http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspxUpdated everydayen-gbFri, 20 Nov 2009 13:54:04 GMTBRAZZAVILLE Friday, November 20, 2009 (IRIN) - Renewed clashes in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have led to a further wave of refugees, leaving corpse-littered villages in the affected area deserted, say humanitarian officials.BRAZZAVILLE Friday, November 20, 2009 (IRIN) - Renewed clashes in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have led to a further wave of refugees, leaving corpse-littered villages in the affected area deserted, say humanitarian officials.

About 100 people are thought to have died in clashes over fishing rights in DRC’s South Ubangi district, which lies in Equateur province. Others are believed to have drowned while crossing the Ubangi river, which separates the two Congos.

"Today we have 30,600 displaced persons. We have had a massive influx since yesterday [19 November] because of a resumption in fighting," Rufin Mafouta, head of the NGO Médecins d’Afrique in Impfondo, the main town in the Republic of Congo’s (ROC) northern Likouala department, told IRIN.

Likouala is located about 800km north of the capital, Brazzaville.

"There was a week we had just 24,000 refugees. The number has quickly risen because of a resumption in fighting in towns and villages in the DRC," Mafouta said.

Conditions are harsh for the refugees.

"They are exposed to the bad weather,” Mafouta said. “The sanitary conditions remain worrying. We have recorded some cases of diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections and skin diseases among the children.”

“In Eboko, we carried out an evaluation and found there are a lot of unaccompanied children. They lost their parents,” he added. “There are also many pregnant women.”

An 18 November update by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Kinshasa said four children had died of diarrhoea in Eboko.

A recent interagency mission to the South Ubangi villages of Dongo, Tangala, Ozene and Kungu found Dongo deserted, with corpses still strewn in the streets, stated the OCHA report.

Houses, shops and other property were also burned. Congolese police deployed in the area are afraid for their health.

The refugees include members of the DRC’s navy, which patrols the Ubangi.

"We have been forced to flee with our families because we neither have weapons nor ammunition [to] protect ourselves," Wazaba Paluku, a sergeant, told IRIN in the ROC village of Dongou, where sailors had taken refuge in a police station.

About 70 percent of the refugees are women and children, 25 percent are young people, with the rest elderly persons, according to Boubacar Ben Diallo, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) crisis unit.

Hospitals reported receiving people with bullet and machete injuries.

DRC's ambassador to the ROC, Esther Kirongozi, said her government had recently set up a special commission to find a lasting solution to the crisis.

DRC authorities also launched an appeal for its citizens to return home. 

Aid agencies recently distributed about 15 tonnes of food and non-food items such as insecticide-treated bed nets, cooking pots, water jerry cans and blankets to the refugees in Betou, Boyele, Dongo and Impfondo following a joint UN and ROC ministry evaluation mission.

“The [donation] is inadequate but we have been forced to distribute [it], in the meantime [awaiting] other help,” noted UNHCR's Diallo.

According to the police, some of the refugees are making their way back to their DRC villages across Ubangi River to harvest their crops before crossing back to the ROC.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87136BUJUMBURA Thursday, November 19, 2009 (IRIN) - Next year’s elections in Burundi, billed as a milestone on the country’s long road to sustainable peace, could trigger more conflict because of a combination of widespread illegal weapons and well-organized youth wings of political parties, according to analysts.BUJUMBURA Thursday, November 19, 2009 (IRIN) - Next year’s elections in Burundi, billed as a milestone on the country’s long road to sustainable peace, could trigger more conflict because of a combination of widespread illegal weapons and well-organized youth wings of political parties, according to analysts.

Power struggles in Burundi have provoked bouts of armed violence and civil war from independence in 1962 until the country’s last rebel group gave up and became a political party in April 2009.

According to Jean-Marie Gasana, a veteran Burundi analyst, the risks associated with the youth wings are exacerbated by the presence “of large caches of arms in the hands of civilians.

"Even more worrying is what happens should the opposition contest the outcome of the elections," he told IRIN in Bujumbura. "We are likely to see a repeat of scenarios... where violence has ensued following flawed elections."

"We could return to civil war,” echoed Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa, founding president of the Burundi Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detainees.

"We have to also pay attention to the police and army, both of which have integrated former rebels into their ranks," he added. "If there is an incident during the elections, these people could be tempted to support their original movements."

Some of the armed, government-controlled former rebels in the capital operate outside the formal structures of the police and army, according to one human rights activist, who asked not to be named.

“The situation could become chaotic because youth [groups] have often been used during past civil wars and this is no different,” said Mbonimpa.

Some of these groups feel unfairly targeted by the authorities. Odette Ntahiraja, the secretary-general of the Mouvement pour la solidarité et la démocratie (MSD), a party registered in June 2009, told IRIN its young supporters were “often denied the right to hold demonstrations.

“Sometimes they are even arrested and some are beaten. Yet other youth groups are armed and go ahead and intimidate people without any action being taken against them,” she added.

Risk of election violence

For the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, such uneven attitudes by the authorities help to make Burundi a “classroom example of a country at potential risk of election-related violence”.

Jamila El Abdellaoui, a senior researcher in the institute’s conflict prevention programme, says [http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SHIG-7X3DP3?OpenDocument&RSS20=02-P] another reason is the reported “[re-]arming of militias by several political parties as tools to intimidate the electorate.

“The fact that the reintegration phase of the country’s recently completed DDR [disarmament, demobilization and reintegration] process has largely failed, especially concerning those returning to urban areas, explains the availability of some former combatants to join such groups,” she argues in an October article.

Pancrace Cimpaye, spokesman for the main opposition Front pour la démocratie au Burundi (FRODEBU), said his party would not arm its young supporters but added that they would “stand up” for the people if they were targeted by the ruling party.

"Our main concern as we head to the polls is security; we urge the international community to pay more attention to this and, if possible, help in the setting-up of a special protection unit specifically for the elections," he said.

For the European Network for Central Africa (EURAC), [http://www.eurac-network.org/web/index.php?] a Brussels-based coalition of advocacy NGOs, “The potential for violence is not yet under control” in Burundi. It cited divisions within political parties, widespread precarious living conditions, bad governance and the fact that “the rule of law is still under construction” as potential drivers of unrest.

For land conflict and human rights consultant Rene-Claude Niyonkuru, land issues are another factor: "We would be mistaken if we said there will be no violence - especially related to issues such as land. The people are frustrated, especially returnees, who are coming home in large numbers. The government had been encouraging them to return [but] it seems the same government is ill-prepared to ensure their smooth resettlement."

He called for the mobilization of the population to address land conflicts: "Why can't we use the election period to interrogate potential candidates on their proposals and commitment to the resolution of land disputes in the country?"

Voluntary disarmament

Civilians across Burundi handed in thousands of guns, grenades and rounds of ammunition during a voluntary disarmament campaign in October. According to Leopold Banzubaze, deputy head of the National Disarmament Commission, more than 80,000 weapons – which Banzubaze said amounted to almost 80 percent of all the weapons in circulation - had been handed in since 2007.

Many analysts believe that despite these campaigns, there are tens of thousands of firearms still circulating in Burundi. According to the commission’s own data, fewer than 2,500 of the weapons handed in during the last phase of voluntary disarmament were rifles. The rest were grenades (10,429), bombs (218) and mines (28).

Officials in Burundi seem to be aware of the risks surrounding the polls.

"I can say there are cases of murders and other killings which are the consequences of our civil war,” Guy-Michel Mfatiye, chief of staff in the Ministry of Human Rights and Gender, told IRIN.

He added that his ministry was working with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to “sensitize the people at different levels from the regional, provincial and even to the communal level on why the elections are important and how to conduct themselves during that period”.

According to the president of the electoral commission, Pierre Claver Ndayicariye, it has established a technical committee on security and is working with the Ministry of Public Security - with the support of donor countries such as the Netherlands and Norway as well as the UN Development Programme - to build the capacity of the security forces to ensure peaceful elections.

