DAKAR, 2 October 2009 (IRIN) - Guineans strain to find the words to describe the violence they saw on 28 September when soldiers opened fire on demonstrators, stabbing people with bayonets and gang-raping women and girls. Hundreds of Guineans have been unable to collect the remains of their loved ones, as soldiers blocked entry to morgues and – residents say – loaded up bodies in trucks and took them away.

Residents of the capital Conakry said tension was high on 2 October, as the junta held a ceremony to bury the bodies of the 57 people it says died, most "by asphyxiation" in a stampede. People in Conakry received mobile text messages the evening of 1 October, calling on Guineans to demonstrate the following day, wearing red, to protest the junta.

Here is some of what Guineans told IRIN on 28 September and the days following:

"The barbarity we saw cannot be described."

"We saw soldiers walking on cadavers."

“They shoved their Kalashnikovs into women’s vaginas – I saw this.”

"I was completely destroyed by the brutality I saw. If I had a bomb that day I would have pulled a kamikaze."

"The military is loading up bodies in trucks and hiding them. At the very least leave us the bodies of our loved ones."

"People were afraid to seek treatment in hospital because some doctors refused to treat the injured, saying the demonstrators were to blame for the violence."

"We fear civil war. There were militias who were out the next day going through neighbourhoods with machetes."

"Soldiers are prowling the neighbourhood [Bambeto, on 29 September]. When they see a resident they say: "You move, we shoot'. They say: 'It's you, Peulhs, who want to get in our way. We are going to exterminate you all.'"
[Peulh is one of Guinea’s main ethnic groups; junta leader Camara is Guerze, a group from the Forest Region]

"Anyone who is not on their [the soldiers'] side, they are going to slaughter us all."

"If the impunity continues, that is it for Guinea. Civil war. It will be worse than Liberia."

"No one is safe."

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Nigeria's rebel leader, Ateke Tom

01 Oct 2009

A key Nigerian militant leader, Ateke Tom, has officially accepted an amnesty offer during a meeting with Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua.

Ateke Tom told a news conference on Thursday that the government had offered him a pardon, adding that "I hereby formally accept the amnesty offer and lay down my arms."

President Yar'Adua, who had proposed the amnesty earlier this year, said he praised Commander Tom's decision.

The amnesty, which officially began on August 6 and ends on October 4, has recorded "some remarkable progress," the Nigerian leader said earlier in the day in a nationwide radio and television broadcast to mark the nation's 49th independence anniversary.

Officials said militants, who give up their weapons by October would benefit from a rehabilitation program, including educational and training opportunities.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said militant leader Farah Dagogo would follow Tom's example and disarm within days.

"The MEND has encouraged known commanders and affiliates to step aside and move on due to safety concerns for their families," the group's spokesman told Reuters in an e-mailed statement.

If Dagogo accepts the amnesty, Government Tompolo will be the only known factional leader with links to the MEND that has not surrendered.

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Women with their children in Kanem, western Chad, one area where conditions contribute to high child malnutrition

DAKAR, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - Aid workers are looking at how to boost children’s nutrition and overall health in eastern Chad’s main city, Abéché, after a survey revealed that 20.6 percent of children under five suffer acute malnutrition.

The survey by Action contre la Faim (ACF) in the city of Abéché showed that of these, 3.2 percent suffer severe acute malnutrition – a very low weight for height, visible severe wasting or the presence of nutritional oedema.

The results paint a “worrying” picture of Abéché’s nutritional situation, ACF says in a preliminary report.

Acute malnutrition is the cause of 50 percent of deaths of under-five children in Chad, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which is assisting the government in tackling malnutrition in hard-hit regions.

ACF and UNICEF’s Chad representative Marzio Babille said the country’s health and nutrition problems have several profound causes.

“Chad bears the impact of multiple factors namely climate change, food price rises and post-conflict [conditions]. Increasing child malnutrition is observed in both rural and urban communities. The recent data of increased GAM [Global Acute Malnutrition] in Abéché points to this worsening trend.”

In Abéché the 20.6 percent GAM rate surpasses the UN World Health Organization’s “critical” threshold of 15 percent. WHO classifies GAM between 10 percent and 14.9 percent as “serious”, warranting supplementary feeding; 15 percent and above constitutes an emergency.

The ACF study in Abéché was carried out from 22 June to 1 July – during the lean season, “when a peak of malnutrition is generally observed”, the report said. The sample was 854 children.

More children at nutritional centres

But ACF and UNICEF in Chad say the number of children admitted to nutritional centres in Abéché has increased over the past few months, beginning long before the lean season.

Abéché is one of three areas of Chad hard hit by high food prices in the last year, according to UNICEF’s Jean Luboya, inter-agency nutrition coordinator in Abéché. The others are Kanem and Bahr el Gazel in the west.

Aid officials in Abéché say tackling malnutrition requires not only boosting measures to prevent and treat malnutrition but improvements in general health and hygiene.

ACF head of mission in Chad, Manuela Moy, told IRIN the focus in must be on malnutrition treatment and prevention as well as educating families on proper nutrition and hygiene. "It is an effort all actors – NGOs, authorities and communities – must invest in, to prevent a deterioration of an already worrying situation."

In the preliminary report ACF says 19.8 percent of under-five children had diarrhoea in the two weeks prior to the survey, and 13.3 percent acute respiratory infection. These levels are due in part to often poor hygiene in households and improper nutrition for infants, ACF said.

Difficult to detect

UNICEF’s Luboya said access to basic services like safe water and basic health care is lacking in Abéché and this must be addressed as part of an integrated approach, which will be an extension of an ongoing community-based programme.

In Abéché ACF and UNICEF run a US$1-million programme with outpatient treatment centres and supplementary feeding, according to UNICEF. They also survey communities to detect malnutrition cases.

But detection has been difficult, Luboya said. “Home visiting is still erratic with the community outreach volunteers. The increased incidence of acute malnutrition remains difficult to detect because of insufficient human resources and a lack of [nutritional knowledge and practices] at the household level.”

