DAKAR, 26 October 2007 (IRIN) - CONTENTS:

BENIN: AIDS stripping farmers of their land CHAD: Peace deal signed to end rebellion COTE D'IVOIRE: Government, former rebels thwarting arms inspections, UN says GHANA: Food shortages follow drought, floods

GUINEA: Youths chase staff from state electricity offices, protesting power cuts GUINEA: Slight boost in water, electricity services but much to be done GUINEA-BISSAU: Security Council warns drug trafficking undermines stability LIBERIA: Leprosy losing its stigma MAURITANIA: New government tackling waste management MAURITANIA-SENEGAL: Arrests raise questions over safe return of Mauritanian refugees NIGER: Humanitarian crisis feared in north NIGER: MSF ordered out of north after third hijacking SAHEL: Foundation money to allow long term approach to water problem SENEGAL: Calls for more prevention as cholera cases rise SENEGAL: As fuel prices soar, oil lamps becoming a luxury product WEST AFRICA: New approach to malaria recommended

BENIN: AIDS stripping farmers of their land

Comlan Houessou certainly knows what he is talking about when it comes to the impact of AIDS on rural communities. He is a farmer in Benin who has lost everything because of HIV: the respect of his neighbours, his savings and his land. He is now fighting to rebuild his life. Just five years ago, Houessou had two hectares of land in the Couffo region of southwest Benin. He inherited the land from his family and grew corn, cassava and cotton on it to meet the needs of his two wives and their six children. In 2003, however, his health began to deteriorate. "It started with headaches. I told myself that it would pass, but they got worse", he told IRIN/PlusNews at the conference 'From research to Action: mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture and food security in West Africa', which took place at the start of October in Cotonou, Benin.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74988

CHAD: Peace deal signed to end rebellion

The Chadian government and four of the main rebel groups that had vowed to overthrow the government have signed a peace accord in Libya. ahamat Nouri (UFDD), Timane Erdiimi (RFC), Hassane El Djinedi (DNT) and Abdelwahid Aboud (UFDD-F) signed up to the deal in the presence of Chadian President Idriss Deby and President Omar El Bachir of neighbouring Sudan who have each accused each other of backing rebel groups operating in their countries. he accord calls for an "immediate" ceasefire, the integration of rebel fighters into the national army, and the start of a process to integrate all the parties to the deal into the government.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75007

COTE D'IVOIRE: Government, former rebels thwarting arms inspections, UN says

Arms inspections in Côte d'Ivoire are being refused "with increasing frequency" by former rebels and the national army and illegal arms trafficking has become a "worrying phenomenon", according to a recent report from the panel that monitors the country's UN arms embargo. In the report, released publicly on 19 October, the UN panel said several military units routinely refuse inspections by international forces. It expressed particular concern that inspectors have not had access to the presidential guard since the embargo was imposed in 2004. "Given the persistence of hindrances to embargo inspections, the Group deems it necessary to remind the two parties' military authorities… that the impartial forces cannot fulfil their monitoring mandate without these authorities' cooperation. This recommendation applies in particular to Republican Guard units," the report said.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74991

GHANA: Food shortages follow drought, floods

After an initial push to provide food for people affected by drought and heavy flooding in northern Ghana, donor attention on the country is waning even though food shortages persist meaning the situation could get much worse, the Ghanaian government and aid agencies warn. "Because of the preceding drought and the end of the planting season, there is an inevitable situation of food insecurity, which is likely to last until the next harvest," the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) wrote in a 9 October appeal. "It's something that is going to be an ongoing problem… The food supply has to be constant until the region is able to regenerate itself," said Benonita Bismarck, head of operations of the Ghana Red Cross Society.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74993

GUINEA: Youths chase staff from state electricity offices, protesting power cuts

"Electricity for all or for nobody", chanted the 1,000 young protestors in Labé, central Guinea, as they marched on the town's state electricity office earlier this month, chased out the staff and barricaded the doors. The youths then marched to the governor's office and handed him the keys, appealing to him to find a solution to Labé's electricity problem. The demonstrators did not use violence in the 10 October protest, sources in Labé told IRIN. "We just wanted to talk to the authorities and tell them our grievances," Balde Thierno Souleymane, 22, said. "In Labé there was electricity in this or that area or for this or that family. It was just nonsense."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74968