"The issue of security is important before, during and after the elections; our message as the electoral commission to political parties is: stop rival youth groups from provoking each other, the parties are on the ground, they can stop any harmful activity by their members," Ndayicariye said.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87117BUGARAMA Friday, November 13, 2009 (IRIN) - A CARE empowerment project in Burundi is training women in dispute resolution, savings and credit schemes, and putting a stop to sexual violence.BUGARAMA Friday, November 13, 2009 (IRIN) - A CARE empowerment project in Burundi is training women in dispute resolution, savings and credit schemes, and putting a stop to sexual violence.

Odette Nzokirantevye, 37, a mother of six from Bugarama Commune in Bujumbura Rural Province, told IRIN on 6 November that joining the project had changed her life:

"I joined Gezaho! [The name of the CARE project, meaning “Stop!” in Kirundi - i.e. “stop violence against women”] in 2007 when I realized that women were not being treated as human beings when it came to gender-based violence. I had my own knowledge on many matters affecting us here at the village, but it was not enough; Gezaho! has given me power and knowledge.

"Before the programme, women who were victims of violence had nowhere to go for help and no one to help them. Since the project started in our village, whenever a woman is abused, she now knows what to do and where to go to seek assistance.

"My husband used to beat me and he would say that there is no way a woman can stand up and say anything in a meeting; when you stood up, you were given names. They would say 'that woman is above her husband'; some even told my husband to get another woman `because one who can stand up and speak out in meetings is not a woman to keep as a wife’.

"I had children and I didn't have anywhere to go should he throw me out. Initially, my husband did not want me to join Gezaho! thinking it would provide an opportunity for me to look for other men; he changed when he saw the benefits of the programme. Now he says it is alright for me to be a member. Men are also invited to Gezaho! and they do training, and because many of them have benefited, they are happy to be members. Of course, there are those who have not changed and continue to engage in violence against women but these are few.

"Since joining Gezaho! I now know my rights better and I have other members acting as my support group. Previously, I didn't have an opportunity to make any money of my own; now I don't wait for my husband to give me money for soap or lotion; I know how to conduct business; I can count money and I am now able to save. When there is a new type of `kitenge’ [cloth wrap] in the market, I can buy it for myself from the proceeds I make from selling charcoal, cassava flour and cooking oil.

"Gezaho! has sensitized us to fight for our rights; it has opened our minds and given us knowledge to know what we are entitled to as women. However, the project should give more support to women, especially those in the hills [in Bujumbura Rural] who are still lagging behind as most of them do not know their rights."

js/cbhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87024KINSHASA Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has urged its citizens who recently fled inter-ethnic clashes in the western DRC province of Equateur and sought refuge in the Republic of Congo, to return home, saying calm has been restored in their villages.KINSHASA Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has urged its citizens who recently fled inter-ethnic clashes in the western DRC province of Equateur and sought refuge in the Republic of Congo, to return home, saying calm has been restored in their villages.

"People must be able to [return] because we have arrested more than 100 insurgents who were spreading terror and killing people in Dongo," government spokesman Lambert Mende said.

The government, he told IRIN, had stabilized the situation by deploying police in Dongo and surrounding villages where clashes between the Munzaya and Enyele ethnic groups recently left 47 people dead.

Seventy percent of the civilians who crossed the Ubangi river to enter ROC were women and children, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said. They fled clashes over farming and fishing rights in an area 300km north of Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur Province.

Their number has risen from an estimated 16,000 people, a week ago, to about 21,800, according to UHNCR and ROC government officials.

"The refugees have mostly stopped crossing the border amid reports that the DRC military had intervened in Dongo to stop attacks by armed Enyele, who appear to have organized into a militia," UNHCR said in a statement.

Despite this, UNHCR staff in ROC could still see smoke from burning houses across the river on 9 November.

Most of the refugees were Munzaya and sheltering in villages between the districts of Betou and Impfondo in northern ROC. They said Enyele men had gone from house to house in Dongo, pillaging, raping and killing civilians.

"The refugees... have expressed their wish not to be repatriated to the DRC for the moment, although their government said it had restored security," Francesca Fontanini, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR, said.

Clashes in Dongo started in March.

IDPs too

"We are talking of [about] 22,000 refugees in ROC today, but there are nearly 30,000 villagers who are internally displaced [IDPs] in other villages in the DRC," Fontanini told IRIN.

"Most live in public buildings which are like transit centres, where we have started the distribution of non-food items, tents and emergency medical care with the aid of a mobile clinic," she added.

More than 20 of the refugees arrived in ROC with gunshot wounds. Nine of the severely injured were taken by UNHCR to Impfondo hospital. These included an 11- year-old girl whose right leg was amputated.

Mende said the government was doing everything to ensure the resumption of smooth, profitable fishing activities in Dongo. Earlier, officials in Equateur had said dialogue between the communities had been initiated.

More than 200 houses were burned in the March attack on the Munzaya, forcing at least 1,200 people to flee across the Ubangi River into ROC.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87002DUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.DUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November [http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak340e/ak340e00.htm], published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.

The report highlights a contradiction: world cereal production is at its second-highest level ever, yet food prices remain very high. It identifies 77 countries that are both low-income and food deficit.

In East Africa, cereal prices range from 68 percent to 177 percent over the 2007 numbers. In southern Africa, prices are 58-200 percent higher than in 2007, and in most of Asia prices are up 40-70 percent. Since most low-income food deficit countries are food importers, they lose far more from high prices than they gain from steady crop production.

Hunger, in most cases, is caused by lack of money rather than a shortage of food production, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). [http://www.wfp.org/hunger/causes] In 2008 the number of undernourished people in the world increased by 40 million, despite record harvests. [http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/8836/icode/]

The new FAO report suggests that 2009 is likely to see a similar increase in hunger.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87006KIGALI Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - The group refugee status of tens of thousands of Rwandans who fled their country in the wake of the 1994 genocide could be lifted by the end of 2011, according to UN and Rwandan officials.KIGALI Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - The group refugee status of tens of thousands of Rwandans who fled their country in the wake of the 1994 genocide could be lifted by the end of 2011, according to UN and Rwandan officials.

Since 2002, Kigali has been keen to see invoked a clause in the 1951 refugee convention which allows for refugee status to be lifted if the conditions in a country that led to mass exodus are deemed to have changed in a fundamental, durable and effective way. This "ceased circumstances" clause is one of the convention’s cessation clauses.

Of the several million, mostly Hutu Rwandans who fled their country after the genocide, around 60,000 still live as refugees in neighbouring states. The government in Kigali has been unable to allay their fears that it is not safe to return home.

"There is no reason why Rwandan citizens should stay in the Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC], Uganda or Burundi as refugees, when their country is stable. We are pleased that we have reached common ground with UNHCR [UN Refugee Agency] over the cessation clause," Rwanda’s local government minister, Christophe Bizivamo, said recently.

According to UNHCR spokesman Yusuf Hassan, this common ground consists of a commitment "to work on a road map of activities and benchmarks which, if met, would allow the invocation of the cessation clause for Rwandan refugees by 31 December 2011."

Key points of this roadmap include:

- Actively enhancing voluntary repatriation of Rwandan refugees
- Implementing effective reintegration projects to make returns sustainable
- Securing rights for Rwandan refugees who are unable or unwilling to return, through regularizing their stay in their current country of residence, or confirming their need for continued international protection.

Once the cessation clause is invoked and blanket international protection is lifted, some individual Rwandans who are still unwilling to return home could retain refugee status by invoking "compelling reasons arising out of previous persecution".

"This exception is intended to cover instances where a person who - or whose family - has suffered under atrocious forms of persecution, should not be expected to repatriate," said the UNHCR’s Hassan.

"Even though there may have been a change of regime in his country, this may not always produce a complete change in the attitude of the population, nor, in view of his past experiences, in the mind of the refugee. Whether or not the Rwandans in DRC and Burundi fall under that category will have to be determined," he added.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86982JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - A move by donor countries to provide aid agencies with cash, allowing them the flexibility to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country and save on transport and warehousing costs, is not addressing nutritional needs, according to a new report.JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - A move by donor countries to provide aid agencies with cash, allowing them the flexibility to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country and save on transport and warehousing costs, is also not addressing nutritional needs, according to a new report.

Food aid should include foodstuffs fortified with micronutrients and animal protein. "The emphasis is more on quantity rather than quality, and rarely does the food aid target the most vulnerable groups: children under five, pregnant women and lactating mothers," said Stéphane Doyon, of the international medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a co-author of the organization's report, Malnutrition: how much is being spent?

