, which also set southern tribe against southern tribe, left lingering resentments in a region already riven by traditional disputes over territory and cattle.

At least seven people were killed during an attack by fighters from the Mundari tribe on the rival Dinka Aliap group in Awerial county in Lakes state, officials said on Tuesday.

"There was an attack...all yesterday (Monday) night that continued to this morning," Lakes state Information Minister Agad Chol told Reuters, adding that it was probably in revenge for an earlier Dinka assault.

On Sunday, a vehicle carrying South Sudan's Agriculture Minister Samson Kwaje was ambushed just after he had given a speech encouraging people in neighbouring Central Equatoria State to take part in national elections, said officials.

The minister was shot and five people killed, the south's Internal Affairs Minister Gier Chuang Aloung told Reuters. Officials said the minister was flown to Nairobi for treatment.

Aloung said the attackers were from a group that wanted the state's Wonduruba area to remain part of Juba County.

"(They) got angered ... They strongly believe that Samson Kwaje is one of the leaders in the area who wants Wonduruba to be annexed to Lainya (county)," Aluong said. "It's a bad start ... This could impede the elections," he added.

Nov 18, 2009

MORONI (Reuters) - Comoran authorities released from detention a senior opposition leader on Wednesday, a day after his arrest, but said the charges remained in place.

Said Larifou, head of the Rally for a Development Initiative with an Enlightened Youth (RIDJA), was accused of calling President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi an infidel on Sunday's opening day of campaigning ahead of next month's legislative elections.

"Said Larifou has been released by the Moroni authorities, but has been placed under the judiciary's control," his lawyer, Ibrahim Ali Mzimba, told Reuters.

Mzimba confirmed the charges against Larifou had not been dropped and said that under the terms of the release Larifou, a Franco-Comoran lawyer based in Reunion, was banned from leaving the Indian Ocean archipelago.

The opposition branded his arrest politically motivated and designed to intimidate government critics.

The Comoros, a former French colony which has witnessed some 20 coups or attempted coups since declaring independence in 1975, will hold legislative elections on December 6.

Comorans voted in May to extend Sambi's mandate by a year but the opposition said at the time that the low turnout was an indictment of his leadership.

Nov 18, 2009

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa is investigating reports its nationals have been hired to train a force for Guinea's military junta, the government said, pointing to fears of violence in the world's top bauxite exporter.

Speculation has grown that junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has enlisted foreign military trainers in the face of intense international pressure after a September 28 massacre of opposition supporters increased calls for his resignation.

Diplomatic and security sources have said the mercenaries were South African, while other groups have said the trainers appeared to be of Ukrainian or Israeli origin. There has been no official confirmation yet of the nationality of those involved.

"We've heard both true and false leads when it comes to these allegations about mercenaries of South African origin," said Ayanda Ntsaluba, director general of South Africa's International Relations and Co-operation department.

"So we are trying to be cautious, to verify, to validate the information," he said in a statement late on Tuesday of reports of mercenaries working for a Dubai-based firm in Guinea's east.

Camara, who came to power in a December 2008 coup, was initially welcomed by Guineans as he promised to reform a nation that has vast mineral deposits but remains mired on poverty after years of rule under strongman Lansana Conte.

However, warnings of ethnic violence and potential civil strife have increased as Camara's behaviour became increasingly erratic and he entrenched himself as the nation's leader.

Nov 18, 2009

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's government will next week start an audit of its workers to establish a credible payroll, following criticism that thousands of people who were not state employees were receiving salaries.

Critics have accused President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF of smuggling party supporters onto the government payroll in the past, especially youths from a national training programme blamed for unleashing election violence on the opposition.

Public Service Minister Eliphas Mukonoweshuro said on Wednesday the audit would be held from November 23 to December 18 but would not cover members of the security forces.

A report by the country's auditor general published last month showed that the Ministry of Youth Empowerment and Indigenisation -- which administers the controversial youth training programme -- had more than 10,000 people on its payroll who were not employed by government.

"The idea is that government can vouch for the integrity of the payroll, audit staffing levels and eradicate irregularities if any," Mukonoweshuro told journalists.

"The audit is not in any way or in any form a witch hunt. If mistakes are found, we want, as government to stand up and have the courage to look up to those mistakes."

The $4 million for the audit would come from a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank.

