IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 24 covering the period 12 - 18 June 1999

CONTENTS SIERRA LEONE: Humanitarian needs NIGERIA: Obasanjo restructures federal ministries WESTERN SAHARA: UN Mission resumes voter identification MAURITANIA: NGO seeks US $20,000 for refugees LIBERIA: WFP resumes operations in Voinjama NIGER: Government suspends mass retirement of civil servants GUINEA: Local elections postponed

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SIERRA LEONE: Humanitarian needs An humanitarian assessment team - of personnel from the UN, the government, the Sierra Leonean Red Cross and international NGSs - that visited villages between Masiaka and Rogberi Junction on 9 June, said that while the situation there had not reached crisis level, it had the potential to deteriorate rapidly. Rogberi is some 20 km north of Masiaka, which is about 60 km east of Freetown and has been the scene of intermittent fighting for the previous five months. The team found that food was scarce and most people were surviving on cassava and mangoes, according to its report, compiled by the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (HACU). Rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) had destroyed much of the previous year’s supply of seeds so farmers were unable to plant, while many of the some 10,000 people in the villages relied on traditional medicines and, to a lesser extent, medicine bought from Freetown, HACU said. It added there was a “considerable” risk of waterborne diseases due to inadequate water and sanitation facilities. Many schools have been closed. Of particular concern to the assessment mission was the insecurity caused by the rebel presence. In some areas, the proximity of the rebels to the villages had reduced the amount of land available for planting, HACU said. Rather than provide relief supplies that might be seized by rebels, the mission recommended that humanitarian aid should be geared more to providing “health, water and sanitation and longer-term food security programmes that are less likely to cause problems for the beneficiaries,” HACU said. The report recommended an immediate distribution of seeds and tools to farmers, and suggested further assessments of the area by medical, water and sanitation specialists to determine the best way to intervene in these sectors. RUF frees 21 children The RUF released 21 children aged seven to 15 years this week in Kontakuma, some 115 km northeast of Freetown, RUF legal advisor Omrie Golley told IRIN on Friday. He was confirming media reports that the children had been handed over to ECOMOG. AFP quoted a senior ECOMOG officer as saying on Thursday that the children had been held by rebels in Lunsar, some 80 km northeast of Freetown. UNICEF has said that at least 3,000 children between six and 15 years are still missing since the RUF invaded Freetown in January. UNICEF says 60 percent of the missing children are girls. In a meeting with President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah on Wednesday - the UN Day of the African Child - 12 Sierra Leonean children appealed for the release of all abducted or missing children being held by the RUF. Rebels allege ceasefire violations The RUF has accused pro-government forces of violating a ceasefire agreed on 24 May. Omrie Golley, the RUF’s legal advisor, told IRIN on Thursday that on 10 June ECOMOG troops abducted, disarmed and detained 14 RUF guerrillas now being held in Freetown. He said the RUF fighters were taken from Loko Masama chiefdom, some 60 km north-east of Freetown. IRIN was unable to reach ECOMOG for comment, on Thursday. However, Reuters on Wednesday quoted ECOMOG as saying the guerrillas had surrendered voluntarily in a confidence-building measure to help negotiations. Security Council extends UNOMSIL mandate The Security Council has extended the mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) by six months to 13 December. In a statement last weekend, the Council also said it had taken note of the UN Secretary-General’s intention to make recommendations for a revised UNOMSIL concept of operations, should the ongoing peace talks between the RUF and the Sierra Leonean government succeed in Lome, Togo. Talks still give hope for peace While Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, in his report, there had been “significant progress” in the talks, these are now deadlocked over power sharing in a transitional government. Despite this, Togolese Foreign Minister Joseph Koffigoh was quoted by AFP as saying last Sunday, “There is a glimmer of hope.” A day after Freetown residents protested at the proposed power-sharing pact with rebels, the government said on Friday it would “respect the wishes” of citizens in peace negotiations. A coalition of trade unions, teachers, human rights groups, and market women staged a one-day stay-in