"Barely 1.7 percent of interventions reported as 'development food aid/food security' and 'emergency food aid' between 2004 and 2007 actually address nutrition needs," he said.

The MSF report was published ahead of a new UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, which points out that the level of child and maternal undernutrition "remains unacceptable" throughout the world; 90 percent of the developing world's chronically undernourished or stunted children live in Asia and Africa.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86993KINSHASA Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - At least 16,000 civilians have fled deadly clashes in western Democratic Republic of Congo and are now languishing, many without food or shelter, in neighbouring Republic of Congo, according to the UN and local officials.KINSHASA Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - At least 16,000 civilians have fled deadly clashes in western Democratic Republic of Congo and are now languishing, many without food or shelter, in neighbouring Republic of Congo, according to the UN and local officials.

“These villagers fled interethnic fighting [in Dungu, Equateur Province] which has already claimed 47 lives and caused many injuries,” said Francesca Fontanini, a spokeswoman for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

Equateur’s police chief, Col Joly Limengo, told IRIN that clashes had broken out last week between members of the Lobala and Boba communities over access to fishing ponds.

Those who fled are having problems with nutrition, medical supplies and shelter, according to Fontanini, citing the findings of an inter-agency mission made up of officials from UNHCR, other UN agencies, the Interior Ministry and local NGOs.

“Villagers are still crossing [the Ubangi river] to Republic of Congo. By yesterday [4 November], more than 16,000 had done so. Most did not take any provisions at all, or only very few. They are housed in municipal buildings or in the open. There is either no health centre, or insufficient medical supplies where they are,” she said.

Officials in Equateur Province said they had initiated dialogue between the warring inhabitants of the villages of Iyele and Muzala.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende said there was more to the unrest than an old dispute about fish.

“It’s an insurrection. A certain Edo Bokoto, who has been suspended from his post of sector chief, has mobilized about 10 men from his community to wanted to take control of these fish ponds which belong to people from these villages. They started to attack people from outside their community,” he said, adding that seven policemen who intervened in the fighting had been killed.

Equateur is the home province of erstwhile rebel leader and former vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, now awaiting trial for alleged war crimes at the International Criminal Court.


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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86898GOMA Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - While medical and psychological care are being provided to survivors of sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where 7,000 women and girls have been raped this year alone, UN and aid workers on the ground say the funding response has been too narrow, leaving key issues inadequately addressed.GOMA Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - While medical and psychological care are being provided to survivors of sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where 7,000 women and girls have been raped this year alone, UN and aid workers on the ground say the funding response has been too narrow, leaving key issues inadequately addressed.

"Increased international attention to sexual violence in DRC has led to a substantial increase of funding, accompanied by a disproportionate lack of evaluations of the real needs on the ground and lack of understanding of the complexity of the issues," notes the Comprehensive Strategy on Combating Sexual Violence in the DRC,
[http://www.stoprapenow.org/pdf/SVStratExecSummaryFinal18March09.pdf] released in 2009 by the Office of the Senior Adviser and Coordinator for Sexual Violence in the DRC.

"Efforts are unevenly distributed [...] The programmatic focus is essentially on two sectors: medical and judicial support to sexual violence survivors, while the remaining sectors show very few interventions," according to the strategy.

The sectors receiving proportionally less funding and attention include prevention and reintegration.

"Just treating the results of sexual violence is a catastrophe. No one is really treating the root or the entirety of the situation. If you just care for the raped women, you will be caring for them up until infinity," said Butros Kalere of Women for Women. [http://www.womenforwomen.org]

Among those feeling the funding pinch is Heal Africa [http://www.healafrica.org/cms/], a Goma-based NGO that provides medical and social care in the region.

"Sexual violence is not just a physical problem, but we often don't have enough funding and thus, we are limited to real work only for the immediate victims," the organization's community health coordinator, Jean Robert Likofata Esanga, told IRIN, adding that its programmes that focus on prevention, rehabilitation and re-integration continually suffer under-funding.

Effective prevention programming, according to Tasha Gill, child protection officer with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in the DRC, "employs advocacy and awareness to mobilize the communities through community leaders, identifying the issues and working towards longer-term changes within local social norms, while alternately working towards protecting those who are most vulnerable".

Gill also noted that the UN planned over the next few years to better direct funding so that "funding for this sort of prevention programming no longer falls through the cracks".

Even organizations that specialize in protection are feeling the pinch. "We usually try to reduce vulnerability and protect 1,000 women in the communities on the outskirts of Goma by providing them with skills training, literacy and financing a portion of their activities," explained an employee of one such NGO. "Now that our donor wants us to work more in an 'emergency' setting and we are confined to working in the IDP camps, it is very difficult as the population is always in flux. It's hard to keep track of them and be consistent with the training."

Reintegration

The UN's goals for re-integration include "ensuring victims' satisfaction and guaranteeing non-recurrence of sexual violence" as well as ongoing psycho-social care. However, the services are fragmented due to minimal funding, complicated coordination and the distances to be covered for transportation and service provision. Even in Goma's Kibati I IDP camp in July, women were returning without access to further counselling, education or skills-building.

As Constance, a Heal Africa counsellor, said: "We would like to help each victim reintegrate smoothly and carry on with counselling sessions, but we are limited to having a clinic or a skill centre nearby. We do not have the funds to help every woman through her return."

The UN's ideal plan for re-integration also includes a "survivor-centred skill approach". While some NGOs have funding to provide women with the opportunity to learn skills during their hospital stays, their use of those skills upon their return can be restricted by location and availability of material. For example, women are restricted in practising their sewing skills by lack of access to a sewing machine, while literacy skills are restricted by the lack of schools.

"Medical, protection, and legal/justice services and psycho-social care are part of treating sexual violence, but these services also need to include enabling women to be able to provide for their families... for them to feel like they can move on and take care of their children," Mendy Marsh, an independent expert on sexual violence, told IRIN.

Until funding for programmes addressing sexual violence in the DRC makes this a priority, prevention and rehabilitation funding and programming will continue to have to make do with a small percentage of current funding.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86865NAIROBI Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Encouraging the use of traditional African herbal medicines could prevent some of the one million malarial deaths on the continent, according to specialists attending a conference www.mimalaria.org/pamc in Nairobi. Many poor communities, especially in rural settings, cannot afford modern malarial drugs and many people die due to inaccessibility of treatment.NAIROBI Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Encouraging the use of traditional African herbal medicines could prevent some of the one million malarial deaths on the continent, according to specialists attending a conference www.mimalaria.org/pamc in Nairobi. Many poor communities, especially in rural settings, cannot afford modern malarial drugs and many people die due to inaccessibility of treatment.

“Malaria kills many people in Africa, both children and adults, despite the availability of free treatment in certain African countries. While it is true many governments in Africa, with development partners, give free pediatric treatment for malaria, many still cannot access this facilities and resort to home treatment,” says Merlin Wilcox of the Research Initiative on Traditional Antimalarial Methods and the University of Oxford.

Some specialists at the ongoing 5th MIM Pan African Malaria Conference in Nairobi said medicines drawn from plants that abound in the continent could be utilized to save many people, especially those in poor settings, from malaria.

BN Prakash, a researcher with the Foundation for the Revitalization of Local Health Traditions, based in Bangalore, said Africa could draw on experiences in India where medicinal plants have been used with great success in the control of malaria-related deaths.

“Research in India has shown a 5-10 times reduction in malaria-related deaths among communities who use traditional medicinal plants like Guduchi [tinospore coeditdia], a local medicinal plant found in India,” said Prakash.

Preserving traditional knowledge

Another speaker, Gemma Burford of the Global Initiative for Traditional Systems of Health, said while there had been increased cases of loss of knowledge about traditional medicinal plants, student-led research could be used to preserve knowledge and create a database on these plants.

“When we carried out research involving school children in rural Tanzania about traditional Maasai medicines, we found out that 48 percent of these children already had knowledge about these plants. We used [this knowledge] to create a database for the purposes of preserving the knowledge and these plants too,” said Burford.

“It is important to note that many malarial drugs are still bought from commercial pharmaceutical shops and not many of them are that cheap. Costs also involve how easy or not it is to access these government facilities, especially in Africa where medical facilities are far-flung,” Burford said.

