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CHAD: Tension reigns in main towns
There was "relative calm mixed with latent tension" in Ndjamena and other towns in Chad on Friday following unrest related to the contested re-election of President Idriss Deby, according to a resident of the Chadian capital.
Military patrols were less visible and regular business was slowly returning to normal, law professor Dionko Maounde told IRIN. The day's main event was an appeal by the parties of Deby's six opponents for the annulment of the 20 May presidential elections, Maounde said. He also confirmed reports that Deby's main rival, Ngarledjy Yorongar, was beaten on Wednesday by security forces.
Chad's electoral commission announced on Sunday that Deby won more than 67 percent of the vote, while Yorongar polled about 13 percent. The six opposition candidates maintain that the elections were fraudulent. All six were arrested twice this week: on Monday as they planned a protest rally, and on Wednesday ahead of the burial of Brahima Selgue, a student shot by security forces during Monday's arrests. He was buried on Thursday.
"This is a situation which could last" as the opposition does not want a repeat of 1996, when Deby allegedly rigged Chad's first democratic elections, Maounde said. The support the opposition has received from some members of the international community could also lengthen the crisis, he added.
SIERRA LEONE: More SLA troops complete training
Another 19 officers and 1,000 soldiers from the Sierra Leone Army's 14th Battalion took part in a passing-out ceremony on Thursday at the Benguema Military Training Centre, 26 km southeast of Freetown, Sierra Leone Web reported.
The internet-based news service quoted British Army Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Smith as saying that the SLA troops would receive a further six weeks' training at Newton, 7.5 km northeast of Benguema. Sierra Leone Web reported that the 14th Battalion was the seventh batch of Sierra Leonean soldiers to receive British training under a programme initiated last year.
Sierra Leone's army was destroyed by the civil war, which started in 1991. A British military team is rebuilding it to a strength of 8,000 soldiers, and is due to complete its task in September, after which it will hand over to an International Military Advisory and Training Team.
LIBERIA: IDPs need shelter, UN agency says
Thousands of people who fled insecurity in Lofa County, northern Liberia, for neighbouring Bong County need shelter, according to WFP, which is providing food for the IDPs. "NGOs are doing the best they can but there is an obvious need for non-food items such as plastic sheeting for tents," a WFP source told IRIN. Many of the IDPs in Bong are living in abandoned buildings that were partially destroyed during civil war in the 1990s, warehouses, an agricultural centre and the open air.
Humanitarian workers are trying to register the IDPs, who number at least 20,000 in Bong and over 4,000 in Grand Cape Mount County, southwest of Lofa, the source added. Official estimates put the number of IDPs in Liberia at about 60,000.
Lofa, scene of fighting between pro- and anti-government forces, is still a no-go area for the UN. "We do not know what is going on there so we are concerned," the source said.
THE GAMBIA: New refugees from Senegal
Tension in Casamance, southern Senegal, continues to drive people into neighbouring Gambia, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond reported on Friday in Geneva.
He said more than 200 refugees arrived this week in villages along Gambia's southern border. This brought to more than 2,500 the number of people who have fled to The Gambia since fighting flared up in mid-May between Senegalese government forces and the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC).
[The MFDC has been fighting since 1982 for self-rule for Casamance.] Refugees and local residents in Gambian border villages told UNHCR staff on Thursday they had heard gunshots across the border, which could herald another outflow, Redmond said. A woman who arrived this week from Tanding in northern Casamance said Senegalese soldiers burned almost all the houses in her village as they pursued the rebels, he added.
Many of the refugees who arrived in The Gambia this week said they fled their homes when they saw a military aircraft patrolling the area. They feared a repeat of an air raid that allegedly took place several days earlier and in which, refugee elders told a UNHCR team, many civilians were killed. They also said five men who had gone back to check on their families and livestock, were arrested.
Most of the villages along the border cannot accommodate the new arrivals, some of whom are now living under trees, UNHCR said. However, the bulk of the refugees have declined to move to UNHCR's transit camp at Kwinella, some 70 km north of the border.
UNHCR is caring for 12,400 refugees in The Gambia, including 1,675 Senegalese who arrived before the recent upsurge in fighting.
SENEGAL: UNHCR checks reports of deportations from Guinea-Bissau
UNHCR is trying to verify reports that Guinea-Bissau authorities have been forcing Senegalese refugees to leave, UN spokesman Ron Redmond said. NGO sources told IRIN that about 70 refugees had crossed into Casamance, southern Senegal, via the Mpack border post in recent days.
UNHCR has sent a team to the area to establish whether or not their return was forced, Redmond said.
Humanitarian sources told IRIN that the refugees fled northern Guinea-Bissau after soldiers burnt many homes on 20 May in a village whose inhabitants they suspected of hiding members of the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC). Refugees from Casamance had been living for about 10 years in the village, which is some 5 km southwest of the town of Sao Domingos. After the military's action, some refugees fled to Sao Domingos, while others returned to Senegal, the sources said.
The MFDC has been fighting for self-rule for Casamance since 1982.
WESTERN SAHARA: ICRC visits Moroccan POWs
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has again called on the Polisario Front to release Moroccan POWs, most of whom the liberation movement has been holding for at least 20 years.
"The ICRC has long maintained that the prisoners should be released without delay, and that the most infirm should be the first to be freed," the ICRC said in a statement on Thursday.
Four ICRC delegates - among them a medical doctor, a dentist and an ophthalmologist - visited 796 of the 1,479 prisoners between 11 and 25 May, and assessed their health and living conditions.
The detainees are being held in six centres in the Tindouf region of Algeria (where, ICRC says, Sahrawi refugees are living in extremely difficult conditions) and in areas of Western Sahara controlled by Polisario. ICRC said the delegates "gave the prisoners an opportunity to send Red Cross messages to their families" and provided them with 470 kg of medical supplies.
Ten prisoners received dentures and six others suffering from trichiasis or cataracts underwent surgery. A total 120 pairs of prescription glasses were also handed out, ICRC said.
During their visit, the delegates held discussions with officials of the Polisario Front and members of civil society on 178 Sahrawi combatants reported missing during the conflict.
Abidjan, 1 June 2001; 19:32 GMT
[ENDS]
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