Vaccination truce in "most" areas

Warring parties in the DRC have stopped fighting in most areas of the country so that some 10 million children can be vaccinated against polio during the coming weekend, a statement from UN headquarters in New York said on Tuesday. The statement, received by IRIN, said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had appealed for "Days of Tranquility" to allow immunisation to go ahead, had received assurances from DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila and rebel leaders that they would lay down their weapons. Even with continued localised fighting, relief agencies believe that the campaign can reach over 95 percent of children under five years, the statement said. Volunteers will staff some 16,000 immunisation posts throughout the country with the support of UNICEF and WHO - the UN agencies spearheading efforts to eradicate polio from the world by the end of the year 2000. The DRC has the most intense virus transmission in the world, the statement said. "In the eradication effort we need to gain access to children in pockets of unrest and strife," WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland was quoted as saying. "If we miss a single village we will fail," Brundtland said. Supplies dispatched for campaign Some four million doses of polio vaccines have already been distributed in eastern DRC for the campaign, while main distribution points in government-controlled western DRC have received nearly all the supplies required, UNICEF said in a report received by IRIN on Tuesday. The evacuation of expatriate humanitarian workers from Kisangani would not affect the vaccination campaign in that area, the report said. SA foreign minister in Kisangani South Africa's foreign minister, Nkosanzana Zuma, was visiting the rebel-held city of Kisangani on Wednesday for renewed talks aimed at resolving the conflict, a South African government spokesman told IRIN. The spokesman said Zuma, who arrived in Kisangani on Tuesday, would team up with Zambia's minister of presidential affairs, Eric Silwamba. The spokesman said Zuma would be meeting rebel leaders, but that it was too early to give further details. The two factions of the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) are at odds over who should sign the Lusaka ceasefire agreement, which was endorsed last month by leaders of the countries involved in the conflict. Zuma was dispatched to Kisangani by President Thabo Mbeki following weekend talks with the presidents of Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. The South African news agency SAPA said on Tuesday that Zuma was expected to persuade the two factions to sign the accord. City partitioned in wake of clashes Ugandan and Rwandan troops backing the opposing RCD factions in Kisangani have effectively partitioned the city following weekend clashes between Ugandan forces supporting the RCD Kisangani group and members of the Rwandan-backed RCD-Goma faction, AFP said on Tuesday. It quoted residents as saying Rwandan forces, however, played no part in the clashes. In spite of the city's partitioning, shops remained open, and the Ugandan and Rwandan soldiers seemed to be on cordial terms, AFP said. Wamba declares "war" RCD-Kisangani leader Ernest Wamba dia Wamba told AFP in Kisangani on Tuesday that he was now "at war with RCD-Goma and the Rwandans." Wamba, ousted as RCD president in May, said "RCD Goma provoked us, we don't understand why." Meanwhile, RCD-Goma on Tuesday accused Uganda of trying to split the rebel movement to further its own economic interests. "The Ugandans have many more economic objectives in the DRC than political or security ones," AFP quoted an RCD-Goma official as saying. "For this reason, their presence here is not justified," the official said. New ceasefire violations alleged The DRC defence ministry on Tuesday said its positions in northern Equateur and central Kasai Orientale provinces were shelled on Sunday and Monday "by the Uganda-Rwanda-Burundian coalition and their acolytes," in violation of the Lusaka ceasefire agreement. In a statement read on Congolese state television, the ministry said several civilians were wounded in the incidents.