Educating the youth

Speakers at the conference called on African governments to introduce educational programmes that would teach the younger generations about the traditional methods of treating malaria and other diseases plaguing the continent.

“The biggest obstacle to use of traditional medicines is lack of interest from the youth and teaching them about these medicines would be the best way to let them appreciate their values. Evangelical churches and development agencies must also be persuaded to stop fighting traditional African medicine because modernity and tradition can be married to provide a formidable force against malaria,” added Burford.

Effectiveness and dangers

Doumbo Ogobara, director of the Mali Malaria Research and Training Centre, and a lecturer at the University of Bamako, said there should be more research to ensure the effectiveness of traditional medicinal plants in the treatment and management of malaria.

“More research must be directed towards finding out the effectiveness of these traditional medicinal plants and their safety and efficacy because initiatives on using them could be counter-productive if this is not done. More emphasis therefore must be laid on research for plant-based prophylactics for malaria,” said Ogobara.

Mahamadou Sissoko of the Centre called for caution in taking the traditional medicinal route, arguing that many malaria-related deaths have occurred even among communities that have relied heavily on traditional plants for treatment.

“People are dying even in places where there is still widespread use of traditional medicinal plants and unless the efficacy of a traditional plant on malarial treatment can be ascertained through vigorous research, we could have our backs against the wall. Many traditional healers will abuse this and give anything as medicine so long as it is a plant - we must urge caution,” said Sissoko.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86866BUJUMBURA Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Civilians across Burundi have handed in thousands of guns, grenades and rounds of ammunition during a 10-day voluntary disarmament campaign.BUJUMBURA Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Civilians across Burundi have handed in thousands of guns, grenades and rounds of ammunition during a 10-day voluntary disarmament campaign.

The deputy head of the national disarmament commission, Leopold Banzubaze, said the campaign had netted 2,482 rifles, 10,429 grenades, 218 bombs, 28 mines and 788,908 bullets. In return, the state handed out goods such as construction materials, furniture, bicycles, farming tools, mobile phones and soap.

Speaking shortly before the campaign’s conclusion, the commission’s head, Gen. Zénon Ndabaneze, said: “If we add the arms collected in the previous disarmament campaigns and the police house-to-house searches, we can say we have so far collected 80,000 arms. Nearly 80 percent of weapons in circulation have been collected.”

Under a decree issued by President Pierre Nkurunziza in August 2009, an amnesty was granted to anyone who surrendered their weapons before the end of October. From now on, possession of arms can lead to hefty fines and jail terms of up to 10 years.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86868JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 29, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN is preparing to airlift tents and emergency response equipment to assist 60,000 Angolans expelled from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past few months, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in New York on 28 October.JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 29, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN is preparing to airlift tents and emergency response equipment to assist 60,000 Angolans expelled from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past few months, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in New York on 28 October.

In tit-for-tat expulsions between the two countries more than 18,000 Congolese have been forced to leave Angola, leading to a burgeoning humanitarian crisis on the Angola-DRC border; more than half the displaced people are women and children.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees will airlift tents and deploy an emergency response team to help the expelled Angolans, while the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) will provide water treatment equipment, chlorine tablets, baby formula bottles, water containers, soap and covering slabs for pit latrines.

Following talks on 13 October in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, both countries agreed to "immediately stop the expulsions of citizens of their respective states", but there are reports that people are still crossing the border in both directions to reach their country of origin, although the rate has slowed.

go/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86801JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 29, 2009 (IRIN) - An African international agreement has opened the door to a debate on the rights and protection of people displaced by natural disasters, with a nod to migration as a result of climate change. JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 29, 2009 (IRIN) - An African international agreement has opened the door to a debate on the rights and protection of people displaced by natural disasters, with a nod to migration as a result of climate change.

The Kampala Convention, a ground-breaking treaty adopted by the African Union (AU), promises to protect and assist millions of Africans displaced within their own countries. Significantly, the treaty recognized natural disasters as well as conflict and generalized violence as key factors in uprooting people.

Jean Ping, chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, told IRIN that "more and more people are likely to be displaced" as Africa experiences more frequent droughts and floods brought about by climate change.

He said the inclusion of displacement by natural disasters was informed by the global debate on the need to develop a framework for the rights of "climate refugees" - people uprooted from their homes and crossing international borders - because the changing climate threatened their survival.

The treaty also calls on governments to set up laws and find solutions to prevent displacement caused by natural disasters, with compensation for those who were displaced. Migration expert Etienne Piguet said with the Kampala Convention the AU had "once again" tried to push the envelope.

In 1969 the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, adopted by the then Organization of African Unity, had gone a step further than the 1951 UN Refugee Convention by using a definition of "refugee" that included not only people fleeing persecution but also those fleeing war or events seriously disturbing public order.

Piguet described the reference to people displaced by natural disasters as an "interesting attempt" to find "adequate answers to the new concern about migration linked to environmental degradation".

In 2008 climate-related natural disasters like droughts, hurricanes and floods forced 20 million people out of their homes, while 4.6 million people were internally displaced by conflicts, according to a recent joint study by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

The Representative of the UN Secretary-General (RSG) on the Human Rights of the Internally Displaced Persons in a submission to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change noted that people uprooted from their homes by natural disasters enjoyed protection under the existing human rights law and the guiding principles on internal displacement.

However, the Kampala Convention also calls on governments to "prevent or mitigate, prohibit and eliminate root causes" of displacement, and find "durable solutions" to them.

Moussa Idriss Ndele, President of the Pan-African Parliament, the legislative body of the AU, said the debate in Kampala on the rights of people displaced by natural disasters did not "quite evolve properly - we did not address the issue of climate change" because most people still believed conflict was the biggest trigger of displacement.

Can of worms

However, it was unclear which events could be linked to climate change. "More and more people are being displaced by floods, which are becoming more and more frequent and intense," said Rachel Shebesh, chair of the African Parliamentarian Initiative for Climate Risk Reduction.

The RSG said there was a need to clarify or even develop a legal framework to help people who moved inside or outside the country because environmental degradation and slow-onset disasters - like desertification, salination of soil and groundwater - made areas uninhabitable, and if displaced persons could not return to their homes they should be considered forcibly displaced.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected more frequent and intense floods and droughts in Africa during the next few decades, and the debate is not only set to continue, but to intensify.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86805BUJUMBURA Wednesday, October 28, 2009 (IRIN) - Following two reported cases of polio in Burundi's northwestern province of Cibitoke, the Health Ministry and UN World Health Organization have begun a three-day immunization campaign, targeting at least 1.5 million children under five, officials said.BUJUMBURA Wednesday, October 28, 2009 (IRIN) - Following two reported cases of polio in Burundi's northwestern province of Cibitoke, the Health Ministry and UN World Health Organization have begun a three-day immunization campaign, targeting at least 1.5 million children under five, officials said.

"By [27 October], initial estimates indicated that at least 75 percent of the children targeted were immunized in the first two days," Olivier Kagabo, head of the national immunization department, said. "But we expect [to immunize] more children on [28 October] as parents generally come on the last day."

Kagabo said local administration officials were assisting health officials to mobilize parents to take their children for immunization. Kagabo stressed that even vaccinated children should get the new vaccine since “it is different from the routine vaccine they were getting”.
 
Burundi had eradicated polio for 10 years but two children caught the disease in September following contamination from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. "The virus, wild polio type 1, originated from India and contaminated Angola and DR Congo and reached Burundi last month," Kagabo said. A second immunization campaign will be held in November.
 
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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86780KAMPALA Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is a comprehensive document that will, if ratified, fill a void in international humanitarian law, say experts. KAMPALA Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is a comprehensive document that will, if ratified, fill a void in international humanitarian law, say experts.

Whereas the rights of people who flee across national boundaries are protected under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and a similar instrument introduced 18 years later by the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union), there has been no international legislation catering specifically for people displaced within their own country (IDPs).

IDPs vastly outnumber refugees in Africa. In just 10 of the 18 countries in east and central Africa, there are more than 10 million IDPs, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), with Sudan (four million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (2.12 million) and Somalia (1.55 million) heading the list.

