IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup 122 covering the period 4 - 10 May 2002

CONTENTS: LIBERIA: At least 40,000 displaced in latest fighting NIGERIA: BAC-1-11 aircraft grounded after crash THE GAMBIA-SENEGAL: 9,000 Senegalese flee Casamance fighting THE GAMBIA: Journalists petition against new media bill MALI: Court affirms second round SIERRA LEONE: Special voting starts GHANA: Reconciliation panel inaugurated WEST AFRICA: Health update: HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Meningitis WEST AFRICA: ICRC and artists to raise rights awareness GLOBAL: New rehydration formula to save millions of lives LIBERIA: At least 40,000 displaced in latest fighting At least 40,000 people have been displaced in Liberia by the latest fighting between government troops and rebels in central Bong County, humanitarian sources in the capital, Monrovia, told IRIN on Friday. More displacement was expected as the fighting intensified around the town of Gbarnga, 160 km north of Monrovia, the sources added. The majority of the displaced were moving south to Margibi County, while a few were moving into Nimba County. By Friday the fighting had reportedly spread to several areas on the outskirts of Gbarnga. A government military camp housing the engineering and artillery base was overrun by the rebels, news agencies reported. At least 900 students and teachers from Cuttington University College, the second largest University in Liberia, were evacuated by a police convoy to Monrovia on Tuesday, sources said. Fleeing residents, they added, spoke of heavy gun fire coming from the town. President Charles Taylor spoke on Radio Liberia International on Thursday, saying fighting with rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) was continuing fiercely. He called on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to lobby the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) and the UN against the Security Council embargo, the pro-Taylor radio station reported. The Security Council decided unanimously this week to extend sanctions on the Liberian government for 12 months, saying the country had not fully complied with demands to stop support for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and other armed rebel groups in the region. The extension, effective from 7 May, covers an arms embargo, travel ban on government officials, and a prohibition on the exports of rough diamonds, the UN reported on Monday. The Council, however, requested the Secretary-General, within three months to set up another panel of experts to investigate in Liberia and neighbouring states, compliance with its demands, the potential economic, humanitarian and social impact of the sanctions on Liberia's population, and any further violations. The extension could "be immediately terminated if the Council decides that the government has complied with the resolution", the UN said. In March the UN mandated a panel of experts to probe the government's compliance with the Council Resolution 1343 of March 2001, under which sanctions were imposed on Monrovia for its links with RUF in neighbouring Sierra Leone. Gbarnga once served as a headquarters of President Charles Taylor’s forces when he led the war of rebellion in 1989-1996. LURD spokesman, William Hanson, was quoted by the BBC on Wednesday as saying they had captured a number of strategically important towns in the area. NIGERIA: BAC-1-11 aircraft grounded after crash Nigeria has grounded all British-made BAC-1-11 jet aircraft in the fleet of airlines operating in the country, after an aircraft of the same model crashed at the weekend, killing 149 people. Minister of Aviation, Kema Chikwe, also told a news conference in the capital, Abuja, on Wednesday that all aircraft above 22 years would no longer be registered by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. Owners of such aircraft have been given five years to phase them out, she added. The twin-engine BAC-1-11-500 operated by EAS Airlines with 79 people on board, crashed shortly after take-off on Saturday, into a residential neighbourhood in the northern city of Kano. Four people survived while another 74 were killed on the ground. Among the dead was Nigeria's minister of sports, Ishaya Mark Aku, on his way to Lagos to watch a friendly football match between the national team and Kenya. Unidentified victims were given a mass burial in the city cemetery on Monday. The minister also said a special panel, headed by a federal high court judge, had been set up to investigate the circumstances of the accident. President Olusegun Obasanjo, who visited the crash site on Monday, said that victims would be paid compensation and announced that 10 million naira (US $86,206) had been set aside to provide emergency assistance. The crash was Nigeria's worst aviation accident since 1996, when a Boeing 727 aircraft operated by another local airliner, Aviation Development Company, plunged into the Lagos lagoon while approaching to land, killing all 145 passengers and crew on board. THE GAMBIA-SENEGAL: 9,000 Senegalese flee Casamance fighting At least 9,000 refugees fleeing fighting in the Casamance region of southern Senegal have entered The Gambia since Monday, Gambian immigration officials told IRIN on Friday. Over 