In eastern Chad aid agencies are assisting some 258,000 Sudanese men, women and children in refugee camps and 170,000 displaced Chadians, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

A nutritional survey conducted in the refugee camps in 2008 showed a GAM rate of 12.3 percent and severe acute malnutrition of 0.8 percent, according to UNICEF’s Luboya.

irinnews

Jestina Mukoko at one of her court appearances

HARARE, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - Jestina Mukoko's abduction, detention and torture in 2008, and the subsequent dropping of all charges by a full bench of Zimbabwe's Supreme Court on 28 September 2009, is serving as a timeline in a country emerging from the depths of despair into the first glimmer of hope.

Mukoko, a single mother, journalist and human rights campaigner, became a cause célèbre for both local and international human rights organizations, with her personal ordeal seen as a representation of the state's repression and its contempt for the rule of law.

The Supreme Court said in its judgment: "The court unanimously concludes that the state, through its agents, violated the applicant's constitutional rights protected under the constitution of Zimbabwe to an extent entitling the applicant to a permanent stay of criminal prosecution associated with the above violations."

Mukoko was charged with banditry, but many believe her work of collating the litany of human rights abuses committed against political activists, unionists and civil society members by President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government - which held power before the current unity government - ensured that she would occupy the same dank prisons and suffer the same beatings as those whose stories she had documented.

After the judgment she told IRIN: "I came out of this experience not a bitter person, but a better person; better in the sense that I was able to understand what fellow Zimbabwean activists had been going through all this time."

In 2008 Zimbabwe was trapped in a vortex of political violence, widespread hunger, hyperinflation and keenly contested elections that threatened to end Mugabe's nearly three decades of rule.

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and now prime minister, withdrew from the second round of the presidential poll - after narrowly failing to win the first round outright - in protest over the deaths of scores of activists, and the torture of hundreds if not thousands more.

Mukoko, head of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, a non-governmental organization that detailed human rights abuses such as gang rape and political violence allegedly perpetrated by the security forces, patiently transcribed the harrowing experiences of those who survived while they recuperated in hospitals or safe houses, fearing further arrests.

The international community, including African election monitors, declared Mugabe's uncontested presidential victory as hollow. On 15 September 2008, ZANU-PF and the MDC signed a power-sharing agreement, but it was only enacted in February 2009 with the formation of the unity government. The intervening months were marked by increased reports of state violence, meticulously documented by Mukoko.

"I am so relieved to know that the charges against me have been dropped, but I think the victory was only possible because of the support from the international community, fellow journalists and colleagues in civic society, and human rights defenders," she told IRIN.

The abduction

In the early hours of 13 December 2008 a group of masked men and a woman hauled Mukoko from her bed, and under the terrified gaze of her teenage son, bundled her into an unmarked car and disappeared as fast as they had arrived.

''I view the judgment in a positive sense, in that it resulted in a reform of the judiciary, especially at a time when the country is going through a constitution-making process''
Dressed in only her nightdress, her prescription medicine left by her bedside, she disappeared without a trace. Over the next few days, then weeks, people expected her body to be found by the roadside, or stumbled upon in a shallow grave by someone collecting firewood in the bush.

In fact, she was constantly being moved from one police station to another and other places of detention. Disorientated and suffering round after round of interrogation, during which she was made to kneel on gravel, punctuated with beatings on the soles of her feet, to try to force her to admit she was recruiting Zimbabweans for military training in neighbouring Botswana.

On 2 March 2009, a month after the unity government was formed, amid a furore over her detention by local and international journalists as well as human rights organizations, she was released on bail. She immediately filed a court challenge over the manner of her "arrest", and violation of her human rights.

Emotional scars

"I view the judgment in a positive sense, in that it resulted in a reform of the judiciary, especially at a time when the country is going through a constitution-making process, and that the same charges brought against other activists will be dropped," she said.

''I am a widowed mother, and what I went through brought a lot of trauma to my family, especially to my son, who did not know if he had lost the only remaining parent that he had''
The emotional scars of her ordeal are still fresh. "It is difficult at this stage to give a detailed account of what I went through because it is such an emotional subject. I would really have to psych up for that kind of discussion."

The question that Mukoko cannot answer is why she was targeted for abduction. "It has been suggested that it may have been because of the work that our organization was doing, but I was shocked that I was being charged for recruiting people to undergo military training."

The ordeal has not deterred her or her organization from documenting human rights abuses. "I am a widowed mother, and what I went through brought a lot of trauma to my family, especially to my son, who did not know if he had lost the only remaining parent that he had."

irinnews

In 2006 Swazi women were granted equal status with men

MBABANE, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - Simmering animosity and tension between non-governmental organizations and the conservative authorities of donor-dependent Swaziland are threatening to boil over, bringing legislation that could restrict the activities of civil society.

"It has been building for some years. The deeper Swaziland sinks into poverty, hunger and AIDS, and the more dependent we become on non-governmental organizations [NGOs], the more hostile government officials, like MPs and some chiefs, become to NGOs," said Amos Ndwandwe, who works as a counsellor for an HIV/AIDS NGO he declined to identify, in the second city, Manzini.

King Mswati III, the last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa, heads a traditional system of chiefs that ensures the perpetuation of customary laws, and appoints the country's prime minister in a parliament that excludes any opposition.

The prospect of imposing stringent controls on the NGO sector has been on the horizon for a while, but the looming possibility of such legislation is creating a stir among aid organizations.

A parliamentarian, who declined to be identified, told IRIN discussion of such legislation, which has yet to be introduced in parliament in any form, might be adequate to send a message to NGOs deemed as troublesome.

"Swaziland needs food aid and other aid and there are those who know such a law might not go down well with international donors, but the idea of it under consideration might be enough to get activist groups to re-think," he said.

A senior traditional leader, who declined to be identified, told IRIN chiefs see donor assistance as food and medicine and not the propagation of views contrary to Swazi traditions.