In the same region, there are refugees in 16 countries, totalling just less than two million, according to OCHA.

This latest instrument, also known as the Kampala Convention because it was signed in the Ugandan capital, "obliges governments to recognize that IDPs have specific vulnerabilities and must be supported", said Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.

"It covers all causes of displacement, is forceful in terms of responsibility and goes beyond addressing the roles of states to those of others like the AU and non-state actors."

Signed by 17 African states at the end of summit on 23 October, the convention defines IDPs broadly, irrespective of who is displacing them.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the convention provides a solid framework for enhancing the protection and assistance of IDPs in Africa. The ICRC is the custodian of international humanitarian law.

"The crucial challenge now is the same one facing international humanitarian law in general – ensuring that once the convention is signed and ratified by as many states as possible, it is actually implemented and respected," ICRC president Jakob Kellenberger said.

"States must now take concrete steps to implement the convention into their own national legislation and regulation systems, and develop plans of action to address issues of displacement.

"The convention goes further than international humanitarian law treaties in some aspects, for example, in the rules it contains on safe and voluntary return, and on access to compensation or other forms of reparation," Kellenberger added.

Next steps

To become a binding document, the convention has to be ratified by 15 of the AU's 53 member states.

"No international treaty is perfect, and the AU IDP Convention does have a few weaknesses. Concerns over the lack of effective enforcement mechanisms and insufficient guarantees for equality and non-discrimination have been raised," the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement noted in a statement.

"There is some question regarding the extent to which non-state actors and armed groups called upon by the convention to protect IDPs can be bound by its provisions. Nevertheless, the convention, which has benefited from the input of international experts, is considered to be generally consistent with international standards such as the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement."

AU officials in Kampala were cautiously upbeat, urging member states to remain engaged. "It is the responsibility of member states that the convention becomes a binding instrument," Jean Ping, AU Commission President, said. "At this point, it is an achievement, but not an end in itself."

Zambian president Rupiah Banda also chose his words carefully. "We have given legal force to the task ahead and Zambia is ready to sign," he said. "Those who are displaced should not be forgotten."

An observer who requested anonymity said progress would require member states to demonstrate greater political will to implement the convention and address concerns about sovereignty and enforcement.

"It is a question of a progressive [AU] Commission versus [conservative] member states," he told IRIN in Kampala. "For example, the inclusion of armed groups in the draft was interpreted by some member states as lending legitimacy to such groups."

The convention emphasizes the sovereignty of member states but spells out the obligations and responsibilities of armed groups. Among others, it prohibits armed groups from carrying our arbitrary displacement, recruiting children and impeding humanitarian assistance.

"Overall, though, the convention has a good chance of getting the necessary signatures rather quickly," the observer added. "In April, SADC’s [Southern African Development Community] 11 members committed to speedy signature."

Political will

Civil society leaders, attending a parallel event, insisted political will and demonstrated commitment were key to progress. The fact that only five presidents came to Kampala, they said, called for an urgent strategy to bring on board more states.

Present were Banda, Ugandan President and host, Yoweri Museveni, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Somalia's Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Mohamed Abdelaziz of Saharawi, along with high-level UN, INGO and AU delegations.

"It is one thing to have a good convention and another to implement it," Dismas Nkunda of the New York-based International Refugee Rights Initiative told IRIN.

In 2007, the AU adopted the African Charter on democracy, elections and governance, but it has so far been ratified by only two member states.

The basic question of impunity also needed to be addressed. Until African countries learn to respect the law, participants said, the continent would "remain at rock bottom" in its attempts to address the problems of the displaced.

AU officials seemed conscious of these sentiments. "We have come a long way, but a plan of action is now envisaged," Jolly Joiner, AU commissioner for political affairs, told IRIN. "Once member states are on board, we will take this convention forward."

Antonio Guterres, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and representative of the UN Secretary-General at the summit, said solving the question of displacement in Africa required political solutions.

"There is no humanitarian solution to conflict," he explained. "The solution is always political."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86762BUJUMBURA Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Hundreds of Burundian families who recently returned home from Tanzania have been living in the open in western Bubanza province after they failed to trace their original homes.BUJUMBURA Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Hundreds of Burundian families who recently returned home from Tanzania have been living in the open in western Bubanza province after they failed to trace their original homes.

For about a month, some of the 300 families (including 85 returnees), who arrived recently from a transit camp, have been living under trees and on the veranda of the Gihanga communal office in Bubanza.

"We came here because we did not know where our fathers and grandfathers lived. What we know is that they lived here [in Gihanga]," Donatien Mukeko, one of the returnees, said.

She said most of those who had returned were born in Tanzania and feel like “foreigners in the villages of their grandparents”.

Health risks

Virginie Nzeyimana said: "Mosquitoes bite us every night, we have no mosquito nets, and even if we had them where would we hang them? The rains also hit us."

Although Nzeyimana was born in Rutana in eastern Burundi, she arrived on 24 October in Gihanga because it is her husband's home.

"As you can see, I only have one piece of clothing yet it sometimes gets very cold," she said.

Nzeyimana said the returnees urgently needed shelter as the rainy season had started.

"Officials should look for acceptable shelter for us; we need to be treated as human beings after we suffered for long in exile," she said.

She added they also needed a health service and more food. The returnees said the food rations – peas, maize and cooling oil - they received from the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, when they arrived were almost finished.

Aid packages

UNHCR public information officer Bernard Ntwari said each returnee received a six-month relief aid package as well as non-food items such as plastic covers, blankets, hoes, jerry cans and soap.

"Some of these returnees arrived this year in August, September or October; they, therefore, still have their food aid," Ntwari said. "For those who arrived before, PARESI [the Programme de Reintegration des Sinistrés, within the Ministry of National Solidarity] will treat each case on an individual basis.

"But after six months, UNHCR does not provide food assistance to returnees any more," he added.

He said UNHCR was collaborating with PARESI to work out a plan to resettle landless returnees.

"They [PARESI] are considering if it would be easier to resettle them in the already existing peace villages or build new ones near their homes," Ntwari said.

However, he stressed that even if food aid stopped after six months, the refugee agency worked with its local partners, such as Iteka - a human rights group - to monitor the situation of returnees. He added that one of the important tools for their protection was the identity card that each returnee received upon arrival.

A delegation from the Ministry of National Solidarity visited Gihanga on 23 October to assess the returnees' needs and promised that relief aid would be sent to the families "in days to come".

Peace village

Chantal Hatungimana, the director of the Repatriation Department, said the delegation had noted that the returnees needed plastic sheeting for shelter as well as mosquito nets.

Regarding food aid, Hatungimana said those who came a month ago had benefited from a six-month package. "But those who came earlier have finished their stock," she said. "We will report to the ministry so that food aid can be distributed to the repatriates as soon as possible."

Hatungimana said the Gihanga communal administration had pledged to allocate land for the building of a peace village for the landless returnees.

The few returnees who have so far managed to identify their land say they found public buildings on them.

"My land is occupied by churches and schools," Vianney Gahungu, 65, said. "I hear the remaining part of my land is soon to be taken by other people."

Gordien Kanjori, Gihanga administrator, said he had been helping some of the returnees to find shelter in other households and in communal buildings, as well as donating land for them to build huts.

jb-bn/js/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86764NAIROBI Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Replacing manual data with electronic health records would significantly improve the quality of care and enable African HIV treatment programmes to be scaled up more efficiently, say the authors of a new article on the subject. NAIROBI Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Replacing manual data with electronic health records would significantly improve the quality of care and enable African HIV treatment programmes to be scaled up more efficiently, say the authors of a new article on the subject.

"Talkin' About a Revolution", published in the latest edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, looked at the Academic Model for Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), a programme that uses electronic health records in care and treatment services for around 100,000 HIV-positive patients at sites across western Kenya.

"Scaling up treatment programmes requires timely data on the type, quantity and quality of care being provided," the authors said. "Health care is an information business; managing patient care requires managing patients' data at many levels ... health care systems the size of AMPATH (or larger) cannot effectively be managed without ... [electronic] data."

More efficient care

The health data system can help programme managers avoid medical errors and stock-outs of key medicines, while enabling clinicians to monitor and care for their patients more effectively.