GUINEA: Slight boost in water, electricity services but much to be done

In one of the poorest and most volatile neighbourhoods of Conakry new solar-panelled street lights line a boulevard for nearly three kilometres, the shiny lampposts standing out amid crumbling cinder block buildings and rutted dirt roads. "That came with 'le changement'," one Guinean said, using one of the most often-heard phrases here these days – referring to the change of government that took place in March after weeks of unprecedented citizen demonstrations for better living conditions and the ouster of the president of 23 years, Lansana Conte. In a compromise Conte named a consensus prime minister, Lansana Kouyate, who came in promising Guineans what most have been deprived of for decades – access to the most basic of services like electricity, clean water and sanitation.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74965

GUINEA-BISSAU: Security Council warns drug trafficking undermines stability

The UN Security Council has warned that Guinea Bissau is being "undermined" by prolific drug trafficking which is making the tiny country a threat to West Africa's stability. "The Security Council notes with deep concern the threat posed by drug and human trafficking, which can undermine the important gains made with respect to rule of law, democratic and transparent governance," the Council said in a Presidential Statement delivered in New York on 19 October. Drug trafficking in Guinea Bissau could have "negative implications towards the region, as well as other regions," the Council noted.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74912

LIBERIA: Leprosy losing its stigma

In Liberia leprosy has long been seen as a disease caused by mystical powers and one that cannot be cured by modern medicine. Health workers and villagers say that is beginning to change. For Flomo Kerkula, 55, the longstanding stigma has meant spending 20 of his 55 years at the Tuberculosis and Leprosy Rehabilitation Camp in the northern Liberian town of Ganta, Nimba County, which is run by a group of Roman Catholic nuns. The camp provides free leprosy treatment and shelter for 200 patients who suffer from the disease. Their scars from having been infected with the bacteria known as leprae, which attacks the nervous system, include deformities of the skin, fingers and toes. The UN World Food Program provides food to the patients.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74943

LIBERIA: Flomo Kerkula, "All my fingers and toes have gone and my family abandoned me"

Leprosy patient Flomo Kerkula, 55, has been living in one of Liberia's biggest leper camps in Ganta, Nimba County, for over two decades. One of his elder brothers first took him to the camp for treatment, but twenty years later, Kerkula told IRIN that his family has abandoned him, despite the completion of his treatment. "I had a wife when I contracted leprosy and I have brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, as well as other relatives like cousins.

http://www.irinnews.org/HOVReport.aspx?ReportId=74944

MAURITANIA: New government tackling waste management

Since the 1970s, Mauritania's capital city has been growing explosively and today a million people call the scruffy, ramshackle city's collection of tin-roofed shacks and rough concrete buildings home. Nouakchott's sanitation system has not kept up with the demand, and the Mauritanian capital often looks more like an open garbage dump than the country's showcase city. The unsanitary conditions pose serious health risks and respiratory diseases are common there. But a new government, elected in March 2007, has pledged to put an end to that under the pledge: "A Clean City For Everyone". "We want to make sanitation a priority so that people can live in the best conditions of hygiene and healthiness," said Yaye N'Daw Coulibaly, Mayor of Tevragh Zeina, one of nine city districts that make up Nouakchott.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74906

MAURITANIA-SENEGAL: Arrests raise questions over safe return of Mauritanian refugees

A group that claims to represent some of the 30,000 Mauritanian refugees living in Senegal says the recent arrest of some returnees is a sign that the planned repatriation of thousands of others should not go ahead until their rights and safety can be assured. The Collective of Mauritanian Refugees for Solidarity and Durable Solutions (CRMSSD) says seven refugees who returned to Mauritania in 1998 were recently incarcerated for about 10 days after a dispute over land in the village of Ngawlé, in Mauritania's south-western Trarza region. The CRMSSD is one of several organisations in Senegal representing Mauritanian refugees and is not part of a newly formed committee that was to regroup and represent all refugees before the United Nations.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74956