500 arrived in the village of Berending in the space of two days, while hundreds more crossed the border on Thursday as fighting between the Senegalese army and rebels intensified after a brief lull mid-week, the officials said. The escalation in the fighting came as Senegal prepared for municipal elections. Reports said the army had mounted a "mopping up operation" in the Casamance villages of Mamuda and Kartak, which were previously used as rear bases by the rebels. The Casamance Democratic Forces Movement (French acronym MFDC), has waged an armed campaign since 1982 to gain independence for the region. Several peace deals have been signed with the authorities in Senegal, but none has been fully respected. Fleeing refugees spoke of heavy aerial bombardment by Senegalese forces of rebel positions, especially around the village of Diouloulou, some 80 km northwest of Ziguinchor, where rebels attacked a delegation of ruling party Senegalese politicians last week. The attack, in which at least eight people died, prompted the current Senegalese army counter-offensive. Gambian security forces continued to be stationed along the border in what their chief of staff, Colonel Babucar Jatta, described as "a routine move to monitor the situation on the border every time there’s fighting in Casamance." The armed forces deployment on Sunday followed the bombardment of the Gambian border village of Dimbaya by a Senegalese military plane that was pursuing suspected rebels. UNHCR said arrangements had been made by the Gambian government to transfer refugees from the border villages of Kartong and Darsilami to Bambila refugee camp, some 200 km inland. An UNHCR mission from Dakar has gone to the border area to assess humanitarian assistance needs. Gambia is already host to some 12,000 refugees, 4,000 of them from Senegal and about 7,000 from Sierra Leone, UNHCR said. THE GAMBIA: Journalists petition against new media bill Journalists in The Gambia have petitioned President Yahya Jammeh not to sign into law a controversial media bill passed by parliament last week. Jammeh, however, left for New York on Monday to attend the 8-10 May United Nations conference on children. The chairman of the Gambia Press Union, Demba Jawo, said they would challenge the bill in court if the petition to the president fails. Under the new bill journalists would be required to register with a National Media Commission. The Commission is mandated to enforce a media code of conduct, register journalists, summon journalists to answer complaints against them from aggrieved parties and judge the complaints. It would also set standards on content and quality of material for publication or broadcast by the media. MALI: Constitutional Court affirms second round Mali's Constitutional Court has nullified over 500,000 ballots cast in the first round of presidential elections, however it maintained that Sunday's second round should go ahead as planned. The court's decision marked the official and final results of the 28 April first round which had been contested by some of the losing candidates. Several presidential candidates had brought before the court allegations of fraud and vote-rigging and were pressing for the highest court to annul the first round. Although the court annulled 541,000 votes, it supported the 3 May proclamation by the ministry of territorial administration - in charge of organising the elections - that ex-army general Amadou Toumani Toure and Soumaila Cisse of the ruling ADEMA party, were the two front runners, Ismael Dicko, an information official at the ministry, told IRIN on Friday. Toure and Cisse will compete in the second round scheduled for 12 May. Former prime minister, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who came third in the first round, on Thursday urged his supporters to vote for Toure. SIERRA LEONE: Special voting starts Special voting for key state employees started on Friday, four days before the rest of the nation votes in the first general elections since the 10-year war between the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the government was officially declared over in January. The one-day special vote is aimed at members of the armed forces, National Electoral Commission, fire department, police force and others, who would be on duty on 14 May, a UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) official in the capital, Freetown, told IRIN. There had been "no dramatic incidents" since campaigning by the 11 participating parties began. However, there were reports of verbal intimidation of opposition members in the eastern town of Koidu by supporters of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's ruling Sierra Leone People's Party, humanitarian sources said. Meanwhile UNAMSIL Force Commander Lt-Gen Daniel Opande, this week visited two former RUF strongholds, the northern town of Makeni and Kenema in the east, to assess the general security situation and to get an update on preparations by UNAMSIL for next week's elections. In Kenema, UNAMSIL reported Commander Brig-Gen George Ayi-Bonte as saying, the security situation was calm. The election campaign in the area had been peaceful while arrangements had been put in place to ensure adequate security for free, fair and transparent