Access to food key challenge as IDP numbers in Afgoye rise

(IRIN) – With aid groups having pulled out of camps for internally displaced people and more people fleeing violence in Mogadishu, the plight of IDPs is at its most extreme, say civil society sources and local aid workers in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

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African bishops warn against rushed elections in Zimbabwe

Article first published 25/02/11 (Ekklesia)

Catholic bishops in Southern Africa have warned that conditions are not yet fit for elections in Zimbabwe after the bloody presidential run-off election which left scores of people dead.

“Conditions in the country are emphatically not conducive to elections in 2011. We strongly believe that holding elections at this stage would be dangerously premature,” said the group. The bishops are from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, Swaziland, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The statement was prepared at an Inter-regional Meeting of Bishops of Southern Africa held in Pretoria, South Africa, last December and released on 22 February.

The bishops said Zimbabwe’s voters’ roll had not been updated for years while cases of violence had increased following the announcement of possible elections later this year. They also said freedom of association and of the media was severely restricted and that the nation was in the grip of extreme fear. There are increasing signs of intimidation and violence as the election campaign has built up, they said.

Their statement came after Zimbabwe’s long-ruling president, Robert Mugabe, said he will call for elections later this year with or without reforms agreed to in a pact with his strongest rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, who is now Prime Minister. Tsvangirai and Mugabe are in a shaky power-sharing government that was formed in February 2009.

Zimbabwe’s last elections in June 2008 were marred by violence which saw the deaths of more than 300 supporters of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change party.

Following the disputed elections, a regional bloc, the Southern African Development Community, persuaded Mugabe and Tsvangirai to form a powersharing government to avoid a descent into full-fledged conflict and mend an economic crisis that featured hyper-inflation.

Under the pact, the two political rivals agreed to reforms including drafting a new constitution and changing electoral and media laws to ensure free and fair elections in future.

The work of the compromise government has been characterised by fighting over the allocation of key government posts while the drive to collect people’s views for the new constitution was disrupted several time by violent clashes between supporters of the two main political parties.

Last month, scores of supporters of Tsvangirai’s party sought refuge in churches after they were attacked and forced out of their homes by militant supporters of Mugabe’s party.

[With acknowledgements to ENInews. ENInews, formerly Ecumenical News International, is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the Conference of European Churches.]

Political violence escalates

(IRIN) – Zimbabwe’s Government of National Unity (GNU) was born out of political violence in 2008, and analysts see its demise occurring in much the same way.

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Somaliland clashes displace thousands

(IRIN) – More than 3,000 people have been displaced from settlements in Somaliland’s eastern region of Toghdeer following a five-hour-long battle on 7 February between the Somaliland National Army and clans loyal to the Sool, Sanag and Cayn (SSC) milita group.

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Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91887

UN urges more action on child rights

(IRIN) – All parties in Afghanistan should do more to protect children in armed conflict: Taliban insurgents must stop recruiting child soldiers or using them as suicide bombers, while the government must clamp down on the recruitment and/or sexual exploitation of boys by pro-government militias, the UN and human rights organizations say.

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Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91869

Somali refugees hope for better life beyond Kharaz camp

(IRIN) – Every year tens of thousands of Somalis risk their lives crossing the Gulf of Aden to reach Yemen in their search for safety and a better life. Many die atrocious deaths – beaten, thrown overboard, eaten by sharks, drowned or asphyxiated in the hold of crowded smuggler boats.

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Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91727

Call for help for IDPs, deportees in Helmand

(IRIN) – Thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from insurgency-hit Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, need food assistance urgently, officials told IRIN.

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Mogadishu women eke out a living among the shells

(IRIN) – At 75, Aagan Mahamud is at an age when, in Somali culture, her children should be taking care of her. Instead, Mahamud is looking after six grandchildren.

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Unpaid volunteers prop up health system

(IRIN) – Some 22,000 community health volunteers in Afghanistan are vital to the country’s health system but some are beginning to wonder if they might provide a more effective service if they were paid, and had formal work contracts.

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Visceral leishmaniasis outbreak adds to returnees’ woes

(IRIN) – The influx of returnees from the north to Southern Sudan ahead of an independence referendum scheduled for 9 January 2011 is raising fears of a more widespread outbreak of visceral leishmaniasis, a disease which can be lethal and is endemic in parts of the greater Upper Nile region, says a World Health Organization (WHO) official in Southern Sudan.

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