NIGER: Humanitarian crisis feared in north

In an atmosphere void of information and full of insecurity, some aid workers fear a humanitarian crisis is emerging in the troubled northern region of Niger, where thousands of people are thought to be cut off, with limited access to food, healthcare and humanitarian assistance. "We don't have hard facts at present that a crisis is ongoing but we do fear that the risk is there that a crisis may emerge," said Niger-based Frank Smit, West Africa humanitarian planning representative for Oxfam Novib, the Dutch arm of the aid organisation Oxfam International. Snce February, attacks led by ethnic Touareg in the northern Agadez region have killed at least 45 government soldiers. Both the government and the Nigerien Movement for Justice (MNJ) militia group have laid landmines. Bandits have profited from the lack of safety by attacking convoys travelling in the vast desert region of the Aïr mountain chain.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74905

NIGER: MSF ordered out of north after third hijacking

Nigerien authorities have ordered the French aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières to stop working in northern Niger after three of its vehicles were hijacked in the last week. "They have been ordered to leave Agadez," the governor of the Agadez region, Malam Boukar Abba told IRIN on 23 October. "[MSF] wanted to intervene in many different areas and we let them do a lot but… I do not see any point in them continuing – I don't think MSF came here to be threatened at gunpoint." Two MSF four wheel drive cars were hijacked from a village where they were being used to deliver medicines 40km from Agadez on 22 October, according to Radio France Internationale. MSF in Paris said it was still investigating the report, which was confirmed by Governor Abba.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74936

SAHEL: Foundation money to allow long term approach to water problem

A donation of US$150 million to a 10-year water project in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal and nine other countries in Africa and Central America by the Howard G. Buffet Foundation could be the start of a much needed injection of donor innovation into the relief sector, non-governmental organisations involved in the project say. The foundation's money will be used to start the Global Water Initiative (GWI), a partnership of seven charities and relief organisations which will be given US$15 million a year for 10 years. In the whole West Africa region in 2006, traditional donor spending on water and sanitation was US$130,000 – just 11 percent of the US$1,165 million aid agencies had asked for – according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74992

SENEGAL: Calls for more prevention as cholera cases rise

As the number of cholera cases in Senegal this year tops 2,000, Red Cross and UN officials say not enough has changed since a huge epidemic two years ago that affected more than 30,000 people and killed 450. According to the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), 12 deaths and 2,231 cases of cholera have been registered since the beginning of August in six regions of the country. "Every day, we're getting new cases. Before, it was one or two cases a day. Now, it's 60 or 70. It's alarming," said Mamadou Sonko, head of operations for the Senegalese Red Cross.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74913

SENEGAL: As fuel prices soar, oil lamps becoming a luxury product

Surging petrol prices in Africa usually weigh most heavily on the emerging urban middle class, making it a struggle to put fuel in cars or motorbikes every day and to pay home electricity bills. In Senegal, the energy shock is starting to filter down to the most isolated rural areas, where, far from electricity grids and roads, illiterate parents hoping their children will have a better life through education are worrying about how to put fuel in oil lamps so their children can do their homework. "It is very difficult, because at night, we need to make light but there has not been any petrol in the area since last year," said Abba Diallo, president of the Parent-Teacher Association in Thiancone Boguel, a town in northeastern Senegal, some 690km from the capital, Dakar, in the Matam region.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74934

WEST AFRICA: New approach to malaria recommended

A World Health Organization evaluation of West African countries' progress in controlling malaria has recommended that donors allocate more funds to indoor spraying and to helping countries purchase the latest anti-malarial drugs. "For the control of malaria vectors, we had previously recommended the use of mosquito nets," said Stephan Tohon, WHO focal point on malaria in West Africa, speaking to IRIN on the sidelines of the UN agency's malaria evaluation meeting in the Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou. "But today the experience of some countries in southern Africa with indoor house spraying – containing the once-banned insecticide DDT – has yielded positive results. This is very important to beat malaria and it is going to contribute to controlling mosquitoes not only in bedrooms, but in houses and verandas," Tohon explained.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74954

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