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(IRIN) – Thick dust clouds obscure the horizon as the convoy of UN military observers sets off to patrol the oil-rich, yet desperately underdeveloped Unity State in Southern Sudan.

In these borderlands, monitoring a 2005 deal that halted decades of war between north and south is a major undertaking.

“We set up a forward operating base, from where we travel to collect first-hand information on the situation,” said Andrew Wilson, one of four military observers on a patrol of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).

This four-day “long-range patrol” is designed to gather information as well as boost confidence by showing a greater UN presence in more remote areas.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88568

Radio vop – Fast appointment of the ministers could do much to alleviate uncertainty in Africa’s most populous nation after Jonathan dismissed the entire cabinet on Wednesday, aiming to consolidate his authority a month after assuming executive powers.

“Twenty of the ministers will certainly come back,” one of the presidency sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity, adding that he expected Jonathan to send his list to the Senate for approval by Tuesday.

Former Minister of State for Petroleum Odein Ajumogobia was likely to be the new oil minister in the OPEC member nation while outgoing Defence Minister Godwin Abbe, who has overseen an amnesty programme in the oil-producing Niger Delta, would be re-appointed, the source said.

Choosing a new cabinet which retains a large number of ministers suggests Nigeria’s broad policy direction is unlikely to change and could let Jonathan push ahead more authoritatively with his agenda in the 14 months left of this presidential term.

“The cabinet dissolution is a bid to inject fresh blood and bring in greater vigour to governance,” Jonathan’s spokesman Ima Niboro said, but declined to comment further.

Jonathan assumed executive powers in early February to try to end government paralysis in the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua, who had been in a clinic in Saudi Arabia receiving treatment for a heart condition for more than two months.

Read more – http://news.radiovop.com/index.php/africans-news/3443.html

The Guardian – Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak has appeared on state television in a bid to lay to rest premature rumours of his death. The Egyptian leader is currently in Germany recovering from surgery on his gall bladder.

 Since news broke of his “routine” surgery on 6 March, Egypt has been filled with speculation about the real state of Mubarak’s health and, with reports that a benign tumour was also removed, there have even been wild rumours that the president is actually dead and that the government has been covering this up to buy time.

 Against this backdrop of uncertainty, the Egyptian stock exchange lost around 5% but the latest footage has brought calm to the jittery market.

 While the death of a president would be disruptive in any country, in Egypt it carries a special significance because Mubarak has been the only show in town for the past three decades and the ageing and ailing dictator has no clear successor.

 At nearly 82 years of age, Baba Mubarak, as he is mockingly known, is certainly no spring chicken and could die at any moment. With such a realistic prospect on the horizon, many Egyptians are rightly apprehensive about what would happen if the president suddenly passed away before next year’s presidential elections.

Read more – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/19/hosni-mubarak-egypt-presidency

(IRIN) – In an attempt to deal with a growing influx of migrants, authorities in Somalia’s autonomous region of Puntland are adopting new measures to stop people from undertaking the hazardous journey to Yemen, officials said.

“The problem of migrants is not going away and the Puntland authorities, particularly in the Bari region [Bosasso area], had to come up with a new strategy to deal with this problem,” said Mohamud Jama Muse, director of the Migration Response Centre (MRC) in the regional capital, Bosasso.

MRC was created in April 2009, under the office of the Bari governor, to “register and provide counselling and assist” the migrants. Between April and December 2009, it registered 7,223 persons.

“This number is smaller than the actual number,” Muse told IRIN on 1 March. “You have to understand, a lot of these people are not very trusting of authorities, so they never bother registering.”

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 78,487 Ethiopians and Somalis crossed into Yemen from Somalia and Djibouti in 2009, of whom 685 died.

So far in 2010, 5,032 have crossed and four have died, said Roberta Russo, spokeswoman for UNHCR Somalia.

Learning to fish

Muse said the government had adopted a two-track approach. Apart from the MRC, security forces had cracked down on smugglers and closed the ports from which they operate.

“With the help of IOM [International Organization for Migration] we started a pilot project with a local NGO, Red Sea Fishing Organization [RESFO], in skills training and income generation, for 100 migrants and locals to teach them skills to make a living,” he explained.

The group is taught how to fish, process the catch, repair nets and keep books.

“We are even teaching some of them to swim,” said Mohamed Said of RESFO. “The aim is to provide an alternative to boarding those boats [to Yemen].”