''The country is now opened up by these new highways and here come these NGOs preaching gender equality and human rights''
"The country is now opened up by these new highways and here come these NGOs preaching gender equality and human rights. By custom, no person may set foot in a chiefdom without first going to the chief’s kraal, stating their business and receiving permission to proceed. If NGOs wish to engage the people they must first educate the chiefs and convince them they are not involved in politics," he said.

Parliamentarians have routinely criticize NGOs for perceived extravagance, despite frequent denials by the National Emergency Council on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA), a government office responsible for dispersing monies from international donor organizations.

NERCHA has pointed out that the sector’s finances are stringently scrutinized by donors, as has also often been stated by the Congress of Non-Governmental Organisations (CANGO), an umbrella body for NGOs.

"Both sides are partly correct. It is true that the NGOs operate under a microscope, but to the average Swazi they live lavishly," said Jabulani Dlamini, a Manzini Region pastor whose church works with the poor but is not a registered NGO.

"The workers are well paid, they have nice offices, and cars. Donors in Europe may not think twice about paying for a fleet of pricey vehicles as 'part of doing the job,' but Swazis see these off-road vehicles zooming around city streets as luxurious."

Regulation motivated by politics

"This particular campaign is said to be based on a misguided perception that NGOs are turning the people against the monarch through their civic education," Musa Hlope, a political commentator and former Chairman of the Swaziland Federation of Employers, told IRIN.

"If the relationship between members of parliament and civil society is not mended soon we may have a law that will seek to close all available spaces for NGOs to operate freely and effectively throughout the country," he said.

Some NGOs have become strident critics of human rights abuses and have embarked on education campaigns to inform people of their rights under the new constitution approved by Mswati in 2005; among other things, it ended customary and institutional discrimination based on gender after centuries of tradition that relegated women to second-class status.

Prince Mahlaba Dlamini, Mswati's elder brother and a leading proponent of traditional laws, recently condemned the constitution for stripping the king of some of his powers, the local media reported.

Swazis for Positive Living (SWAPOL), a support group for HIV-positive women, has been scorned for becoming "politicized" after it protested against an MP’s proposal that HIV-positive people should be branded on their buttocks.

The protest was condemned by traditionalists, who demanded to know where the women’s husbands were while their wives were showing disrespect to the nation’s elders.

''We are not a political organization, but we must engage government on issues that affect our members. When we cannot access ARVs [antiretrovirals] because of poor governance, it is our duty to challenge that governance''
"We are not a political organization, but we must engage government on issues that affect our members. When we cannot access ARVs [antiretrovirals] because of poor governance, it is our duty to challenge that governance," SWAPOL director Siphiwe Hlope told IRIN.

According to UNAIDS, about 26 percent of Swaziland's sexually active population are infected with HIV/AIDS, the world's highest prevalence of the disease.

Hlope said any possible restrictions on NGOs would be unconstitutional, and an abrogation of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly - both of which are enshrined in the constitution as inalienable rights - and she expected "a lot of litigation on this until our constitutional rights are respected".

However, should court action be decided in favour of an NGO’s constitutional rights, such legal sanction may prove redundant, as Swaziland's dual system of governance gives chiefs unilateral powers on Swazi Nation Land, where 80 percent of the about one million population live.

irinnews

01 Oct 2009

A row between Rival Somali rebel groups over a strategic port town has erupted into violence, amid fears that the clashes has claimed up to 30 people.

Both groups, Al Shabaab and Hizb al-Islam, controlled Kismayo port under an uneasy alliance that shattered last week when the former seized control and appointed its own government.

A Press TV correspondent reported that fierce gun battles that broke out early on Thursday, killed more than 30 people in five neighborhoods of the port town, which lies 500 kilometer (310 miles) south of the capital.

Witness said Hizb al-Islam rebels had fled the town to nearby bases in Afmadow, with Al Shabaab fighters patrolling streets.

Al Shabaab, which has been waging a war against the UN-backed government of President Sharif Ahmed in Mogadishu, is considered Somalia's most powerful rebel militia.

Thousands of people have fled the new conflict in the strife-torn country.

"Kismayo is under the control of Al Shabaab, who were assisted by foreign fighters," Ahmed Mohamed Abdullah, a Hizb al-Islam supporter, told Reuters.


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UPDF troops on patrol: The UPDF is in the CAR's south-eastern region of Haut-Mbomou with the blessing of the government, whose own army has failed to tackle the threat posed by the LRA (file photo)

OBO, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - As three truck-loads of newly arrived soldiers from the Central African Armed Forces (FACA) drove through Obo, local residents talked with bitterness and resignation about the continuing security problems and inability of either local forces or their allies from the better-equipped Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF) to flush out combatants from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

A UPDF spokesman talked recently in the Ugandan capital of “seeing the end of the LRA. We continue harvesting them like mangoes,” he added, pointing to the killing and capturing of several key figures in LRA ranks. The UPDF is in the south-eastern region of Haut-Mbomou with the blessing of the CAR government of President François Bozizé, whose own FACA has failed to tackle the threat posed by the Ugandan rebels.

The LRA first became active in the CAR in February 2008, staging a series of raids, pushing west from Bambouti, on the border with Sudan. Local human rights associations and other civic groups raised the alarm, backed by the UN, urging a much tougher military response.

After a one-year lull, LRA attacks resumed with much greater intensity in mid-2009. Small groups of combatants have hit villages within a 20km radius of Obo: Ligoua, Kourouko, Gassimbala, Koubou, Gougbéré, Dindiri, Kamou and Ndigba and others.

More than 3,000 internally displaced villagers have fled to Obo. Housed initially in school and church buildings, some have sought refuge with host families, but most are in hurriedly constructed huts and shelters, organized by villagers.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is trying to locate safe water sources, build wells and provide latrines. Obo also plays host to several hundred refugees from across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who fall under the responsibility of the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. They too are in flight from the LRA.

