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SIERRA LEONE: UNAMSIL troops low on food
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) has turned down a request by the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to replenish, by helicopter, the supplies of UN personnel in the eastern area of Kailahun, the UN announced on Tuesday.
The UN has been unable to resupply 233 peacekeepers and military observers blocked by the RUF in Kailahun for a considerable amount of time, the associate spokesperson of the Secretary-General, Marie Okabe, had said on Monday.
"They now have 10 days worth of rations left," Okabe had told a news conference in New York. "We are taking this situation very seriously and every effort is being made to re-supply them by any possible means."
Getting supplies to the contingent encircled in Kailahun was being complicated by the bad condition of the roads, due to the rainy season, and by the fact that on Friday a helicopter with supplies on board was denied access to the area, Okabe had said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement on Friday expressing his "extreme concern about the unacceptable encirclement of the 233 Indian peacekeepers and military observers by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)."
He appealed to African leaders, particularly President Charles Taylor of Liberia, to do their utmost to bring about their release, warning that "this situation cannot be allowed to continue."
The general military situation in Sierra Leone was reported as "calm," on Monday, Okabe said, adding that UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) troops had discovered a large arms cache near Lungi, just north of the Freetown peninsula, and that an investigation was underway.
SIERRA LEONE: West Side Boys intimidated
Some members of the former Sierra Leone Army (SLA) militia known as the 'West Side Boys' are not surrendering their weapons out of fear, AFP reported military sources as saying on Monday.
The government had earlier issued a statement on state radio ordering the 'West Side Boys' to report with their weapons to UN peacekeepers in Masiaka by Tuesday or face punishment. Some of them are ready to surrender but are being intimidated by others to prevent them from giving up their arms, AFP reported.
There had been several clashes between the 'West Side Boys' and other SLA elements prior to the government's ultimatum.
LIBERIA: MSF suspends operations in upper Lofa
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)has suspended its operations in upper Lofa County in northern Liberia because of clashes between government troops and dissidents, AFP reported.
The fighting that prompted the move by MSF - the only aid agency operating in the area - began on Saturday when between 300 and 400 armed men, mostly Liberian dissidents, attacked the county capital of Voinjama, some 260 km north of Monrovia, Liberian military spokesman Philibert Browne told IRIN on Monday.
Browne, who said the attackers came from Guinea, added that the civilian population had been relocated to avoid casualties.
NIGERIA: Environment - Niger Delta, a high-risk region
More than 4,000 oil spills officially recorded in Nigeria's Niger Delta in over four decades of oil production attest to the level of degradation of probably the most endangered oil-bearing environment in the world.
Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, who revealed these statistics during a recent visit to Norway, blamed the situation on the 'dismal' performance in the delta of oil multinationals, which he accused of not meeting international standards in their operations in the area.
The result is that things have now reached a point where both environmentalists and inhabitants of the region believe urgent steps need to be taken to contain the situation before irreversible damage is done.
[See separate item titled 'NIGERIA: IRIN Focus on the Niger Delta environment']
NIGERIA: Many feared dead from pipeline fire
Up to 250 people may have died following a pipeline explosion near Warri in the oil-producing Niger Delta region of southeastern Nigeria, media sources in Lagos told IRIN on Tuesday.
The police were reported to have sealed off the area and firefighters were still trying on Tuesday to control the blaze, believed to have started on Sunday night.
Villagers were collecting petrol in buckets from the vandalised pipeline when the explosion took place. There has been no official confirmation of casualty figures but local journalists said they had counted 120 charred bodies in the area, according to the BBC.
Other local sources put the figure as high as 250 and there are fears that even more may have died.
Fuel shortages in Nigeria have led to a thriving black market and villagers in the neglected southern region often risk their lives to collect fuel from vandalised pipelines so as to sell it.
WEST AFRICA: CPJ condemns media rights abuses
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern over recent violations of the rights of the media in Gambia and Cote d'Ivoire including detentions, interrogations, dismissals and the prosecution of one journalist on murder charges.
In Gambia, the CPJ has concluded that attacks against journalists are not "isolated incidents, but part of a systematic campaign to suppress reporting on issues of legitimate public concern."
It cites the case of Madi Ceesay, a journalist for the Banjul-based weekly 'Gambia News and Report'. Ceesay, assigned to cover United Democratic Party (UDP) activities, was arrested on 17 June following a clash between supporters of the ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) and the opposition UDP in which one APRC activist died.
Ceesay and several UDP members were charged with murder although he was later released on bail, CPJ reported. It added that the ongoing harassment of independent journalists in Gambia continued.
In Cote d'Ivoire, military ruler General Robert Guei, in the aftermath of what he described as a "failed coup" last week, warned local journalists to be "careful" because they would now be severely punished for politically motivated "bias" and "distortion of facts" in their reporting, CPJ said.
The warning was issued last week shortly after the ruling junta shut down the offices of the private broadcaster 'Radio Nostalgie' allegedly for allowing mutineers to voice their protest on the air.
SENEGAL: Mine explosion kills three
Three people were killed and 20 others wounded after a lorry drove over a mine near Ziguinchor in Casamance, southern Senegal, AFP reported on Monday.
Victims of the accident, which happened late on Sunday, were taken to hospital in Ziguinchor where many remained in a coma. The lorry was reportedly carrying a group of women travelling to the interior to pick mangoes, AFP reported.
The separatist Mouvement des forces democratiques du Casamance (MFDC) has been fighting for an independent state in Casamance for some 18 years.
COTE D'IVOIRE: Soldiers given 48 hours to hand in weapons
Cote d'Ivoire's ruling Conseil National de Salut Public (CNSP) has given people with illegal weapons, whether civilians or members of the military, 48 hours to hand them in to the main barracks in Abidjan or the offices of the gendarmerie in other parts of the country.
The CNSP said in a communique that the ultimatum, which expires on Wednesday, was "also valid for people who have in their possession material stolen during the events of 4 and 5 July 2000".
It said no sanctions would be taken against those who obeyed the directive whereas those who did not would be dealt with severely.
Soldiers who staged protests on Tuesday and Wednesday last were reported to have stolen sizeable quantities of arms and ammunition from military barracks.
Abidjan, 11 July 2000; 18:05 GMT
[ENDS]
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