UN Radio

UN and Africa
Programme Number: 162
Week of: Sunday, 22 July, 2007
Recording Date: Thursday, 26th July, 2007
Topical Issue(s):
• UN Radio

• Fighting in Somalia is putting pressure on UN agencies providing relief assistance to internally displaced people and refugees. The UN refugee agency says it needs $48 million to assist the refugees.

• As the Security Council tries to finalize a draft resolution authorizing the deployment of a joint African Union/United Nations force in Darfur, the crisis in this region continues to pose a serious security problem for neighbouring Chad.

• In Darfur, the United Nations food agency is alarmed by the dramatic increase in attacks on humanitarian workers and food convoys. A spokesperson for the World Food Programme in Khartoum, Emilia Casella, says the attacks range from shots being fired at vehicles to drivers being attacked, abused or robbed.

Producer/presenter: Derrick Mbatha
Editor: Ransford Cline-Thomas
Production Assistant: Charles Appel
Studio Engineer: Zach Prewitt
Duration: 15’00”

RESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.

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PRESENTER:

Hello and welcome to UN and Africa. I’m Derrick Mbatha.

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PRESENTER:

In today’s programme, renewed fighting in Mogadishu forces Somalis to flee the capital again.
CLIP 1: Catherine Weibel
““This is a big reversal of the trends because until the past week, most people were returning to Mogadishu”

PRESENTER:

You will hear more on that in a moment. Also in this edition, the ongoing crisis in Darfur is creating security problems for Sudan’s neighbours. And in the troubled region of Darfur itself, there is a dramatic increase in the number of attacks on humanitarian workers and food convoys.
CLIP 2: Emilia Casella
“In the last two weeks, nine food convoys have been attacked by gunmen across Darfur. So that’s half of the total for the whole year.”

You will hear more on that later in the programme.

So stay tuned to UN and Africa.

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Renewed Fighting in Mogadishu Forces Somalis to Flee Again

PRESENTER:

Being on the road has almost become a way of life for some residents of Mogadishu who are being forced by fighting to flee. And just as some of these unfortunate people were beginning to return to the capital, having fled earlier clashes, violence has erupted again in Mogadishu, forcing people to leave their homes for safer areas. The renewed factional fighting in Somalia is putting pressure on efforts by United Nations relief agencies to provide assistance to those affected by the civil strife. The agencies say fresh fighting has increased the number of refugees and displaced people while the presence of unexploded land mines, especially in Mogadishu, has increased the risks that children face. The United Nations refugee agency has appealed for close to fifty million dollars to help the Somali refugees. UN Radio’s Patrick Maigua prepared this report from Geneva.
CUT: PATRICK MAIGUA REPORT

The United Nations high commissioner for refugees says it will require financial assistance to the tune of 48 million dollars to provide protection and assistance to Somali refugees displaced since January 2007. The funds will provide assistance to those internally displaced within Somalia and refugees fleeing into Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Djibouti. The refugee agency estimates that the number of Somalis in the region who will receive assistance under the appeal will rise to 478-thousand by the end of 2008 from 312-thousand. Jennifer Pagonis is UNHCR spokesperson.

‘We expect the numbers of those we can reach to rise partly because we hope that we make improved exit for aid deliveries for certain parts of the country and also we expect the number of displaced persons will probably continue to rise.’
Fresh fighting has been worse in the Somali capital Mogadishu where UNICEF says children’s lives are at risk from unexploded land mines left behind by the warring factions. UNICEF and UNDP are planning to launch campaign targeted at children warning them not to touch or play with mines. Veronique Taveau is from UNICEF.

‘We can do that through a campaign to put stickers on bottles of water so that the children can see the land mines and they will know they are not no touch or play with such objects.’
The conflict in Somalia is between the Islamist court union and the transitional federal government. Patrick Maigua, UN Radio, Geneva.

