CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA: IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 372 for 24 Feb to 2 March 2007
Source: IRIN
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NAIROBI, 2 March (IRIN) - CONTENTS: UGANDA-SOMALIA: AU mission will not impose peace, Museveni says
CONGO:
Japan's grant to help disarm former combatants
DRC: Another rebel group gives up arms
GREAT LAKES: Call for end to regional conflicts
GREAT LAKES: 'Child sexual abuse widespread in camps'
TANZANIA:
Gov't starts Rift Valley Fever vaccination See KENYA: No glove, no love - young women take charge of condom use
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70453
KENYA-SUDAN: Mixed feelings
about going home to southern
http://http//www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70430 UGANDA-SOMALIA: AU mission will not impose peace, Museveni says The African Union (AU) peace mission due to
be deployed in Somalia will not try to disarm armed groups in that country, but will instead train a Somali national army, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Thursday. "We are not going to
disarm the Somali militias because if we empower the Somali people, it will be up to them to decide whether it is necessary to disarm," he said, bidding farewell to the advance unit of the Ugandan
army contingent that will serve in the force. Museveni added that its responsibility was to help empower Somali rebuilt its state and army and not to impose peace on the Somali people. The 1,500
Ugandan soldiers are part of an 8,000-strong force that the AU and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development are expected to deploy in Somalia to replace Ethiopian troops, who went there in
December 2006 and helped the Transitional Federal Government defeat the Union of Islamic Courts, whose forces had seized control of most of the country. full story http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70468see also
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70455CONGO: Japan's grant to help disarm former combatants The Japanese government and the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) signed an agreement on Tuesday whereby Tokyo will provide a US$2 million grant to help the Republic of Congo's gun retrieval agency, known as the Project
for the Collection of Weapons (PCAD) carry out its mandate. "By signing this convention on financing with Japan, UNDP will begin to carry out activities aimed at improving the security situation
among the population through the voluntary return of weapons, the promotion of economic activities and the strengthening of national capacity in the fight against the proliferation of light weapons
and small arms," Aurélien Agbenonci, UNDP's resident representative in the Congo, said. Some of the money will also support efforts to reintegrate former militiamen into society. UNDP
established PCAD in November 2005 with two million euros ($2.6 million) from the European Commission; for the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of at least 30,000 former combatants. The
World Bank has also provided a $17 million grant for the project.full story
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70448DRC: Another rebel group gives up arms One of the main rebel groups
in the troubled Ituri District of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) began surrendering its weapons on Tuesday under an ongoing demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration (DDR)
process, military and United Nations officials said. The Front des nationalistes et intégrationnistes (FNI) fighters, whose leader, Peter Karim, was made a colonel in the national army in
October 2006, handed in their guns in a village near Lake Albert on the DRC's border with Uganda. About 170 militiamen out of FNI's estimated 1,000 fighters had surrendered their arms by midday on
Tuesday. Two other armed groups, which continued their military campaign during the transition period after the 2003 peace agreement designed to end civil war in the DRC and even after the 2006
elections, have already surrendered their weapons under the DDR programme.full story
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70449 GREAT LAKES: Call for end to regional conflicts Parliamentarians from Africa's Great Lakes countries have urged their governments to end conflicts in the region, noting that particular measures were needed to protect women and children, who suffer
most in wars. "We are telling heads of state and parliamentarians in the region that we do not want any more devastating wars," said Christophe Lutundula, spokesman for the National Assembly of the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), at a meeting of regional members of parliament under the auspices of the International Conference of the Great Lakes. The three-day gathering, which ended in the
DRC capital of Kinshasa on Thursday, was attended by 11 countries and other development partners. It called for sanctions to protect women and children from sexual violence.full story http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70483GREAT LAKES: 'Child sexual abuse widespread in camps' At least half the estimated 1.4 million children displaced by conflicts in Africa's volatile
Great Lakes region have experienced some form of sexual abuse in camps that shelter them, according to a report the international charity, World Vision, released on Monday. "The forms of abuse
experienced include rape, attempted rape and threat of rape," said the report titled, 'The future in our hands: Children displaced by conflicts in Africa's Great Lakes region. The report, prepared
with data collected from refugee and internally displaced persons camps in Burundi, DRC, Rwanda,Tanzania and northern Uganda and Rwanda, said that poverty made the children vulnerable to abuse. Other factors responsible for child abuse, it said, included lack of awareness about sexual abuse and easy availability of pornography. Congestion in the camps meant that children sometimes watched
adults having sex, it said. World Vision Regional Coordinator Valarie Kamatsiko said the situation would deteriorate if authorities failed to act to stop the violations. The study was conducted from
304 questionnaires filled in by children aged 10 to 18 years.full story
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70426TANZANIA: Gov't starts Rift Valley Fever vaccination The first batch of
livestock vaccines against Rift Valley Fever has arrived in Tanzania and is being distributed nationwide, Livestock Development Minister Anthony Diallo said on Monday. The vaccines are part of the
500,000 doses the government had ordered from South Africa to stem the spread of the fever that has killed two people in the country. The fever was first identified in Kenya in 1931. Its initial
symptoms include spontaneous abortions in sheep, goats and cattle and is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito or through contact with infected animal material such as blood or
other body fluids or organs of infected animals. Consumption of milk, a staple among many pastoralists, is also a possible means of transmission and symptoms in humans include bleeding through the
nose and mouth and liver failure. full story http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70406 lo/oss