Photo: Abdi Hassan/IRIN

Mohammed Hassan, a migrant from Kismayu

The project aims to integrate the migrants into the community, said Ahmed Muse Mohamed, IOM officer-in-charge in Bosasso. “We want to create opportunities here for them so they don’t have to go on these dangerous journeys,” he added.

Too weak to walk

“By the time they reach us they have walked over 1,000km and are dehydrated and almost starving,” said Muse, and reports indicated some died on the way to Bosasso.

Abdi, not his real name, came from Ethiopia four months ago. He walked 760km to reach Bosasso, with the aim of going to Yemen.

He and six others had to avoid being stopped by security forces or attacked by bandits. “It is not a trip I would want to make again,” he said. “It was too difficult and dangerous. By the time I arrived I was so weak I could barely walk.”

He has registered with MRC but has not started the training yet.

Addis Tolosa, 30, an Ethiopian migrant who has been in Bosasso for a couple of years, went to Yemen but was intercepted by the Yemeni coastguard and returned to Bosasso.

He is now being trained by RESFO. “I don’t have the means to go back [to Yemen] so I am now in this training to learn how to earn a living,” said. “As soon we finish the training I will get fishing gear and go to work.”

Some locals, however, insisted they would still like to go to Yemen.

Mohamed Hassan Shire, 23, from the coastal town of Kismayo, 2,000km south, arrived in Bosasso six months ago. He said he left out of fear he would be forcibly recruited into a militia.

“I came here because I was not safe in Kismayo,” he said. “People I knew died trying to get there [Yemen]. I know also that what I am doing is like flipping a coin, but I will try it. I have no other option.”

More help needed

The former Puntland Bari Governor Muse Ghelle (replaced on 6 March) told IRIN he was determined to help the potential migrants. “With the very little resources we have we are trying but we need help,” he added.

He called on the international community to increase its support to Puntland to help it deal with the growing influx of migrants.

Puntland would not be able to cope on its own. “We need more meaningful help from the donor community,” he said.

Muse of MRC said the migrants needed emergency food upon arrival, temporary shelter, a health centre and a reception centre to receive them.

“Most of these people are economic migrants and when they come here they have exhausted what little they had, so it is important to at least have somewhere where they can get some help immediately.”

(IRIN) – A new report by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Egyptian government says the number of children living in income-poor households is increasing, causing poorer living conditions and a greater deprivation of their rights as children.

Entitled Child Poverty and Disparities in Egypt, and released on 16 February in Cairo, the report said Egypt’s economic growth in the years leading up to the 2009 financial crisis had not adequately benefited the nation’s estimated 28 million children.

“This growth has not led to a proportionate reduction in income poverty or deprivation,” said the study, which is part of a global series of UNICEF studies on child poverty and disparities.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88203

(IRIN) – Officials are appealing for calm during the campaign period ahead of upcoming historic elections in April as insecurity remains a major concern in Southern Sudan.

Electoral campaigning in the highly charged contest opened on 13 February, two months before three days of polling from 11 April, with the results due a week later.

Officials have called on politicians not to raise ethnic or political tensions in a region already reeling from violent clashes.

“During this period of campaigning, let this period be peaceful – let them not use inciting words that will lead to public disorder,” said Jersa Kide Barsaba, a member of the South Sudan High Election Committee.

“Let them not hate each other as parties, but let them come as one people who are Southern Sudanese, so that these elections will end up as peaceful,” she added.

The elections are a key part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended Sudan’s 22-year long civil war between north and south, in which an estimated two million people died.

But tensions remain high in the south, with several inter-ethnic clashes between rival groups. More than 2,500 people were killed and almost 400,000 displaced in 2009. The violence affected seven of the region’s 10 states, according to the Office of the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Southern Sudan.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88167

(IRIN) – Officials in Somalia’s self-declared independent republic of Somaliland have appealed to the international community to provide humanitarian aid for hundreds of thousands of people, especially children, in the wake of prolonged drought. “The affected population is estimated at about 40 percent of Somaliland’s 3.5 million, which is equivalent to 1.4 million people,” Ali Ibrahim, Minister for Planning and National Aid Co-ordination, told IRIN. Following the failure of the Gu and Deyr rainy seasons in 2009, he said help was needed in water-trucking, construction and rehabilitation of boreholes, rehabilitation and desilting of dams, and the supply of medication for affected human and livestock populations to avert an outbreak of epidemics.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88123