NAIROBI, 6 July 2007 (IRIN) - IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 389 for 30 June - 6 July 2007

CONTENTS: DRC: Live up to your promises or lose recent gains, Kabila urged DRC: 'Civilians bearing brunt of South Kivu violence' CONGO: Polio vaccinations for 400,000 children KENYA: Agencies seek help to stem malnutrition in refugee camps UGANDA: LRA talks reach agreement on accountability UGANDA: Penal code to incorporate traditional justice system TANZANIA: Improve jail facilities in Zanzibar, leaders demand TANZANIA: Livestock ban lifted as Zanzibar controls RVF RWANDA: Ex-soldier sentenced to 20 years in jail for murder of UN soldiers

KENYA: Social awareness key to malaria control efforts

http://www.irinnews.org/reporttest.aspx?ReportId=73023

GLOBAL: Number of desperately poor in Africa has 'levelled off' – UN http://www.irinnews.org/reporttest.aspx?ReportId=73032

DRC: Live up to your promises or lose recent gains, Kabila urged

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could lose recent gains in its democratisation process unless President Joseph Kabila starts to promote dialogue and accountability, and strengthens cooperation with the wider international community, the International Crisis Group has warned.

The report, Congo: Consolidating the Peace, issued by the ICG on 5 July, warns that while the transition period, which ended with elections six months ago, helped to unify the country and improved security in some areas, governing institutions had remained weak, abusive or non-existent. Full report http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73112

DRC: 'Civilians bearing brunt of South Kivu violence'

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has expressed concern over abuses against civilians, especially women and children, in South Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, saying it frequently receives reports of abductions, executions, rapes and pillage.

Announcing an operation on 2 July to help 15,000 people displaced by increased violence in the region, the ICRC said a large number of families had fled their homes in the region.

"The ICRC is particularly concerned about abuses committed by armed persons against the civilian population, usually women and children," said Patrick Walder, head of the ICRC sub-delegation in Bukavu. Full report http://www.irinnews.org/reporttest.aspx?ReportId=73033

CONGO: Polio vaccinations for 400,000 children

The health ministry in the Republic of Congo has successfully vaccinated 400,000 children under the age of five against polio, officials said.

The campaign, which was mainly carried out to prevent the spread of polio from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), took place in the administrative departments of Brazzaville, Pool in the south, Plateaux and Cuvette in the central region and Likouala in the north.

Congo's director-general of health, Damase Bozongo, said the June vaccination campaign was prompted by reports of new cases of wild poliomyelitis (polio) in the DRC in 2006. Full report http://www.irinnews.org/reporttest.aspx?ReportId=73068

KENYA: Agencies seek help to stem malnutrition in refugee camps

The problems associated with high malnutrition among children younger than five should be tackled now to save lives in the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in northeastern Kenya, three UN agencies have warned.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN World Food Programme (WFP) and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said children under five were registering acute malnutrition rates of 22.2 percent in Dadaab and 15.9 percent in Kakuma, according to a recent survey. The agencies said malnutrition rates above 15 percent signalled an emergency.

They urged donors to provide US$32 million to improve care for refugee children and their mothers in the camps in Kenya's arid north that host 237,000 refugees, mostly Somalis and Sudanese. Full report http://www.irinnews.org/reporttest.aspx?ReportId=73058

UGANDA: LRA talks reach agreement on accountability

Peace talks between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army inched closer to success on 29 June with a late-night agreement on the principles for handling accountability and reconciliation for crimes committed during the conflict in northern Uganda.

The agreement, which deals with the third item on the talks' five-point agenda, will incorporate both the formal legal system and traditional mechanisms to achieve accountability and reconciliation for crimes committed by both sides during the two-decade-long conflict.

Mato Oput is an elaborate reconciliation ceremony of the Acholi people of northern Uganda, who are among the communities worst affected by the war. Similar reconciliation ceremonies are held by ethnic communities across the region affected by the conflict, and all processes will be incorporated into the accountability and reconciliation agreement. Full report http://www.irinnews.org/reporttest.aspx?ReportId=73010

UGANDA: Penal code to incorporate traditional justice system

Uganda will amend its penal code to enable alleged war crimes committed during more than two decades of conflict in the north to be prosecuted within the traditional justice system, said a government minister.

Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, who is also the government's team leader in the peace talks with the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), told reporters on 4 July that the Ugandan penal code would have to be changed to provide for the Mato Oput system practised by the Acholi community of northern Uganda, who have been most affected by the conflict.

Government and LRA delegations to the peace talks in the Southern Sudanese capital of Juba reached an agreement on 29 June on the principles for handling accountability and reconciliation for crimes committed during the conflict. Full report http://www.irinnews.org/reporttest.aspx?ReportId=73089

TANZANIA: Improve jail facilities in Zanzibar, leaders demand

The prison system in the Tanzanian semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar should be reformed because the jails can hardly cope with the rising number of inmates, leaders from the area said.

During a debate on the 2007/2008 budget proposals for the Ministry of Regional Administration, members of the Zanzibar parliament said the inmates were living in "inhuman" conditions. The jails, they added, were also too congested. Full report http://www.irinnews.org/reporttest.aspx?ReportId=73097

TANZANIA: Livestock ban lifted as Zanzibar controls RVF

Tanzania's semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar have lifted a ban imposed in April on the importation of farm animals and meat in a bid to keep the region free of Rift Valley Fever (RVF).

"We are now convinced that RVF is not a threat," Rahma Mshangama, an official from the Zanzibar Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Environment, told a news conference on 29 June in Stone Town, capital of Zanzibar. "Farm animals and products can be imported after obtaining a permit from livestock department."

An RVF outbreak in December 2006, mainly in the central region of mainland Tanzania, claimed the lives of several people. Dozens of others were infected in the north and southern regions of the mainland. Full report http://www.irinnews.org/reporttest.aspx?ReportId=73027

RWANDA: Ex-soldier sentenced to 20 years in jail for murder of UN soldiers

A court in Belgium has sentenced a former Rwandan military officer to 20 years in prison after finding him guilty of involvement in the murder of 10 Belgian soldiers at the beginning of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Bernard Ntuyahaga, 55, a former major in the army, was sentenced on 5 July, a day after he was convicted. He was accused of responsibility in the disarming of the Belgians, who were then serving in the United Nations peacekeeping force, and in their subsequent killing in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.

The court considered as mitigating circumstance the fact that Ntuyahaga was "only a link in an important chain" at a time when incitement and hate messages were being circulated by the then authorities in Rwanda. Full report http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73113

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