PRESENTER:
To find out more about what is happening in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, I spoke on the line to Nairobi, Kenya, with Catherine Weibel, the spokeperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
WEIBEL: UNHCR estimates that more than 20,000 people have fled Mogadishu over the past two months including 10,000 only on last week and this is a big reversal of the trend because until the past 2 weeks most people were retuning to Mogadishu because 400,000 people had fled the country between February and May when there was very heavy fighting but violence had seemed to slow down, and many people had then to go back to Mogadishu and now these people are leaving once more.

MBATHA: Are these people the same people who have been returning to Mogadishu?

WEIBEL: Some of the people who are fleeing now had already fled the first time, came back to Mogadishu and decided to leave once more and some other people had not fled the city for various reasons are fleeing now. More people are leaving now than returning.

MBATHA: And where are these people going to?

WEIBEL: Most of the people who are fleeing Mogadishu are going to the very close by provinces of the Shabel, which are very close to Mogadishu. Of course there are some who make a very harassing journey to the north of the country which is much more stable.

MBATHA: Now can you give me the profile of these people, are we talking about old people, young people?

WEIBEL: The people who are leaving Mogadishu right now are civilians. They are all kinds of people because many of them are afraid of the insecurity. For instance, the markets have become very dangerous because many bombings happen on the markets. So many people who had shops or who are simply selling things on the streets in the markets have no way of making a living, they have no way of eating or finding food for the family, and you also have the problem of the people who used to live in former public buildings, sometimes for as long as 16 years. Some of these people who have been expelled by the authorities will need to use the building s again and they just don't know where to go, they are homeless and they are roaming the streets.

PRESENTER:
Catherine Weibel, the spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on the line from Nairobi Kenya.
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Darfur Crisis Creates Security Problems for Sudan’s Neighbours

PRESENTER:
As intense negotiations continue in the Security Council to put finishing touches on a resolution authorizing the deployment of a joint United Nations African Union Force in Darfur, the crisis in that troubled region is having an impact on neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic. UN Radio’s Diane Bailey has more.
NARR: Refugees from the Central African Republic have crossed over into the southern part of Chad. Eastern Chad is hosting thousands of refugees from the troubled Darfur region of Sudan, and then there are Chadians who have crossed over into Darfur to escape fighting in Chad. What’s more all three countries – Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic – have citizens who are displaced within their own countries. It’s a humanitarian’s nightmare. Serge Male, the UN Refugee agency’s representative in Chad, describing the presence of some 230,000 Darfuri refugees on Chad’s border with Sudan, says resolving the Darfur situation is key to allowing these refugees to go home.

CUT 1: The second situation which is more recent and also which is a spillover from the situation, to some extent in Darfur and it’s a new phenomenon since early 2006, is the phenomenon of the internally displaced persons within Chad. Today there are 170,000 of them and what we have to say is that their increase has been very significant since the fall of 2006 when we had only something like 50,000 internally displaced Chadians.

NARR: The situation in eastern Chad is compounded by the fact that while the region is host to refugees from Darfur, there are also Chadians who have settled in Darfur, in lands abandoned by the people of Darfur. There have been allegations that the Sudanese authorities want to re-populate these areas with refugees from Chad. Chris Ache, the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Sudan, doesn’t believe this is the case, since anyone claiming to be a refugee would have to be housed in a refugee camp.

CUT 2: What I can say is that we don’t have any proof that there is a grand scheme by the government to move people into West Darfur. UNHCR and other partners over the last two months, we have fielded 24 missions to assess the various areas where they have settled. And we spoke to them and came to the conclusion that they indeed fled from Chad because of insecurity.

NARR: But beyond the statistics and the complex situation, Serge Male reminded journalists that there were real people who had suffered quite a bit.

CUT 3: Behind the numbers and between the 50,000 to the 170,000 there are more than 1,000 people who have been violently killed and more than 100 villages that have simply disappeared from the map.

NARR: But there is hope. The European Union has begun a study of the possibility of deploying a military force to the region. John Holmes, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, welcomes the idea.