Ugandan patrols

The UPDF has a strong presence in and around Obo, its troops patrolling the town centre and surrounding villages, backed by helicopters. Among the villages now rendered “safe” by the UPDF is Ligoua, 20km south of Obo.

“The Ugandans brought us the head of an LRA fighter to show they are in the bush, pursuing the enemy,” Ligoua’s chief, Elie Bitimoyo, told IRIN. But Bitimoyo and the chiefs of other displaced communities say their fields and houses are off-limits. There is serious concern in Obo about the loss of crops and livestock, as the LRA is predictably targeting the most fertile and prosperous areas, with potentially dire consequences for the local population.

“The government must make the villages safe and get people back on the land,” local pastor René Zaningba told IRIN. “It is the villages which supply Obo with our food needs and if they stay empty we starve.”

Obo itself has suffered from years of isolation. More than 1,200km east of the capital Bangui, Obo is the capital of Haut-Mbomou prefecture, bordering both Sudan and the DRC. In the past, there were serious clashes between the local population and incoming fighters from the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

Attacks on agencies

The landmarks in Obo are the Catholic Mission and the Protestant evangelical African Inland Mission complex, which missionaries first established in the 1920s. Both have housed large displaced communities in recent years.

The recent attack by the LRA on a truck belonging to the Italian relief organization COOPI has raised new security concerns in the southeast. Two local employees of COOPI were killed in a road ambush on 21 September, 45km west of Obo. COOPI, which has worked in CAR since 1974, has suspended activities in the southeast, while appealing for the impartiality of aid organizations to be respected by all parties. The truck was transporting materials for the rebuilding of a school in Obo.

As news broke of the attack, local residents complained of new levels of fear and insecurity. “This region desperately needs help with schools; we have 80 percent illiteracy,” one man told IRIN, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But how can you expect NGOs to work here when they will be putting people’s lives in danger?”

irinnews

DAKAR, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - According to (yet another) new climate change report, this time from development think-tank CGD, these are the 20 cities where the most people will be at the greatest risk from sea level rise and storm surges in the developing world.

The report’s basic assumptions were:

• one metre sea-level rise

• 10 percent increase in the intensity of a 1-in-100-year storm

• UN medium population projections.


Manila, Philippines

Alexandria, Egypt

Lagos, Nigeria

Monrovia, Liberia

Karachi, Pakistan

Aden, Yemen

Jakarta, Indonesia

Port Said, Egypt

Khulna, Bangladesh

Kolkata, India

Bangkok, Thailand

Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire

Cotonou, Benin

Chittagong, Bangladesh

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Yangon, Myanmar

Conakry, Guinea

Luanda, Angola

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Dakar, Senegal

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Villagers nursing injuries at a hospital after an earlier attack on their village near Akobo in which 185 people were killed (file photo)

JUBA, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - A month before the recent attack in Jonglei State that left scores dead, Daniel Dau had moved his family from Duk to Twich East County, about 100km away, believing they would be safer there.

But he was wrong. On 20 September, Duk Padiet village in Twich was attacked and at least 167 people killed, according to Jonglei State statistics.

The dead included Dau’s uncle. "[He was] the only surviving member of his family," said David Dau, Daniel's son and head of the Agency for Independent Media, a media development organization in Southern Sudan.

Fifty-four civilians died, along with 28 policemen, prisons officials and wildlife conservation staff. A military counter-offensive killed 85 attackers. Another 50 people were ferried to Juba for treatment.

"There were no cattle to be raided," Kuol Manyang Juuk, Jonglei State governor told IRIN, adding that although some raiders stole plastic chairs from the village, many more went without taking a thing.

"It was an attack against government," he added.

Locals claim the attackers were Lou Nuer targeting the Dinka Hol in Duk Padiet. Jonglei officials say they numbered about 1,000. Some wore military uniforms, according to Kuol, and others civilian clothes.

"The worst thing is there [were] killings of children, women and elderly people," the head of the Sudan Council of Churches, the Rev. Ramadan Chan Liol said.

The incident showed that communal violence was escalating in Southern Sudan, Ecumenical News International (ENI) quoted him as saying.

According to the UN, the rate of violent deaths in the south now surpasses that in Darfur. Lise Grande, UN Deputy Resident Coordinator in Southern Sudan, recently said more than 2,000 people had died and 250,000 been displaced by inter-ethnic violence across the region.

Who was responsible?

"There is a general lack of faith in the government of Southern Sudan's efficiency and capacity to combat illegal activity," Dau told IRIN. "Some enemies of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement [CPA] may be exploiting [this]. The future of Sudan as a united country is uncertain; some people don’t want to see it happen."

A key Northern Sudanese official threw the ball back into the Southern court.

"Despite all the positive developments in the peace process, the [Khartoum] government notes with profound concern the recent armed tribal conflicts in Southern Sudan," said Ghazi Salahuddin, presidential adviser and head of the Sudanese delegation to the recent UN General Assembly.

"These conflicts threaten not only the stability of the Sudan and the South but also the stability of the whole region."

Politics, not cattle

"Some of the more recent attacks have... had little or nothing to do with cattle rustling, a traditional cause of violence between neighbouring tribes and ethnic groups in the region," the UN Mission in Sudan said in a 23 September statement.

"This will become a source of mounting concern as the country heads towards the April 2010 national election and the referenda in southern Sudan and the Abyei region scheduled for 2011."

Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) forces rushed to Jonglei after the attack, bringing relative calm to the area, but locals remain apprehensive.

"The situation is normal, under control," Kuol told IRIN. "[But] it is still tense because those people can come and attack again. It is a very big area, and you don’t know which area they are going to hit next."

Blaming the north

Southern church leaders believe some Khartoum leaders are arming militias to destabilize their homeland, according to ENI.

Officials in Khartoum strongly deny such claims. Osman al-Agbash, spokesman for the Sudan Armed Forces, has called such allegations "baseless".

Salahuddin urged Southern authorities to ensure security. "In accordance with the CPA, the responsibility for the maintenance of peace in the south of the Sudan belongs to the government of Southern Sudan," he told the UN.