"Electronic records help us store data efficiently, retrieve it when we need it, and monitor and evaluate the progress of our programmes much more easily than if we were using manual systems," said Erica Kigothe, AMPATH's programme manager in charge of data management.

"When a patient comes to a clinic for a visit, instead of poring over large files, the clinician has one summary sheet that contains all the vital patient information and should he or she need more information, they can always go back to the patient's computerized file," she told IRIN/PlusNews.

A previous study comparing an AMPATH clinic before and after the adoption of electronic health records found that patient visits were 22 percent shorter, provider time per patient was reduced by 58 percent, and patients spent 38 percent less time waiting.

Kigothe noted that assessing disease trends was also easier with electronic records, as was collating data for the purposes of research and new directions in programme development.

Electronic health systems have been successfully used in the care and treatment of HIV in Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda, but few African countries have adopted the systems on a large scale.

"Programme implementers in low-income countries sometimes see clinicians' recording of patient data and the management of those data as secondary to providing good care, or even a distraction," the article's authors commented.

Not all smooth sailing

The programme has not been without its difficulties. "In one of our sites in Busia [town on the Kenya-Uganda border] they have very frequent power outages, so they have had to find ways to work around it, inputting data when power is on, even if that is at night," Kigothe said.

Finding people with computer skills is not always easy in the developing world, particularly in rural areas, and "like any equipment, computers break down from time to time and require repair or replacement, which can cause some problems" and incur additional expenses, she said. "In addition, the data collectors are human, and therefore prone to the occasional error."

Electronic systems are not cheap; they require considerable investment in computers, training data collectors and hiring information technology experts. However, according to the study, AMPATH's total cost of care is under US$100 per patient per year, making the system financially feasible even in resource-poor settings.

"You're going to have to spend quite a lot of money to set up the system," Kigothe said. "But looking at the big picture, it saves so much in the long run - for example, each of our data collectors manages 2,000 patients' information, something that would be impossible using manual data collection."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86768MIDRAND Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Disaster risk reduction as a tool for climate change adaptation is a "technical mouthful" said Rachel Shebesh, chair of the African Parliamentarian Initiative for Climate Risk Reduction. MIDRAND Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Disaster risk reduction as a tool for climate change adaptation is a "technical mouthful" said Rachel Shebesh, chair of the African Parliamentarian Initiative for Climate Risk Reduction.

Members of the Pan-African Parliament thought so too. The legislative body of the African Union met in Midrand, halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa, for a parliamentary debate on climate change in Africa.

Shebesh, the new champion of disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Africa for the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR) has been given the job of making the subject accessible.

Why?

The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, said DRR was "the first line of defence" against climate risks. Many countries did not have a plan that covered what to do to adapt to the impact of climate change, but drawing up a disaster risk reduction plan was a starting point.

DRR deals with the short-term changes in climate variables, such as temperature; adaptation to climate change is about long-term changes to climate. It is now widely acknowledged that reducing vulnerability to climatic variables could improve resilience to the increased hazards associated with climate change.

What does it mean?

Wahlström acknowledged that trying to explain to countries what this meant, and how to take DRR into account, could sometimes be problematic. Essentially, it is about "disaster-proofing" any plan or programme.

"You take into account the current and future disaster risks. If you are building a bridge in an area, you study the soil, ask the people who live in the area about what they know about the conditions in the area: do they build in the area? What precautions do they take? The easiest thing to do is draw up a check list."

Wahlström said she had come across several cities and towns in developing countries who had already been doing this, and "we are now busy putting all this information together for our next report."

She also said she would not be surprised if "disaster-proofing" became a pre-requisite for sourcing money for any climate change adaptation project, "but I would rather countries took up the initiative on their own." India, she said has made it mandatory for projects costing a certain amount to be disaster-proof so as to qualify for funds.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86774KAMPALA Monday, October 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Seventeen countries signed the African Union convention on internally displaced persons (IDPs) after years of preparation culminated in a week of meetings in the Ugandan capital but a lot more hard work remains before it becomes effective, according to observers.KAMPALA Monday, October 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Seventeen countries signed the African Union convention on internally displaced persons (IDPs) after years of preparation culminated in a week of meetings in the Ugandan capital but a lot more hard work remains before it becomes effective, according to observers.

"The most important step now is implementation," Julia Dolly Joiner, AU commissioner for political affairs, said. "We need to move from intentions to actions."

For the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement,  it is crucial that implementation is carried out "in a timely fashion and in a manner that makes a real difference to the lives of persons affected by internal displacement in the region, including host communities.
 
"The first step forward should involve a process of national dialogue and civic education aimed at securing the Convention's ratification and implementation by the State parties," according to a statement by the project, which monitors displacement issues worldwide to promote best practice among governments and other actors.

Fifteen countries must ratify the convention before it enters into effect.

Organizers of the 19-23 October meetings  insisted that the fact that only 17 signed did not represent a lack of political will and commitment on the part of the African states.

"We debated together and we agreed but when it comes to signing, the person has to have been given the authority by his government to sign," one AU official told IRIN. "Only 17 had such authorization."

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who chaired the summit, praised it as "a very important milestone [that] has gone beyond conflicts to address issues of development.

"We have at least agreed in words, we now have to put our words [into] action," he told a news conference. "The solace for the women in Darfur may not be very immediate, but the fact is that people have come together to discuss the matter."

Partnerships urged

Joiner called for international support. "Africa cannot do it alone; that is why we are calling for partnerships," she told IRIN. "We are optimistic that countries will be faithful to their commitments under the convention.”

The AU will now try to get more signatures, and lobby 15 countries to ratify the convention so it can become a binding document. Observers, however, say much more work needs to be done to generate political will, given that most presidents stayed away from the summit.

The convention addresses the root causes of displacement in Africa, where at least 11 million people are displaced by conflict and climate change-related natural disasters, among other reasons.

According to the Brookings-Bern Project, three of the world's top five countries with the largest populations of conflict-induced IDPs are in Africa.

These include Sudan, with an estimated 4.9 million IDPs, the Democratic Republic of Congo, with at least one million, and Somalia, where the UN estimates 1.5 million are displaced. Hundreds of thousands more are displaced in Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Overall, citizens in at least 20 African states are experiencing internal displacement.

The convention aims to promote regional and national measures to prevent, mitigate, prohibit and eliminate the root causes of internal displacement as well as provide durable solutions.

"People who flee persecution or conflict and cross into another country are categorized as refugees and, as such, benefit from a long-standing and well-oiled international legal protection system, including the 1951 Refugee Convention," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said.

"Until now [IDPs] have been more or less excluded from the system of international legal protection, even though they are often displaced in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same reasons, as refugees. At least in Africa, that should no longer be the case."

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The IDP convention obliges states to:

- Prohibit and prevent arbitrary population displacements, respect the principles of humanity and human dignity, as well as aspects of international humanitarian law concerning the protection of IDPs;

- Ensure assistance to IDPs, incorporate obligations under the convention into domestic law and designate a body to coordinate IDP protection and assistance;

- Devise early warning systems on potential displacement and establish disaster risk reduction strategies, protect communities and respect individual rights on protection against arbitrary displacement;

- Respect the mandates of the AU and UN, and the roles of international humanitarian organizations; and

- Take necessary action to effectively organize humanitarian relief and guarantee security; respect, protect and not attack humanitarian personnel or resources, and ensure armed groups conform with their obligations.

It prohibits armed groups from:

- Carrying out arbitrary displacement, hampering the provision of protection and assistance to IDPs and restricting the movement of IDPs;

- Forcibly recruiting, kidnapping or engaging in sexual slavery and trafficking; or

- Attacking humanitarian personnel or resources.


It obliges the AU:

- To intervene in respect of grave circumstances such as war crimes and crimes against humanity;

- To respect the right of members to request such an intervention and support efforts to support IDPs; and

- Strengthen capacity and coordinate the mobilization of resources for protection and assistance to IDPs.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86746BUJUMBURA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - Heavy rains have destroyed 214 homes, leaving about 1,070 people without shelter in Gihanga commune, western Bubanza province.BUJUMBURA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - Heavy rains have destroyed 214 homes, leaving about 1,070 people without shelter in Gihanga commune, western Bubanza province.

