DUBAI, 29 April 2007 (IRIN) - CONTENTS   IRAQ: "Last chance" for gov't to restore order IRAQ: Decline in municipal services boosts violence and disease IRAQ: Foreign workers lured to work in Iraq IRAQ: Yazidi minority demands protection after killings IRAQ: Walls will increase violence, specialists say IRAQ: Emergency services lack capacity IRAQ: MMR vaccination campaign aims to reach 3.9 million children IRAQ: Militants force Palestinians to leave Anbar ISRAEL-LEBANON: UN envoy asks for records of cluster bomb strikes ISRAEL-OPT: UN child rights expert criticises Palestinians and Israel LEBANON-SYRIA: Families of missing detainees in Syrian prisons demand action LEBANON: Cash-strapped Palestinians see livelihoods decimated by security crisis YEMEN: Government to close gun markets SOMALIA-YEMEN: 500 Benadir families seek resettlement in a third country

IRAQ: "Last chance" for gov't to restore order

While the Iraqi government has dismissed a recent UN human rights report exposing the failures of the US-backed Baghdad security plan, local analysts agree with its findings and say authorities should adopt immediate measures to protect the population.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71823

IRAQ: Decline in municipal services boosts violence and disease

As violence continues to plague Iraq's capital, Baghdad, the city's infrastructure continues to deteriorate, causing more violence, health hazards and misery for its seven million inhabitants.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71800

IRAQ: Foreign workers lured to work in Iraq

NGOs have warned of increasing numbers of foreign workers being mislead to work in Iraq for little or no pay and at great risk to their lives. Many were destined to work in Gulf countries or other Middle Eastern countries but were deceived by employers organising their travel arrangements.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71776

IRAQ: Yazidi minority demands protection after killings

Members of the Yazidi religious minority have asked the Iraqi government and international NGOs to protect them after gunmen on Sunday killed 23 Yazidis in Mosul, northern Iraq.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71755

IRAQ: Walls will increase violence, specialists say

Baghdad specialists and citizens have hit out against the US strategy of building walls around Sunni districts that are surrounded by Shia areas. They say such barriers would worsen the lives of thousands of Iraqis and would increase violence.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71760

IRAQ: Emergency services lack capacity

Last Wednesday's four attacks in Baghdad, in which more than 200 people died, have highlighted how overstretched the country's emergency services are during major attacks, said doctors and emergency services workers.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71741

IRAQ: MMR vaccination campaign aims to reach 3.9 million children

Despite serious ongoing violence in Iraq, the government and international aid agencies started a major immunisation drive on Sunday to avert an outbreak of measles.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71742

IRAQ: Militants force Palestinians to leave Anbar

Palestinians living in Iraq's Anbar province have come under increasing pressure from militants to leave or be killed, NGOs and Palestinians say.

Palestinians in the capital, Baghdad, have long been threatened by armed groups and harassed by authorities but threats to them in other provinces are a new development, aid workers say. Sunni-dominated Anbar used to protect Palestinians, who are predominantly Sunni too, but times have changed.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71772

ISRAEL-LEBANON: UN envoy asks for records of cluster bomb strikes

A UN envoy has asked Israel to hand over detailed electronic records of its cluster bomb strikes on southern Lebanon last summer to help munitions-clearing teams with their task.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71740

ISRAEL-OPT: UN child rights expert criticises Palestinians and Israel

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, talked to children in the Askar refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus and the Israeli town of Sderot, which has been battered by missiles fired from the nearby Gaza Strip.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71719

LEBANON: Cash-strapped Palestinians see livelihoods decimated by security crisis

In 12 years of selling household goods to Lebanese and Palestinian customers, Khaled Saadi says he has never seen the market place in Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon, as quiet as it is today.

"This used to be a key shopping market for all of north Lebanon. I used to sell around US $4,000-worth of goods every day," said the Palestinian refugee who is a father of six.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71737

LEBANON-SYRIA: Families of missing detainees in Syrian prisons demand action

Lebanese activists are calling on the United Nations and the Lebanese government to increase pressure on Damascus to release final details of the whereabouts and fate of more than 600 Lebanese missing in Syrian jails since the 1970s.

As a sit-in protest in front of UN House in Beirut by the families of the missing detainees enters its third year, activists are calling on the UN to consider the missing prisoner cases as part of the implementation of a series of Security Council resolutions that have demanded Syria respect Lebanon's sovereignty.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71783

YEMEN: Government to close gun markets

A decision by the Yemeni government to close all arms markets and outlets selling weapons in the country could help limit tribal conflicts and reduce crime, analysts say, particularly at a time when a confrontation between government forces and al-Houthi followers in northern Yemen has escalated.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71824

SOMALIA-YEMEN: 500 Benadir families seek resettlement in a third country

Batoul Abdul-Rahman, 85, witnessed much conflict and persecution in the many years she lived in her home country, Somalia. She fled to Yemen in 1992, seeking a better life, but has had to endure miserable conditions in the impoverished Arabian nation.

"My life has become a long wait. We are awaiting the unknown. The sea has thrown us to this place to be received by no one but misery," she said.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71803

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