"Therefore, it is everybody's duty to urge and encourage the government of Southern Sudan to discharge its duty for the sake of its citizens' security and prosperity."

In Juba, a Lou-Nuer meeting blamed its community members for the attack on the Dinka in Duk Padiet, but noted that both the GoSS and the Jonglei state governments could have done more to stop the incident.

Arms flows

Analysts fear that continuing violence will have a devastating effect on the 2010 elections and 2011 referendum.

Giorgio Musso of the University of Genova argues that relations between the north and south have become strained and elections are more likely to threaten peace than to bring long-awaited democratization.

The referendum could also "cause the separation of the country, with lasting consequences for the Horn of Africa and the entire continent.

"The GoSS is unable to protect the population because it is spending the largest amount of its budget [on] heavy armaments," he noted in a paper, "led by the idea that weapons are the only effective guarantee for Southern Sudan self-determination [and] that an armed confrontation with Khartoum is likely."

Between 30 and 40 percent of the Southern budget since 2006 has been spent on SPLA affairs - roughly equivalent to its spending on education, health and infrastructure combined, according to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey.

"While much of the international community’s attention remains focused on Darfur, the CPA continues to falter, and organized armed violence in Southern Sudan continues to escalate," it wrote in a paper, Skirting the Law.

The current focus on the “enemy” in the north and on increasing military capacities to counter it has diverted Southern political and economic resources from improving governance and managing internal security threats.

"With ongoing violence in Southern Sudan and Darfur, and mounting tensions between the Northern and Southern governments," said Eric Berman, Small Arms Survey managing director, "persistant arms flows should be a cause for great concern in the international community."

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Divisions emerged when al-Shabaab refused to recognize a power-sharing deal with Hizbul Islam.

Al-Shabaab militants have launched an offensive on the Hizbul Islam positions in the southern Somali port of Kismayo, where hundreds of families have fled their homes.

The pre-dawn attack triggered heavy fighting between the rival insurgent groups on Thursday in the relatively peaceful Kismayo, some 300 kilometers (185 miles) south of Mogadishu.

The once allied factions routed government forces in August to take control of the key port under a power-sharing deal.

But relations between the two groups soured in recent weeks after the rotating six-month rule they had agreed on failed upon al-Shabaab's refusal to relinquish the administration.

On Wednesday, many residents left the city center to seek refuge on the outskirts at the prospect of an imminent war between the rival groups who prepared for combat.

"We were attacked by our brothers with no reason," AFP quoted local Hizbul Islam spokesman Sheikh Ismail Haji Adow as saying.

Al-Shabaab fighters "launched their offensive on several fronts very early this morning. The fighting is very intense but we are holding up," he said.

Deepening division between al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam could partly relieve President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, whose western-backed administration has been seriously challenged by a massive military offensive from the country's main insurgent alliance since early May.

Al-Shabaab, once the military wing of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), has recently pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda's notorious leader Osama bin Laden.

Hizbul Islam is headed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a former ally of Sharif's in the UIC.

Somalia dipped in civil strife following the ouster of former dictator Mohammad Siad Bare in 1991, which led to a tug of power between rival factions.

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Custodia Mandlhate, WHO representative to Zimbabwe and Gerald Gwinji, Permanent Secretary to the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and Child Welfare during the launch of the H1N1 control initiative in the country

NAIROBI, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - There has been an increase in the number of pandemic HIN1 influenza cases being reported in the East African region, say medical officials. Some of the new cases have been recorded in schools.

"Some 350 H1N1 influenza cases have been confirmed in Kenya," Shahnaaz Sharif, the Director of Public Health, told IRIN, adding that the cases had been mild. "There may be more cases out there."

The first case in Kenya was that of a visiting British student on 29 June. So far, no deaths have been reported.

"The most affected are younger people between 14 and 26 years," Sharif said. Children, young adults and pregnant women, as well as those with pre-existing medical conditions, such as asthma, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, heart and blood diseases, are at increased risk of severe and sometimes fatal illness.

Sharif said the affected schools in the Nairobi and Central regions had been provided with guidelines and other assistance on disease control.

H1N1 symptoms are flu-like and include fever, headache, cough, sore throat and muscle and joint pain. It is caused by a new influenza virus, which most people have no or little immunity against and could thus cause more infections than are seen with seasonal flu.

In Uganda, at least 33 H1N1 cases have been confirmed, mainly in the western district of Bushenyi. Health ministry spokesman Paul Kagwa told IRIN that nine seminarians at the Kitabi Catholic Seminary in Bushenyi had tested positive for H1N1 while another 300 people were undergoing treatment for flu-related symptoms.

"A team of experts is in the area to help fight the pandemic; fortunately we have not yet lost anybody," Kagwa said.

Sam Zaramba, the director-general of health services, told IRIN the health ministry was intensifying an awareness campaign because "the disease was quickly spreading in the country".

Uganda confirmed its first case of H1N1 on 2 July - of a British visitor to the country.

As of 28 September, 24 countries in Africa had officially reported 12,018 laboratory-confirmed human cases of H1N1, including 58 deaths, according to a UN World Health Organization (WHO) update. South Africa was leading with 11,253 cases and 47 deaths in the week ending 14 September - statistics are compiled weekly and there is also stronger surveillance in that country.

Tanzania had 143 cases and Ethiopia four.

Paul Garwood, a communications officer with WHO, told IRIN that control measures were ongoing. Vaccines would also be sent to developing countries.

Initially, an estimated 300 million doses of vaccine will be distributed to more than 90 countries, he said.

"Distribution of the first batches of donated vaccines is expected to begin in November," he said. "WHO continues to recommend that health workers be given high priority for early vaccination."

WHO, with the International Federation of the Red Cross/Crescent, the UN Children's Fund and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in August launched an initiative to reduce the threat posed by H1N1 in developing countries.