Crops were also destroyed. “The worst hit is Village 5 where 104 houses were destroyed and crops of cassava, beans and maize were completely damaged,” Gordien Kanjori, administrator of Gihanga commune, told IRIN.

Zacharie Nzoyisaba from Village 5 told IRIN: “I am living in difficult conditions; my roof of iron sheets has collapsed. Our stores of food are like mud because of the harsh rains; our future is dark as more rains are to come. The government should rush to rescue us before we die.”

Spéciose Habonimana, a widow, whose small house was destroyed in the April rains, was in despair. “I had sought shelter at my son’s but his house was destroyed during this week’s rains; its walls are completely destroyed. I am very old and cannot farm. Even my children who are feeding me are in difficulty; I do not know what I shall do.”

Most of the people affected have sought shelter in public buildings and with households not destroyed by the rains. “In Village 5, affected families have sought shelter in nearby churches and schools; others are sheltered by their neighbours who were lucky not to have their houses destroyed by the rains,” Kanjori said.

The villagers have not yet received any assistance since the rains hit Gihanga on 20 October.

A delegation of Ministry of National Solidarity officials, led by the director of the repatriation department, Chantal Hatungimana, is in Gihanga to assess the needs of the destitute families. She pledged to mobilize senior officials of the ministry so that relief can reach the affected urgently.

According to Kanjori, iron sheeting was the biggest need. “We call on the ministry to bring iron sheets. The ones that were on the houses were so damaged they cannot be re-used. Residents would find it hard to buy the iron sheets themselves as they are expensive,” he said, adding that houses with thatch roofing also needed iron sheeting, as the grass for thatching had been burned.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86720GOMA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - Looking at herself in the mirror, nine-year-old Helena squealed with delight at her reflection, standing upright with just the slightest support of her therapist. A year before, Helena was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and identified for therapy in Mugunga II IDP camp in Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Helena, able only to crawl, had been confined to very specific spaces due to the lava in the IDP camp.GOMA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - Looking at herself in the mirror, nine-year-old Helena squealed with delight at her reflection, standing upright with just the slightest support of her therapist. A year before, Helena was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and identified for therapy in Mugunga II IDP camp in Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Helena, able only to crawl, had been confined to very specific spaces due to the lava in the IDP camp.

Helena was one of the lucky few to have received regular treatment. Robert Golden, a doctor, states in the 2008 UN Children’s Agency (UNICEF) report, Monitoring Child Disability in Developing Countries, that it is an “important but largely unaddressed issue”. This is especially true in DRC where child disability receives little attention among the myriad crises befalling the country.

According to the UN Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), two million people are displaced in the eastern DRC. Combine this figure with World Health Organization (WHO) data that 10 percent of the world’s population suffer some form of disability, and that would mean 200,000 disabled people among the displaced, many of them children.

“Attention and funding for programmes addressing disability are largely under-funded worldwide, and particularly in Congo,” says Heal Africa’s Laura Keyser.

“The international community might not see disability as an emergency worth focusing on now, but it will become a full emergency if nothing is done,” said Loran Hollander of Heal Africa’s hospital in Goma.

Increasing Risk Factors

While funding for treatment remains minimal for agencies specializing in treating disabilities, the number of disabled children and those at risk continues to grow due to the increased risk factors brought on by the breakdown of the health infrastructure, ongoing violence and displacement in the eastern DRC.

Minimal access to healthcare, clean water, and overall poor nutrition during pregnancy lead to common congenital disabilities in children such as spina-bifida and limb deformities, and young children predisposed to early childhood diseases such as meningitis and polio, explained Keyser.

Access routes to health centres are often blocked for patients and medical teams. This lack of access leads frequently to birthing complications, child developmental delays and maternal mortality.

Furthermore, the prevalence of rape in the DRC is also linked to a probable increase in child disability. “Frequently women pregnant from rape do not seek pre- or peri-natal care, which can lead to the problems aforementioned, as well as birth trauma - either to the baby (ie lack of oxygen leading to cerebral palsy or some type of developmental delay) or to the woman (ie a fistula, which may or may not leave them incontinent),” said Keyser.

Vulnerability

“Unfortunately, disabled children are more vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, neglect and discrimination. They face reduced social participation and have less access to education and other social services than children without disabilities,” states Golden.

In addition, according to Handicap International and Heal Africa, inside the camps as well as outside, children with a disability struggle daily with social stigma and discrimination.

Proper treatment, according to UNICEF, Handicap International and Heal Africa, provides the children with the physical ability to function more fully in society while also educating the community to break down stigma and social restrictions.

UNICEF notes that “early detection and intervention might confer benefits to children at risk for disability and prevent long-term functional limitations”.

Jusbeen, 4, came to the Heal Africa’s clinic with a serious infection, a noma, which had “scarred down” his mouth, making it difficult to eat or drink. Therapists discovered that Jusbeen also suffered from developmental delays. However, since his disability was caught early, he has undergone a significant transformation. With ongoing therapy and constant encouragement from his mother, Keyser notes, “he is now able to walk with hand-held assistance, smiles, laughs and engages in play activities which were impossible before”.

Due to minimal international attention to child disability amid the numerous crises afflicting the DRC, children like Jusbeen and Helena, who received treatment, remain among the minority. “These children need all the help they can get,” says UNICEF. At present, that help is limited.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86710KAMPALA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - With increasing natural disasters, including floods, storms and droughts, hitting the continent, more people in Africa are likely to be displaced, creating a challenge for governments, the UN warns.KAMPALA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - With increasing natural disasters, including floods, storms and droughts, hitting the continent, more people in Africa are likely to be displaced, creating a challenge for governments, the UN warns.

Displacement caused by natural disasters, said John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, promised to be one of the greatest challenges African countries would face.

“As many countries… know from recent painful experiences, climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme hazard events, particularly floods, storms and droughts,” Holmes told an African Union (AU) summit in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on 22 October.

In 2008, Africa reported 104 natural disasters, of which 99 percent were climate-related, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Over the past 20 years, the population of Africans affected by natural disasters doubled from nine million in 1989 to 16.7 million in 2008. Of all the disasters on the continent, 75 percent were a result of drought.

“By 2020, rain-fed agriculture is expected to have reduced by half because of shifting rainfall patterns, scattering millions of people across the continent in search [of] new livelihoods,” Holmes said.

The meeting is discussing a draft convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons and a declaration on refugees, returnees and the internally displaced.

The convention is the first such global document that aims to comprehensively address the problems of Africa’s 12 million IDPs.

Transitional justice

Before the meeting, civil society leaders called for concrete action on the convention, when adopted. Chris Dolan of the Uganda Refugee Law Project urged delegates to look beyond existing models of protection and assistance to IDP, refugee and returnee populations and draw from creative transitional justice practices around Africa.

“One step towards this would be to ensure that the plan of action that is put in place to implement the decisions adopted at the summit makes links between the African Union’s draft… and the policy on post-conflict reconstruction and development,” he added.

“Another will be to link… to ongoing transitional justice processes on the continent.”

At least 15 countries need to ratify the proposed convention for it to come into force, and diplomats at the summit are confident the signatures will be raised soon. Preparatory work, they added, had shown broad support across the continent.

“It is the responsibility of member states that the convention becomes a binding instrument,” Jean Ping, AU Commission chairman, told the meeting. “It is an achievement, but not an end in itself. It is a beginning.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86716KAMPALA Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Civil society and government officials are gathered in the Ugandan capital of Kampala to discuss the Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Africa and a declaration on refugees, returnees and IDPs.KAMPALA Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Civil society and government officials are gathered in the Ugandan capital of Kampala to discuss the Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Africa [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86585] and a declaration on refugees, returnees and IDPs.

“It is a good convention, but the next steps are even more important,” said Dismas Nkunda of the New York-based International Refugee Rights Initiative. “The key test to the continent’s commitment to it will be the implementation.”

Countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, said Traore Wodjo of the Ivorian civil society coalition, needed to quickly implement the convention because political developments there could raise tensions, leading to renewed displacement.

“Some of those who were displaced during the 2003 conflict are yet to recover,” he added. “Forced displacement again, without protection, would completely disrupt their lives.”

The leaders at the summit, including presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed of Somalia, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Ruppiah Banda of Zambia, realize just how important is the challenge of displacement in Africa.

