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GUINEA: Food convoy reaches the southwest
Some 11 five-tonne trucks - accompanied by other vehicles - arrived on Monday in southwestern Guinea with what UN agencies said was the first relief food thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the area have received since September.
The convoy which, World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Ramin Rafirasme told IRIN, carried about 58 mt of food for refugees and IDPs, arrived in the area in the early afternoon. UNHCR reported that it delivered supplies to Temessadou, some 87 km and three and a half hours from Kissidougou, before proceeding to its two other destinations for the day, Mongo and Kamayan, three and seven km respectively from Temessadou. Monday's deliveries are destined for 3,880 beneficiaries in the three camps, UNHCR said.
The three villages are located northwest of Guekedou, scene of fighting in recent months between Guinean forces and armed men said to have come from neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone that displaced or isolated thousands of refugees and Guineans and disrupted supply lines.
A second convoy is to take foodstuff on Tuesday to Tomandou and Koladou, both located southwest of Guekedou.
Two NGOs, GTZ of Germany and Premiere Urgence of France, are involved in the transport and distribution of the food respectively, UNHCR and WFP reported.
GUINEA: Opposition leader calls for end to Guinea-Liberia war
The opposition Union pour le progres de la Guinee (UPG) has called on presidents Lansana Conte of Guinea and Charles Taylor of Liberia to stop sheltering each other's enemies on their territory, AFP reported on Sunday.
"The war between Liberia and Guinea is merely a problem between the Liberian and Guinean heads of state," UPG leader Jean-Marie Dore said at a news conference after an extraordinary congress of his party. He said Conte should order his army to disarm immediately members of the United Liberation Movement (ULIMO) of Liberia, which was one of the factions opposed to Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia during the Liberian civil war.
By making such a move, Guinea would avoid giving Taylor "a pretext for making trouble in Guinea", said Dore, who asked Conte to "take into account the aspirations of the Guinean people who urgently need freedom, security and peace".
Since September, fighting along Guinea's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia has caused hundreds of deaths and displaced tens of thousands of refugees and Guineans.
Guinea accuses Liberia, Burkina Faso and the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone of supporting the attacks. The three parties, in turn, deny Conakry's accusations, with Monrovia charging that the Guinean government is responsible for insecurity in northeastern Liberia.
LIBERIA: Government closes four newspapers
Liberia's government has denied that the closure of four private newspapers,
just after the arrest of four journalists in connection with reports carried in their weekly, is part of a crackdown on the media.
Information Minister Jonathan Reffell said the newspapers were closed because of unpaid taxes and that they had received prior warning. "As far as I know, at this time they (the newspaper managers and owners) are negotiating with the Ministry of Finance, and they are prepared to pay up their taxes so they can function," Reffell said in an interview broadcast on Monday by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
The dailies were closed on Thursday after receiving a 24-hour ultimatum to pay off their taxes, according to PANA, which quoted one of the four as saying their arrears were overstated while another said the state had refused a partial payment of its arrears. The closures came on the heels of the arrest of four journalists in connection with a report that the government had spent US $50,000 to repair a helicopter while its workers went unpaid.
SIERRA LEONE: Children released from prison
The last remaining children held over the past nine months at Freetown's Pendemba Road Prison have been released, OCHA said in its situation report of 26 January to 23 February.
The 13 children were freed after months of appeals by UNICEF, the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender, and Children's Affairs, the ICRC, Family Homes Movement and UNAMSIL's Human Rights Unit. UNICEF said they were in good health.
The children were accused of association with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels.
Children have born the brunt of Sierra Leone's war. Many were raped, amputated, drugged and forced to commit crimes. Others were recruited as fighters or forced to serve as "wives" to the RUF's fighting men.
Meanwhile, UNICEF reported that as of 19 January, 459 children were lodged in various centres countrywide. They include 279 former combatants.
Help has also been reaching the children from other quarters.
ICRC, together with its child protection partners, reunified four Sierra Leonean children, returning from Guinea, with their families. A nine-seater ICRC Beechcraft flew unaccompanied children to be reunified with their families on 24 February, its first such flight. It hopes to carry out up to six more this week.
Christian Children's Fund, OCHA reported, recently opened an office in Kenema to cover operations in the country's east. The NGO will set up children's centres and mount psychosocial programmes - including skills training, formal and non-formal primary education, health, food security and women's development programmes.
SIERRA LEONE: NGOs worried about security around Freetown
Despite a relatively calm overall security situation in Sierra Leone, NGOs in and around the capital, Freetown, have expressed concern at the spate of armed robberies targetting NGO and UN personnel.
OCHA reported the NGOs as saying that armed robberies had increased since the UN Mission in Sierra Leone reduced its checkpoints in the city. Recently, three off-duty government army recruits fired shots at a vehicle driven by a UN civilian. OCHA said the incident occurred at an illegal vehicle checkpoint set up by the recruits, who were arrested. No one was hurt.