The initiative, which calls for the identification of populations at increased risk of disease and death, treating acute respiratory illness and pneumonia and continued critical services provision, among other measures, will initially be applied in Zimbabwe, borrowing on lessons learned there in the 2008-09 cholera outbreak that infected almost 100,000 people and killed 4,000.

As of 20 September, 300,000 H1N1 cases with 3,917 deaths had been confirmed in 191 countries and territories. "As more and more countries have stopped counting individual cases, particularly of milder illness, the case count is significantly lower than the [actual] number of cases that have occurred," noted WHO.

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The military leader of Guinea has called for an independent inquiry into a bloody crackdown on opposition protestors in the West African nation.

President Moussa Dadis Camara on Wednesday called for 'a national and international commission of inquiry with the United Nations to shine a light onto the events of January and February 2007, and September 28, 2009'.

The ruling National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD) led by the captain has come under fierce criticism after a rights group accused security forces of killing 157 people during a protest on Monday.

In a similar incident in 2007, more than 180 people were killed during protests against then president Lansana Conte who had come to power in a military coup in 1984.

The CNDD also called for the formation of a national unity government.

"The CNDD asks for ... the formation of a government of national unity integrating members of different political parties and tasked with the transition," Ruling council official Mandjou Deoubate said on state television.

According to the country's constitution, Aboubacar Sompare, the head of the National Assembly, should have become president after Conte's death in 2008.

However, a group of military officers seized power within hours of his death and suspended the constitution.

Headed by Captain Camara, the junta has promised to hold a new presidential election at the end of a two-year transitional period.

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NAIROBI, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - Heavy fighting between two Islamic groups in Somalia's port city of Kismayo erupted on 1 October, with dozens killed and hundreds of families displaced, local sources told IRIN.

"The fighting started at around 7am local time, with exchanges of heavy weapons fire by the two sides,” Abdulkadir Ali, a resident, said.

Tension had been building between Al-Shabab and Hisbul-Islam over who should administer the city. It boiled over following a decision by Al-Shabab to ignore an earlier agreement that control of the city would rotate between them.

Ali said the fighting was initially concentrated in the north and northeastern neighbourhoods but was spreading across the city. Areas in the west of the city, such as Alanley and Via Afmadow, were now battle zones.

“Hundred of families, including previously displaced people, are fleeing as we speak,” Ali said.

Mahamud Abaysane, a displaced person, told IRIN many residents had left the city on 30 September. “They [Al-Shabab] were on the radio telling people to leave and go to safer areas. Thousands heeded that message and left,” Abaysane said.

He said most were fleeing north of Kismayo as far as Jamame (80km) and Jilib (120km). Others were moving from one neighbourhood to the next “hoping to find a safer place”.

Abaysane, who escaped fighting in Mogadishu, said people like him were being displaced for the third or fourth time. “We keep running but then it [the fighting] catches up with us.”

A hospital source, who requested anonymity, told IRIN that so far they were receiving civilians only. “The two sides are taking their injured to their own clinics.”

He said at least 30 injured civilians had been admitted to the hospital but many more could not make it because of the fighting.

He said the hospital was getting reports of high casualties on both sides. "We will only know the real casualty figures after the fighting stops," he added.

Ali said: “I saw a truck being loaded with the dead and the injured. Both sides are using snipers; they are using tall buildings and shooting at anything that moves.”

He said many people like him, who had not left the city, were stuck in their homes. “We are literally prisoners in our homes. You open the gate and they shoot you.”

Kismayo is 500km south of the capital, Mogadishu, and has been suffering from persistent insecurity, changing hands following fighting on numerous occasions.

"We have been expecting this [fighting] for the last few days but you always hope it will not come," Abaysane said.

Fighting was reported to have died down later in the day, after Hisbul-Islam forces were pushed back.

"It seems that Al-Shabab has the upper hand. They are now in control of most of the city," said a business source

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Eastern Congo has experienced endless cycles of violence for over a decade.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has arrested a former presidential candidate for allegedly trying to foment rebellion in the troubled east of the African nation.

The government issued a statement on Tuesday saying that Firmin Yangabi was arrested last Wednesday by military police.

Yangabi, a human rights activist and a candidate in Congo's 2006 presidential election, was detained as he tried to organize an arms shipment from the capital Kinshasa to the eastern town of Kisangani, according to the statement.

Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende has defended the arrest, saying Yangabi was moving a shipment of weapons with the aim of fomenting rebellion in eastern Congo, VOA reported.

Mende says human rights groups are using wordy phraseology to cover up their criminal activities.

North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in the eastern Congo have experienced interminable cycles of violence since the war began in 1998.

The conflict in the Congo has dragged on for over a decade and left over 5.4 million people dead.

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Guineans who were in Conakry during a military crackdown in 2007 say the recent repression was far more brutal (file photo)

DAKAR, 30 September 2009 (IRIN) - Guinean soldiers have been looting shops, breaking into homes and firing indiscriminately at people who ventured onto the streets of the capital Conakry, residents say, one day after scores were killed and hundreds injured in a military crackdown on a demonstration on 28 September.

“They are going around sowing terror,” Lamine*, a resident of the Cosa neighbourhood, told IRIN. “This is clearly their intention – to terrorize the people.”

He said he saw two young men shot dead when soldiers opened fire in Cosa on 29 September. The streets of Conakry were mostly deserted except for groups of police and military, residents said.

Several residents of Conakry told IRIN they saw soldiers breaking into shops and forcing their way into homes, stealing money, mobile phones and other belongings.

Most people IRIN spoke with were holed up in their homes, not daring to go out. “We are hostages of this military,” one said. “There is absolutely nothing we can do.”

Following the violent military crackdown on a 28 September demonstration against the candidacy of junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara, in which an estimated 157 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured, Camara told the media some elements of the army were “out of control”.

On 29 September Camara called for two days of national mourning.

Shops closed

Shops, markets, banks and most petrol stations remained closed on 30 September. “People are just too afraid to open their businesses,” Lamine said.

In many cases, he said, men instead of women – who usually do the food shopping – went in search of condiments and whatever they could find for the daily meal.