Zimbabwe is under pressure to carry out extensive political and economic reforms after the formation of a unity government in February, but the new administration is yet to get critical funding from reluctant Western donors.

Mukonoweshuro said more than 200,000 people were employed by the government, most of them teachers, adding that the audit would also establish the extent of skills loss after thousands of Zimbabweans left the country for better paying jobs.

Nov 18, 2009

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Algeria became the last African nation to qualify for the 2010 World Cup finals on Wednesday, beating Egypt 1-0 in a bruising playoff in neutral Sudan.

The breakthrough came in the 40th minute, when defender Antar Yahia's volley clipped the bar and ducked in from a long cross from Karim Ziani.

Algeria sought a more defensive game after the break, but Egypt dominated play in pursuit of an equaliser.

Striker Emad Motaeb came close in the middle of the second half but his close-range shot was blocked by goalkeeper Faouzi Chaouchi.

Nov 18, 2009

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) - A tribal cattle raid this week left 47 dead in south Sudan, an army spokesman said, the latest in a cycle of fatal clashes between pastoralists.

Armed men from the Mundari ethnic group on Monday launched simultaneous attacks on two villages that belong to the Dinka Aliap tribe, part of the south's largest ethnic group, southern army spokesman Kuol Deim Kuol told Reuters on Wednesday.

There has been a sharp increase this year in tribal fighting that has killed almost 2,000 people, adding to tensions at a sensitive period for implementing the 2005 north-south peace deal.

Elections, a key part of the deal, are planned for April but southern officials in areas affected by the tribal fighting have said they think attendance may only be patchy because of insecurity and because thousands are still displaced.

"On the side of the Dinka 10 were killed and 16 wounded. From the side of the Mundari 37 bodies were found on the ground," Kuol said. "They (the Mundari) did not manage to take any cattle."

The two groups have a long and bloody history of tit-for-tat cattle raiding, he said. Many of the south's communities are armed, a legacy of more than 20 years of north-south war.

Registration for the elections, which the south's leading party has said has been slow and under-funded by Sudan's National Electoral Commission, has already been hindered by tribal fighting this month.

Kuol said the area in Awerial County in the south's Lakes State where the recent fighting took place was remote and it was not clear yet how registration there would be affected. War left the region with very little infrastructure.

The south's leading party has blamed at least some of the inter-tribal fighting on interference by Khartoum, which they say is arming civilians and militias to cause unrest ahead of the elections and a 2011 referendum for southerners on independence.

Nov 18, 2009

HARADHEERE, Somalia (Reuters) - The captain of a Virgin-Islands owned chemical tanker hijacked this week has died from gunshot wounds sustained when the ship was attacked, a Somali pirate said on Wednesday.

There was a pause in hijackings during monsoon rains, but Somali sea gangs have stepped up attacks in the past two months, especially off the Seychelles as the pirates extend their range to evade navies patrolling off the Horn of Africa.

"The captain of the chemical tanker died last night from gunshot wounds he got during the hijack," a pirate who gave his name as Mohamed told Reuters. "The ship is headed for Haradheere with the dead captain."

The European Union naval force EU Navfor force operating in the area said on Tuesday that pirates had seized the 22,294 DWT tanker MV Theresa VIII 180 nautical miles northwest of the Seychelles with 28 North Korean crew on board.

The ship that is operated from Singapore had been sailing to the Kenyan port of Mombasa but had changed course after being seized near the Indian Ocean archipelago.

EU Navfor said on Wednesday that pirates had also attacked the same U.S. ship they hijacked in April this year.

ALABAMA ATTACKED AGAIN

The European force said gunmen opened fire on the Maersk Alabama with automatic weapons on Wednesday morning, but a security detachment with the huge container ship responded and the vessel managed to escape with no casualties reported.

Nov 18, 2009

ROME (Reuters) - An absence of many world leaders undermined this week's U.N. food summit from the start, and its final declaration shows little progress was made in the fight against hunger.

U.N. officials put on a brave face throughout the November 16-18 Rome meeting, saying it had won broad support for the need to focus on longer-term agricultural development -- rather than emergency aid -- to help poor countries feed themselves.

"It's a half-full, half-empty glass," said Jacques Diouf, Director General of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, who had called the summit to keep attention high on the plight of the more than one billion people going hungry.