Meanwhile, UNAMSIL has increased the frequency of its patrols in Freetown to make up for the closure of the six checkpoints. The UN security patrol has been expanded to include a second standby crew for quick response duties. These patrols operate near NGO facilities, OCHA reported.
SIERRA LEONE: Water crisis in Tonkolili District
UNICEF has installed six 800-gallon (3,637-litre) water storage tanks to head-off a potential waterborne epidemic at a Caritas-run camp for 4,000 IDPs in Tonkolili District, OCHA reported. Agencies have expressed fear that a continuing shortage of safe drinking water in the entire Mile 91 area in the district could lead to an outbreak of diseases. The IDPs have been relying increasingly on swamp water for their supplies.
SIERRA LEONE: Government wants immediate sanctions against Liberia
Sierra Leone has joined Guinea's call for immediate sanctions against Liberia, reversing an earlier decision by Freetown supporting a regional proposal for a delay in the action. The state-owned Sierra Leone New Agency, SLENA, reported the government as saying on Monday that Liberia was gradually eroding the basis on which ECOWAS had called for a two-month delay in the application of sanctions.
Freetown accuses Monrovia of failing to show proof and independent verification of steps it says it has taken to disengage from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Sierra Leone also says that Monrovia continues to harbour the families of senior RUF members, and that Liberia continues to violate an arms embargo and the ECOWAS moratorium on arms imports.
"Furthermore, the most disturbing aspect of the situation is that the Liberian government continues to demonstrate, through complacency and delaying tactics, its belief that the Security Council is incapable of taking any actions against that government without the concurrence of ECOWAS," SLENA reported.
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Cabinet resigns
Equatorial Guinea's cabinet has resigned as a result of an "institutional crisis", Europa Press reported on Saturday, quoting a presidential decree read out on state television.
The government was dissolved because it was not functioning and did not "respect the majority opinion of the people and the supreme interests of the country", according to a statement presented by Prime Minister Angel Serafin Seriche Dugan to President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
AFP reported on Sunday that the government had been plagued by corruption and the unpopularity of some of its members. It said the resignation followed months of virulent attacks from parliamentarians of the ruling Partido democratico de Guinea Ecuatorial who, in October 2000, had called for its resignation.
MALI: Kidnapped soldiers released
Ten soldiers kidnapped in recent months in northern Mali were released on Saturday, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported. The soldiers were held captive by a group led by a former army officer, Ibrahim Bahanga.
Bahanga was among Tuareg rebels incorporated into the army after the end of a rebellion in the 1990s.
According to AFP, the soldiers were released unconditionally. However, Bahanga's group appealed for an end to hostilities with the central government and a greater investment in development projects in the northern region, the news agency said. The government also called for an end to hostilities.
A recent string of robberies, carjackings and kidnappings in the region have been attributed to Bahanga's group.
COTE D'IVOIRE: Parliamentarians to promote human rights
A delegation of 11 international parliamentarians is in Abidjan to investigate the socio-political situation in Cote d'Ivoire and contribute to the "promotion of human rights", the state-owned daily 'Fraternité-Matin' quoted the mission's leader, Emma Bonino, as saying.
So far, the delegation - which arrived on Friday for a five-day visit - has met with President Laurent Gbagbo, National Assembly President Mamadou Koulibaly, and Islamic leaders. It plans to meet with several other political and civil society leaders.
The group's visit falls within the framework of efforts to help restore peace and democracy to Cote d'Ivoire, which has been mired in social and political violence since its first coup d'etat in December 1999.
The delegation comprises parliamentarians from Canada, Ghana, Italy, Mali, The Netherlands and Senegal.
NIGERIA: Muslim vigilantes burn drinks-laden truck
A truck conveying alcoholic drinks to the main military barracks in Nigeria's northern city of Kano was intercepted last week and set ablaze by Muslim vigilantes, the 'Vanguard' daily reported on Monday.
The paper said news of the incident on 20 February enraged soldiers at the barracks who quickly organised to confront the militants, known as Hisba, charged with implementing the Sharia legal code. However, they were restrained on the orders of the chief of army staff, Lt-Gen Victor Malu, averting what would have been a major religious crisis, the paper reported.
The Hisba vigilante were also reported to have invaded the offices of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Kano on suspicion that alcohol was being served there, and to have smashed car windscreens and window panes.
Kano is one of 10 states in northern Nigeria that have adopted strict application of Islamic law, which forbids the sale and consumption of alcohol, but does not apply to the military.
TOGO: Police disperse opposition demonstration
A demonstration called by the opposition Action Committee for Renewal (CAR) in the Togolese capital, Lome, on Saturday was forcibly broken up by the police, Radio France International (RFI) reported.
The demonstration was intended to back demands for electoral reforms and draw attention to a report by the United Nations/Organisation of African Unity Investigation Commission which accused Togo's security forces of committing widespread human rights abuses.
RFI said a police cordon blocked and fired teargas at defiant marchers to enforce a ban by the government on public demonstrations.
Abidjan, 26 February 2001; 20:05 GMT
[ENDS]
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