Guineans are among the poorest people in the world and most do not have the means to buy food for more than one day at a time.

“If this continues we will see people going hungry,” Lamine told IRIN.

Petrol, usually about 4,500 Guinean francs (90 US cents) per litre, is being sold by youths on the street for 8,000-15,000 Gf, a local chauffeur told IRIN.

“Save us”

The international community has denounced the violent crackdown on the 28 September demonstration. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) commission said on 29 September it “strongly condemns” the repression.

“I do not want to hear the international community simply spouting words like ‘we condemn’,” Conakry youth Amadou* told IRIN. “They must act. They must do something. Save us.”

He said he wanted to see “a total embargo” imposed on Guinea and perpetrators of the violence brought to justice.

“If there is not an international arrest warrant put out on them they will kill all Guineans.”

On 29 September Guinean Interior and Political Affairs Minister Frédéric Kolié said in a statement that 57 people had lost their lives on 28 September – 53 due to asphyxiation in a stampede and “four by stray bullets”.

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N'DJAMENA, 30 September 2009 (IRIN) - Aid workers in eastern Chad are preparing to move some 28,000 Sudanese men, women and children from a refugee camp infiltrated by supposed rebels.

The Chad government decided in mid-September to relocate Ouré Cassoni camp, which is near the northern town of Bahai and 7km from the border with Sudan.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has welcomed the move, which it has been urging for years. UNHCR has long expressed concern that Sudanese rebels were using the site as a base.

A new site has yet to be confirmed, but Bir Douane, 45km northwest of Bahai, is under consideration, according to UNHCR spokesperson Annette Rehrl.

A UNHCR team along with government officials and refugees will visit the proposed site in early October. The government proposed two alternative sites in 2006 but there was insufficient water at the locations, Rehrl said.

“That is the major issue,” Rehrl said. “Ensuring there is enough water for 28,000 people.”

Security

Security is also an issue in a region where aid workers and the population continue to face attacks by armed groups. “The persistent insecurity from crime in the east, increasingly violent, remains a significant concern for the humanitarian community,” according to the latest (15 September) bulletin by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Chad.

Aid organizations working at Ouré Cassoni said the final site decision and the move must be done in close coordination with all agencies involved.

“The International Rescue Committee supports the rationale to move the camp farther away from the Sudan border – in line with international humanitarian standards,” said Kurt Tjossem, IRC regional director in the Horn and East Africa. But he said the new site must be thoroughly evaluated for availability of natural resources to provide for refugees’ essential needs.

UNHCR policy is that a refugee camp should be at least 50km from a border. Ouré Cassoni in 2004 started out as a transit site for Darfur refugees but people poured over the border in such large numbers that eventually it became difficult to relocate the refugees, according to Rehrl.

Norik Soubrier, Chad country director with ACTED, said coordination is vital not only on technical evaluations and planning but also on protection.

“In order to block armed groups from getting to the camp and to allow the free movement of aid workers MINURCAT [UN Mission in Central African Republic and Tchad] should be permanently present in the zone,” he said. “Beyond that, the local authorities and UNPOL [UN Police] have an equally important role to play in refugee protection, through criminal and judicial enforcement.”

A government official told IRIN the authorities had long recognized the problem of insecurity at Ouré Cassoni.

“We have been ready to move the refugees,” Mahamet Saleh, deputy head of Chad’s Comité national pour l’accueil des réfugiés (CNAR), told IRIN. “But it has always been a problem of logistics – finding water and a safe site.”

He added: “We are fully committed to moving the camp because we realize it is too close to the border and we are particularly concerned about the presence of armed men and the militarization of the camp.”

Reluctance?

ACTED’s Soubrier said given that the Sudanese have lived at Ouré Cassoni camp for five years they are likely to be apprehensive about leaving.

“This is completely understandable, in that they are leaving a place they now know and where they have basic services, for a new unknown site. Given this, it is crucial that the necessary time be taken to talk to the refugees as well as to mobilize the funds necessary for a smooth transfer.”

UNHCR's Rehrl said the agency's mandate is to protect refugees. "Should it happen that refugees don't want to move, we will take their concerns seriously, continue to talk to them and continue to inform them on the better living conditions they're going to get in a new site. But ultimately they are under the responsibility and protection of the host government."

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JOHANNESBURG, 30 September 2009 (IRIN) - Ongoing extreme changes in Zambia's climate could bring losses of more than US$4 billion in agricultural income in the next 10 years, driving hundreds of thousands into poverty and food insecurity. Agriculture contributes 21 percent to the gross domestic product (GDP) of $14.3 billion.

These projections were based on a new study of 10-year climate patterns over the past 30 years, including the best and worst 10-year rainfall periods, by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a US-based think-tank.

"If you take into account the worst 10-year rainfall period, then Zambia's economy could lose as much as $7.1 billion in the next 10 years and drive 648,000 people below the poverty line," said James Thurlow, one of the three IFPRI researchers who authored the study.

Extreme changes in rainfall and temperature in the past 10 years have already lowered GDP by 0.4 percent every year. The southern and central regions of the country, where people were experiencing climate shocks such as droughts and floods, could be among the worst affected.

Thurlow said the uncertainty of the extent of future climate change would complicate contingency planning, which could exacerbate the impact on Zambia's population of about 12 million.

The study also warned that food availability could decline. In the current climate-change scenario, production of the staple food, maize, would rise by only 20kg per person by 2016 in a country that is already food insecure. In the worst-case scenario, per capita maize availability would slump below 2006 levels.

Thurlow said the researchers had looked at the impact of climate variability on various sectors and found agriculture to be the most vulnerable - "perhaps not surprisingly in rainfall-dependent Zambia" - and that this would seriously hamper efforts to reduce poverty.

What to do with the findings?

The authors urged the government to take immediateaction to counter the effects of climate variability by investing in drought-tolerant maize varieties, backed by an efficient seed and fertilizer distribution system.