"We made some progress to reverse the decline in agricultural investments ... but it did not go as far as FAO would have wished to see," he told the final news conference.

The no-show by heayweights from most of the world's biggest economies lowered the summit's profile, and did not help efforts to push malnutrition and food shortages to the top of the political agenda.

"It's a big disappointment that the leaders from the biggest and richest countries did not come," said Gawain Kripke of aid agency Oxfam.

"Without them it's hard to imagine how the world will attack these challenges of hunger and increasing agricultural productivity," he said, adding that the summit had thrown only "crumbs" to those who do not have enough food to eat.

Less than a third of the 192 heads of states and governments invited by the FAO showed up, with many countries sending their agriculture ministers instead.

Nov 18, 2009

ROME (Reuters) - The U.N. emergency food aid agency needs $1 billion to feed 20 million people in east Africa over the next six months, it said on Wednesday.

Around half of that money is needed for Ethiopia alone, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, director of emergencies at the World Food Programme said on the sidelines of a U.N. summit on global hunger in Rome.

Drought, erratic rains and conflict have hurt crops and pastures in several countries in the region.

Kenya, east Africa's biggest economy, is suffering from the worst drought in almost a decade.

The number of Ethiopians in need of emergency food aid has risen this year to 6.2 million, and Somalis are facing their worst humanitarian crisis in 18 years of conflict, with one in five children suffering from acute malnutrition.

"The needs have increased throughout the year, and we are now $1 billion short for the next six months," da Silva told reporters.

Due to an overall funding shortfall this year, WFP says it has had to reduce operations and cut food rations in Kenya and Ethiopia.

The U.N. says cereal production in east Africa fell 6.3 percent in 2009, and the food import bill in the region, where food prices are the highest in Africa, is expected to reach around $4 billion.

Nov 18, 2009

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa will set up a new anti-graft ministerial task team to take strong action against corruption in the public sector, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Investor confidence in Africa's strongest economy, in its first recession in two decades, has been hurt by allegations of high-level corruption costing the economy millions of dollars.

"South Africa takes very strong exception to corruption as this is a matter that has a negative impact on the country's reputation," cabinet spokesman Themba Maseko told reporters.

"We want to deal decisively with the perception that corruption is on the rise in the country and this committee will be set up to do all that is necessary to make sure that decisive action is taken against all those involved," he said.

According to Transparency International's 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index, released on Tuesday, South Africa ranked 55th out of 180 countries surveyed, and fared fifth in Africa behind Botswana, Mauritius, Cape Verde and Seychelles.

President Jacob Zuma, whose financial adviser was sentenced to prison for fraud, overcame years of corruption allegations this year when prosecutors dropped charges against him.

Former police chief Jackie Selebi is currently standing trial on corruption charges.

Maseko said the new anti-corruption committee would present its report to cabinet next year.

He said government had noted numerous reports showing corruption across the public service and wanted to make sure concrete action was taken and perpetrators brought to book.

Nov 18, 2009

GENEVA (Reuters) - Chad, long racked by violence and poverty, seems to be moving into a calmer phase where its energies can be focused on development, the top United Nations official in the central African country said on Wednesday.

"There are positive signs on the horizon," Michele Falavigna, U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Chad, told a news conference.

These included the return home of some of the country's 168,000 internally displaced people, the gradual creation of a settled environment in refugee camps, and diplomatic contacts between Chad and its estranged neighbour Sudan.

Later this month, the U.N. would be seeking some $470 million for a 2010 humanitarian programme directed not just at relief but also projects to build up social infrastructure.

"Next year will be a critical one for the country. Chad is passing out of the acute emergency phase towards stabilisation, although banditry continues to be a chronic problem," he said.

The 74 projects to be funded -- half to be run by U.N. agencies and half by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) -- would aim to provide better living conditions and jobs, particularly for young people who had been in armed groups.

Full details of the programme would be issued when the U.N. releases its overall humanitarian appeals to international donors at the end of the month, officials in Geneva said.

Falavigna agreed that relief operations in Chad, including those targeting some 325,000 refugees from Sudan and the Central African Republic as well as the 168,000 internally displaced Chadians, were being hit by continuing lawlessness.

Last week six foreign aid groups suspended operations in eastern Chad following the killing of one aid worker and the kidnapping of another in the wake of some 50 other attacks earlier this year.