“Displacement is a scourge that is blighting the African landscape – and some of us are talking from experience,” said Zainab Bangura, former activist and now Sierra Leone’s foreign minister. “One day you are a minister, the next you are on a boat running for your life – with nothing on your back.”

Uganda’s Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi, while praising his country’s policies on refugees, said: “The inability to effectively protect, assist and find timely solutions to the problems that created these displacement situations is posing a major threat to Africa’s development."

The convention, the first such global document, aims to comprehensively address the problems of Africa’s 12 million IDPs. It contains provisions on obligations of state parties relating to internal displacement and protection and assistance.

It also contains provisions on obligations relating to armed groups, the African Union, as well as obligations on sustainable returns, local integration or relocation and compensation.

“The concern is that there are already millions of laws that should protect IDPs, but they are not always observed,” Nkunda said. “So we need to ensure that this convention is respected by setting some kind of benchmarks against which we will evaluate its implementation.”

Civil society and AU role

The civil society meeting will make recommendations to the summit, which should strengthen the convention’s implementation processes, Nkunda said, and is keen to work with the AU to ensure it succeeds.

AU officials are upbeat that the summit, whose side events include an exhibition by actors in the humanitarian field, will fully explore the root causes of forced displacement in Africa and ways to prevent it.

“We are here to reflect on the specific challenges facing IDPs and to adopt an instrument that would bridge existing policy and legal gaps,” said Julia Joiner, AU political affairs commissioner.

Delegates include the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, and the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes. There is also a big NGO and government presence.

Before the summit, Holmes flew to the northern Ugandan district of Pader where most returnees are resettling in their villages. He visited IDP camps, host communities and met aid workers and local leaders.

“As emergency relief needs reduce, development efforts need to be stepped up,” he said of the Ugandan situation, where about 500,000 out of more than two million IDPs are still in camps.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86700GOZ BEIDA Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN Refugee Agency is colour-coding villages red, yellow and green in eastern Chad marking how safe it is for internally displaced persons to return home: people from areas classified as green – “safe” – will no longer be considered as IDPs, but can remain in the camps. GOZ BEIDA Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN Refugee Agency is colour-coding villages red, yellow and green in eastern Chad marking how safe it is for internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return home: people from areas classified as green – “safe” – will no longer be considered as IDPs, but can remain in the camps.

“People won’t be forced to go home; they have a right to live wherever they want,” Joel Fischel, UNHCR’s head of office in the eastern Chad town of Goz Beida, told IRIN. “But as long as the reasons which forced them to flee are no longer there, there is no longer a reason to consider them as IDPs.”

Almost 170,000 people displaced by fighting in eastern Chad still live in tents – some who have been displaced for years. All together nearly half a million people have sought shelter in eastern Chad from fighting within the country and in neighbouring Sudan and Central African Republic.

UNHCR’s Fischel told IRIN that displaced people from villages deemed safe for return will no longer receive food or other supplies like mats, kettles and jerry cans. But they will still have a right to the camp school, health services and water points, he said.

The refugee agency estimates that 15,000 IDPs have already left the camps, mostly to return to areas south of Goz Beida that are ranked green in the new security grading system: Loboutigué, Kerfi and Angarana. While people have returned to villages near the border with Sudan, few have approached Adé, located directly on the border.

Khadija Yusuf Hassan, displaced since 2006 from Komo village near Adé, told IRIN she is scared to return. “I have heard that insecurity reigns over there on the border. We heard from other people who go there that there are attacks, thefts, cars being stolen.”

The UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) peacekeeping force – which has a mandate until March 2010 to encourage people to return home by improving security – is preparing to shift troops from camps to villages.

“This does not mean we will neglect to go to the camps,” MINURCAT commanding officer Howard Berney told IRIN. “But the general information we have is that the camps are safe now and it is possible to start refocusing our efforts.”

MINURCAT initially was to be a 5,200-strong force by December 2009, but deployment delays and insufficient equipment have led the UN to decrease the troop goal to 4,700. As of August 2,368 MINURCAT troops were in Chad and Central African Republic.

Halime Nassir told IRIN she cannot go home with her four children to Kerfi, south of Goz Beida, because of safety concerns – but she does not feel safe at the camp either.

“There is still conflict around the camps when women go out to collect extra wood and water. There is not enough for us here. Almost every day we hear that someone has been attacked; some women are raped. I do not feel safe here in the camp. I will not feel safe [either] if I…go home.”

While rebel attacks are still a threat in Chad, MINURCAT’s Berney said banditry is his main concern in many villages.

Hassan Yassim Bakar, local leader in the town of Adé, said security is improved in the area but not enough and that could discourage returns. “They [would-be returnees] will not want to stay and help us [rebuild the community] if they do not think it is safe.”

ch/pt/nphttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86703KITGUM Wednesday, October 21, 2009 (IRIN) - Military contingents from five East African countries have begun field training in disaster and emergency response as well as anti-terrorism in the northern Ugandan district of Kitgum.KITGUM Wednesday, October 21, 2009 (IRIN) - Military contingents from five East African countries have begun field training in disaster and emergency response as well as anti-terrorism in the northern Ugandan district of Kitgum.

"The joint field training being conducted in northern Uganda is expected to develop further the capacity of the East African Community's armed forces in humanitarian assistance; disaster relief management; and, to some extent, peace support operations, counter-terrorism operations, disaster management and crisis response," Beatrice Kiraso, the deputy secretary-general of the East Africa Community (EAC) in charge of the community's political federation, told IRIN.

Supported by the US army, the 10-day training is codenamed "Natural Fire 10" because it is the 10th time such exercises have taken place since their inception in 1998. It began on 16 October with contingents from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda participating. At least 550 US marine personnel and 133 military personnel from each of the five countries are taking part.

An LRA connection?

US military officials have dismissed speculation that Natural Fire is being held in preparation for a new offensive against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), whose rebellion has devastated northern Uganda, the Kitgum area in particular. In late 2008 the US was a partner with Ugandan troops in Operation Lightning Thunder, a botched attempt to capture LRA leader Joseph Kony in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Tens of thousands of civilians in the DRC, Southern Sudan and the Central African Republic have been displaced because of LRA activity.

According to long-time regional observer Peter Eichstaedt, author of First Kill Your Family - Child Soldiers in Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army, the joint exercises convey a clear, if tacit, message to Kony. “That message being, of course, that a multi-national force of 1,000 - an effective number for a fighting force anywhere in the world - can be assembled in this strategic location with relative ease,” Eichstaedt wrote on his blog. http://petereichstaedt.blogspot.com/

“Such a force would be a huge problem for someone like Kony, should he think about a return to northern Uganda. It shows that Uganda has allies who are willing not only to donate moral support and money in the fight against Kony and his maniacal militia, but are willing to put boots on the ground.

“This is an acknowledgement that Kony is much more than Uganda's problem, and has become a regional nightmare,” he writes.

While it makes no mention of the LRA, the US Army's Africa website says http://www.usaraf.army.mil/NEWS/NEWS_090929_STAND_TO_NATURAL_FIRE_10.html of Natural Fire: “By building capacity within partner nations and increasing our ability to work together, US Army Africa will be better prepared for future engagements. In doing so, the US Army also solidifies military rapport with allies in East Africa, key to supporting stability in the region.”

Regional threats

Kiraso said the training was taking place while the EAC was embarking on a new phase of strengthening regional integration even as the region faces "real and potential complex emergencies", which could translate into threats to socio-economic, cultural and political wellbeing of East Africans.

These threats, she said, ranged from natural to man-made disasters; poverty and disease; porous borders and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons; internal strife; and insecurity in states neighbouring the EAC.

"It is very important to develop the East African Community’s capacity to handle such emergencies and threats to peace, security and stability," Kiraso said.

Maj-Gen William B. Garrett, the commanding general, US Army-Africa and US Army-Southern European Taskforce, said the training would help build the capacity of East African armies in combating terrorism and responding to humanitarian catastrophes.

Ugandan army commander, Gen Aronda Nyakarima, said the LRA was no longer a threat to Uganda’s peace as the group was now in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the Central African Republic. Regional cooperation, he added, was therefore required to get rid of the LRA.

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