Returnees top 150,000 mark - government

Some 158,144 Burkinabe have returned home from Cote d'Ivoire since 19 September 2002, when a rebel war broke in the neighbouring country, according to Burkina Faso's minister of social welfare and national solidarity, Mariam Lamizana. Lamizana said at a news conference on Monday that some US $70,000 had been spent thus far to cater for the returning migrants. On 14 February, the government and its partners set up a joint commission to support a national plan of action to assist the returnees, the minister told journalists. "UNICEF," she said, "has assisted with textbooks" for children of school age, and watertanks to ensure that the returnees have access to clean water. The crisis in Cote d'Ivoire has also had serious economic implications for Burkina Faso. The worst hit sectors include livestock and railway transport. The Sitarail company was forced to suspend its railway service between Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso when the crisis broke out. Over the weekend, wives of Sitarail employees took to the streets of Burkina Faso's second city, Bobo Dioulasso, to ask for assistance. According to the governmental daily, Sidwaya, the women, accompanied by their children, paraded through the city holding empty rice bags and baskets and shouting "Help! Help! We are hungry". Their spokeswoman, Bibata Coulibaly, said the children could not go to school because they were unable to pay school fees. Sidwaya also reported the protesters as saying that their families were facing health and housing problems. Following the closure of the border by the Burkinabe authorities at the start of the conflict, Sitarail had sent its workers on three months' leave without pay when the Burkinabe authorities closed the border between the two countries at the start of the conflict. When that period elapsed, the company sent its workers on "technical unemployment" until further notice. Another sector that has been severely affected by the Ivorian crisis is the cattle industry, which says it has already lost 10 billion CFA francs (about US$17 million) since the end of September. Sixty percent of Burkina Faso's cattle used to be sold in Cote d'Ivoire.