against any eventual agreement that would allow the RUF to share power in a government of national unity. The government of Sierra Leone was democratically elected in polls that the RUF tried to filibuster but was resisted by the public. NIGERIA: Obasanjo restructures federal ministries President Olusegun Obasanjo has continued his revamp of the federal government by naming 35 new permanent secretaries to its 28 ministries and presidential office, state-owned radio and other media reported. He has also restored the Petroleum Resource Ministry, scrapped 11 months ago by the military, and created ministries for the environment and police affairs. Obasanjo has set up a panel to review hundreds of projects abandoned by federal ministries and government firms under Nigeria’s last four military administrations (1984 to May 1999), AFP reported on Tuesday. The 12-member body will work from the vice president’s office, Warri declared disaster zone Delta State Governor James Ibori has declared the troubled oil town of Warri a disaster zone so that his administration can provide relief for residents made homeless by last week’s intercommunal fighting. In a broadcast last weekend on Delta State television, he also announced his intention to establish an Urban Development Authority, and promised vocational training and work for Itsekiri, Ijaw and Urhobo youths, many of whom were involved in recent bloody intercommunal fighting in the city. Underscoring these efforts to bring real change to the poverty-stricken Niger Delta, President Olusegun Obasanjo also announced last weekend that a new body was being created to build up the area, Nigerian radio reported on 12 June. WESTERN SAHARA: UN Mission resumes voter identification The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) resumed on Tuesday the identification of voters for a referendum in July 2000. The referendum is to allow the people of Western Sahara to decide between independence and integration with Morocco, which annexed the former Spanish colony in 1975. MAURITANIA: NGO seeks US $20,000 for refugees A Swiss-based humanitarian agency, Action by Churches Together (ACT), has said it needs another US $20,000 to provide food, clothing, medicines, school fees and shelter for 300 Sierra Leonean war refugees in Mauritania. In an appeal on Monday, it said two-thirds of its US $60,000 project to care for the refugees was given by the UNHCR but was “too limited to address all the needs of the refugees”. ACT said 100 of the refugees - the sick, the handicapped, children and women - were in “dire need of immediate” help. LIBERIA: WFP resumes operations in Voinjama The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has resumed limited operations in northern Liberian town of Voinjama. In its latest Emergency Report, WFP says that as of 10 June, 400 mt of food were sent to Upper Lofa region, which includes Voinjama, for refugees and other activities. In the last week of May, WFP delivered food rations to some 5,630 Sierra Leonean refugees in Sinje Camp. Food deliveries had been halted after gunmen kidnapped 17 UN staff members in Voinjama on 22 April. As a result, WFP lost 408 mt of its 660 mt food stock. Deliveries have resumed despite the looting of a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) warehouse on 6 June. NIGER: Government suspends mass retirement of civil servants Niger’s trade unions have reacted to a government decision to freeze the planned dismissal of some 2,000 public servants by suspending a two-day strike that was to have begun on Wednesday to press demands for eight months’ back pay, a media source told IRIN. Under a World Bank-supported economic reform programme, Niger’s previous government had dismissed civil servants who had reached the age of 50 or had served for 30 years. Information Minister Mahamadou Dandah told IRIN on Wednesday that the government had suspended the dismissals because measures that were to have accompanied them could not be taken following the suspension of aid to Niger because of the 9 April coup that brought the Conseil national de Reconciliation (CNR) to power. Elections set for October-November The first round of presidential elections will be held in Niger on 3 October, while 14 November is the date set for the second round and general elections, the Conseil electoral national independant (CENI) announced last weekend. The polls will be preceded by a referendum on 11 July at which Niger’s people will vote on a new constitution. GUINEA: Local elections postponed Guinea’s government has postponed local elections from 29 June to December for budgetary reasons, Interior Minister Moussa Solano announced on 11 June. A media source in Conakry told IRIN the move was reportedly linked to the pressure the 1998 presidential elections and the cost of contributing troops to ECOMOG had put on the national treasury.