"At the smallholder-farm level we advocate better methods of water management, such as irrigation and conservation farming - zero-tillage methods that have been shown in parts of Zambia to improve water retention in the soil," Thurlow said.

"We also underline the need for better grain storage facilities, both on the farm and at the national level. At the farm level this would help farmers to smooth consumption during lean years; at the national level it would allow the government to manage food security across good and bad years."

The analysis found that better infrastructure and information systems would allow "food production in Zambia's northern provinces, which are typically less affected by climate variability, to partially help smooth some of the shortfall in southern production during major drought years."

Despite having enjoyed a good harvest in 2009, including a maize surplus, tens of thousands of people in Zambia still require food assistance due to the localised impact of floods and because many of the poorest and most vulnerable people are unable to access food, according to the World Food Programme.

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NAIROBI, 30 September 2009 (IRIN) - Aid agencies should use "traditional structures" to reach long-neglected internally displaced people (IDPs) living in conflict-prone areas around the capital, Mogadishu, civil society officials say.

"Most of the IDP populations across the country live in appalling conditions, but the worst are those living around Mogadishu," Abdullahi Shirwa, of Civil Society in Action, an umbrella organization, told IRIN.

The needs of hundreds of thousands of IDPs across the country were not being met, Shirwa said, adding that IDPs around Mogadishu had the added problem of "total lack of security, and very little access to help".

He said the security issue had been used by agencies as the main reason for "little or no assistance to the IDPs. Unfortunately, insecurity has become a way of life in the country and can no longer be used as an excuse not to help people in desperate need."

Shirwa said there were traditional structures that can help in delivering aid to the displaced. "They can make use of elders, women's groups and religious leaders - but they don’t."

He said more needed to be done to reach the displaced. "In my opinion, fewer than 20 percent of IDPs' needs are being met at the moment."

Abject misery

The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimates there are 896,000 IDPs in the Mogadishu-Afgoye corridor.

Roberta Russo, spokeswoman for UNHCR Somalia, told IRIN on 30 September "the needs of the people are not adequately addressed and a lot more should be done to assist the growing number of displaced.

"The main problem of humanitarian agencies is the lack of access to the needy population, due to the highly insecure environment."

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Somalia told IRIN that access, security and funding were "considerable constraints". According to OCHA, eight aid workers had been killed this year alone.

"It is important to note that funding is also a considerable constraint on humanitarian programming throughout Somalia. The Consolidated Appeal Process is funded at only 54 percent of the estimated needs. Some sectors have received as little as 10 percent of the resources they require for adequate programming," said the agency.
Asha Sha'ur, a senior member of civil society, told IRIN many of the IDPs lived in overcrowded camps, where most of the shelters were built from twigs, recycled cardboard and old clothes.

"The lucky ones may get a plastic sheeting to cover it", despite the fact that some of the IDPs pay rent to the owners of the land, she said.

Sha'ur, who visited the camps on 28 September, said: "These people are living in the most miserable conditions. It is heart-breaking. I honestly don't know how else to describe it."

She said the displaced had no access to clean water and sanitation conditions were bad. “Thousands of families are left with no latrines.”

She said the displaced were getting a "fraction of what they need. This is intolerable."

“No more excuses”

Humanitarian agencies have to find creative ways of reaching the needy, Sha'ur said, adding: "I don't think they can hide behind insecurity any longer."

Ali Sheikh Yassin, deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organization (EHRO), told IRIN more people were likely to be displaced in the coming weeks and months.

"Already we are getting reports that people are leaving Kismayo due to fears of violence and will add to the number of displaced."

Many of the displaced lack protection and, in some cases, had been subjected to sexual violence.

"There is some sort of protection in populated areas but when they go out of the camps to collect firewood or grass to sell, there is no protection," Yassin said, adding that agencies must pressure those who control areas to provide "not only access but protection for the displaced. This means they have to deal with people they may not want to deal with," he said. "The alternative is to let people die."

Khadija Farah, a 40-year-old mother of six, has been an IDP in the Arbiska area, 20km south of Mogadishu, since 2007. She told IRIN that life in the camps was becoming even more difficult. Her family used to get 75kg of sorghum, 10kg of beans, 10kg of porridge and 3l of cooking oil for a month.

"Since June, we are getting half of that. It was nowhere near enough before and now it is even worse."

Farah said their home was a shack made out of cardboard and plastic. "We are alive but that is all."

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After a long period of drought, meteorologists in Somaliland are predicting the region is likely to receive substantial rain between October and December. Farmers and pastoralists have been urged to make full use of the rains - file photo

HARGEISA, 30 September 2009 (IRIN) - After predictions by meteorologists that the region was likely to receive substantial rain between October and December, officials in Somalia's secessionist region of Somaliland have urged farmers and pastoralists to prepare to make maximum use of the rains.

The meteorological department has forecast that most of Somaliland will experience "near normal" to "above normal" rains in the coming Deyr (short rains) season.

"The oncoming rains will come as a relief and an indication of an end to drought in the affected areas," according to a climate outlook report by Somalia's Water and Land Information Management (SWALIM). "The expected rainfall, with timely onset over most agricultural areas of the country, would be adequate for good crop performance. Farmers can also expect an extended length of the growing period."

Ahmed Qofal Jama, the Adadlay district representative of the ministry of agriculture, said: "Whenever heavy rains are received in southeast Asia and India, the rains cross the Indian Ocean to the Horn of Africa and we therefore expect good rains, which are handy after the poor performance of the last several rainy seasons that caused serious livelihood crises to both pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. We are encouraging farmers to make full use of the expected rains."

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Fresh fighting has broken out between al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam fighters in the Somali town of Kismayo, leaving at least 10 people dead.

According to eyewitnesses, seven al-Shabaab fighters and three Hizbul Islam fighters were killed in the Tuesday fighting, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Hizbul Islam has reportedly taken control of 70 percent of the town from al-Shabaab fighters.

The main cause of fighting is said to be their differences over the revenues gained from the marine-based businesses in the town.

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