War and Peace
BURUNDI-DRCongo
Thirty-seven rebel fighters arrived on 10 February in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, from Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), aboard two planes of the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC.
The arrival of the former rebels, loyal to the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces de defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) faction led by Jean Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, follows an earlier arrival of 53 others, loyal to Pierre Nkurunziza's CNDD-FDD, who were also escorted home by MONUC officials.
MONUC is repatriating former combatants under its disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation (DDR) programme aimed at ridding the DRC of all armed foreign groups.
A MONUC political adviser, Ibrahima Dia, told IRIN that Ndayikengurukiye requested that his fighters be repatriated and sent to cantonment sites prior to demobilisation.
COTE D IVOIRE
A UN human rights official has warned that fear, intimidation and a lack of editorial responsibility in the media were hampering "the free circulation of balanced opinions and ideas" in Cote d'Ivoire.
Ambeyi Ligabo, the Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights, made this observation in on Monday a preliminary statement following a visit to the war-torn country from 29 January to 5 February.
There is a pressing need to discuss freely the future of this country wihout falling again into the nightmare of civil war,” he stressed.
Besides criticising the shortcomings of the local media, Ligabo condemned the widespread harassment of civilians by the security forces at numerous checkpoints since Cote d'Ivoire plunged into civil war in September 2002.
“There is a deep sense of uncertainty and fear because of the overwhelming presence of military forces and police check points which often harass and extort money from ordinary citizens for no reason,” he said. (Source: IRIN)
DRC
UN peacekeeping troops who have reached a reported massacre site in the northeastern town of Gobu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have discovered 12 corpses but no mass grave, a spokesman said on 11 February.
"The presumption is there was a massacre but it is very difficult to know who the killers were and what really happened,” Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), said in Kinshasa, the nation's capital.
UN troops who discovered the bodies, he said, did not have enough equipment to examine the bodies and so determine the moment and cause of death. “We are waiting for pathologists and other experts to determine if there was really a massacre,” he added.
MONUC officials are to investigate reports by survivors of a 16 January attack on boats carrying displaced people and traders, that 24 assailants seized their vessels and took them to Gobu, along Lake Albert, where they killed about 100 male passengers. (Source: IRIN)
ETHIOPIA
Britain on 11 February expressed "great concern" over renewed ethnic clashes and killings in western Ethiopia that have claimed scores of lives. International Development Secretary Hilary Benn spoke out on the subject during a four-day visit to Ethiopia after renewed fighting flared up in Gambella region.
According to UN and humanitarian officials, at least 40 people have been killed in the latest clashes, which have come just weeks after violence in the border region claimed 150 lives. The government spokesman, Zemedkun Tekle, said the authorities were investigating the fighting in Gambella, but had so far received no accurate reports on casualties.
"The current fighting in Gambella - and there has been a further outbreak very recently - is obviously of concern to everybody, including the international community," Benn said. "We have expressed that concern, and there is a US team, as I understand it, there at the moment," he added, speaking in the capital, Addis Ababa.
(Source: IRIN)