CUT 4: I welcome that because the humanitarian situation in eastern Chad is severe. In addition to the 230,000 Sudanese refugees who have been there for some time, three or four years, having fled from Darfur, there are something like 170,000 internally displaced people in Chad and that number has doubled in the course of this year.

NARR: Mr. Holmes says what makes the situation so difficult for the people is the fact that much of the area in question is remote, making it subject to attacks, and insecure for humanitarian workers and people living there.

CUT 5: So the hope is that if this force can deploy that would provide a better environment for the civilians living in the camps scattered across eastern Chad and of course a better environment also for the humanitarian workers who are trying to help them because it is a particularly difficult and dangerous and remote area in which to work.

PRES: For UN Radio this is Diane Bailey reporting.

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WFP is Alarmed by Dramatic Increase in Attack on Food Envoys in Darfur

PRESENTER:

And now turning to Darfur itself, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of attacks on humanitarian workers and food convoys. The World Food Programme has condemned these attacks and is calling on all parties in the troubled region to understand that humanitarian workers are not party to any internal conflict in Darfur. I spoke on the line to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, the with Emilia Casella, the spokesperson for the World Food Programme in Sudan, who told me that so far this year, the agency has experienced attacks on eighteen of its food convoys.

Casella: These attacks range from anything from shots being fired directly at the vehicles, the vehicles being stopped and our drivers being attacked, abused or robbed. We have also had a number of our light vehicles robbed, four of them, and six of our vehicles have been stolen directly with our staff in them. The staff have been kidnapped at the time but then later released. What’s alarming was that in the last two weeks, nine food convoys have been attacked by gunmen across Darfur. So that’s half of the total for the whole year.

Mbatha: Do you have any idea as to who are the perpetrators of these attacks and why they are doing so?

Casella: Well, many of the attacks are motivated by banditry. We are not pointing a finger at any one group, and that’s because, as you may, Darfur is a patchwork of areas controlled by different factions, different groups, be they the government or rebel factions. And these incidents are happening all over Darfur.

Mbatha: And how have these attacks affected your efforts to deliver the much needed food to the needy people of Darfur?

Casella: Well, in some instances it means we really can’t get to the people we need to. It also means that some of the NGOs that we work with, because many non-governmental organizations actually do the distribution of WFP food, they can’t get to where they need to go. In June, we were unable to reach more than 170,000 people. I must add, however, that we have been able to deliver last month food to 2.6 million to other people. So we are still getting the majority, the great majority out there. But nevertheless, not being able to reach those 170,000 people is of great concern.

Mbatha: And are the African Union peacekeepers who are deployed in Darfur in any way helping to provide security to humanitarian workers there?

Casella: Well, I can only speak for World Food Programme. When we have asked for the assistance of the African Union they have been able to give it to us and we are grateful for that. However, we have such a large mission in Darfur. You know, we have more than 700 trucks between our own trucks and the commercial trucks that we hire to bring in the food. And the African Union simply doesn’t have the equipment or the manpower or the capacity to protect every single food aid convoy that goes out across Darfur. They need an entire army to do that.

Mbatha: What about the Sudanese government itself? What is it doing to try to help you secure these convoys and humanitarian workers?

Casella: Well, the government itself is not in a role and is not mandated to secure our convoys per se. Certainly, it is mandated to maintain security in the areas of its control, and we hope that the government will be able to assist to maintain security in the areas that it does control in Darfur, and we are calling on the other parties to the conflict to also maintain security and respect the neutrality of humanitarian workers in the areas that they control. We are hoping both sides would understand that the mission of our drivers and our convoys is beyond and above any local conflict and we are hoping they will realize that the food really needs to get to the people who need it.

PRESENTER:

That was Emilia Casella, the spokesperson for the World Food Programme in Sudan.

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PRESENTER:
And that’s all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our Production Assistant was Charles Appel and our sound engineer was Zach Pruwitt. I am Derrick Mbatha saying bye bye.

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