elections, he said. The general security situation in Sierra Leone remained calm, a UNAMSIL official said on Friday. GHANA: Reconciliation panel inaugurated President John Kufuor inaugurated on Monday a reconciliation commission responsible for looking into past human rights violations, news organisation reported. At the ceremony in the capital, Accra, Kufuor said that the hearings would be "a forum for those who are aggrieved to seek consolation, and for those whose losses cannot be replaced to receive compensation", news organisations quoted him as saying. He said the government was determined to build "a new Ghana" and that the setting up of the commission was a genuine attempt to reconcile the nation for the mistakes of the past. Some opposition politicians have criticized the new body saying its only purpose was to carry out witch hunts. The commission, chaired by a retired Supreme Court Judge, Justice Amua-Sekyi, is expected to operate for about one year. It is mandated to investigate abuses committed during the five military regimes which ruled Ghana for a total of 22 years after the first coup in 1966, the BBC reported. WEST AFRICA: Health update: HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Meningitis Togo's Red Cross association launched a two-year project against the spread of HIV/AIDS this week, as part of a continent-wide health initiative by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The HIV/AIDS initiative includes an education and sensitisation campaign targeting those aged above 15, considered to be at most risk. The aims of the project include teaming up with religious, community and youth leaders to encourage the adoption of safe sex behavior, including use of condoms. Meanwhile, in Gabon, the Ebola haemorrhagic fever outbreak has been officially declared over, WHO reported the Ministry of Health as saying on 6 May. The last notified case died on 19 March and no further cases had been reported for a period equivalent to twice the maximum incubation period for Ebola, it added. WHO did not mention the status of the outbreak in Republic of Congo. The outbreak began in December 2001 and has mainly affected the Mekambo area, 600 km east of Gabon's capital, Libreville, and districts across the border in neighbouring Republic of Congo. On 10 April, 53 deaths had been reported by the Gabonese Ministry of Health. In Republic of Congo, as at 29 March, 43 deaths were reported in Mbomo district and Kelle district. Ebola is a haemorrhagic fever transmitted through direct contact with body fluids of infected persons or other primates. There is no cure and between 50 percent and 90 percent of victims die. Meanwhile in the Sahel countries of Burkina Faso and Niger, latest figures indicate that the meningitis epidemic was slowing down. Burkina Faso recorded 1,368 deaths from meningitis out of 11,899 cases as at 28 April, with a weekly case-fatality rate that indicated a downward trend in the epidemic, WHO reported on Monday. Meningitis in Burkina Faso was first reported in January in the eastern district of Diapaga but, since then, the Ministry of Health has reported cases in all of the country's 53 districts. In Niger, 3,518 cases including 308 deaths were reported as at 21 April, particularly in the southern districts of Matamey (Zinder), Dakaro and Guidan-Roumdji where cases were still being reported, WHO said. The two countries are among the West African countries located in Africa's meningitis belt that comprises about 15 countries south of the Sahara where outbreaks of the disease occur each year. WEST AFRICA: ICRC and artists to raise rights awareness The regional delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and seven West African artists have launched a music album titled 'Man is Man's remedy' that aims to raise awareness of basic principles of humanitarian law. The 8-track, non-commercial album, launched on Wednesday in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, was a collaborative work of four artists from Cote d'Ivoire, Assy Kywah of Benin, Sonia Carre d'as of Burkina Faso and Dama Damwuzan of Togo. Apart from a plea "to give back a little humanity to those who have lost it" in the title track, they also sing of child-soldiers, anti-personnel mines, small arms trafficking, women in war, prisoners, displacement, and respect for civilians during conflict. The ICRC project coordinator, Simon Pluess, said music was chosen because of the region's strong oral tradition and because musicians were "mouth-pieces" of their communities. The artists were also known to highlight social issues in their respective careers. GLOBAL: New rehydration formula to save millions of lives The World Health Organization, released a new improved formula of Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) on Wednesday that would save millions of lives and reduce the severity of illness of those suffering from acute diarrhoea, WHO reported. ORS is a sodium and glucose solution used to treat children with acute diarrhoea. WHO said the new formula would reduce the severity of diarrhoea and vomiting, the number of hospitalisations, the need for costly intravenous fluid treatment and the length of illness. Use of the new ORS formula would begin later this year in India, WHO said.