http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspxUpdated everydayen-gbWed, 17 Mar 2010 12:14:08 GMTNAIROBI Wednesday, March 17, 2010 (IRIN) - An acute water shortage after a prolonged drought in central Galgadud region of Somalia has forced thousands of people to abandon their villages, say officials. "A prolonged drought, coupled with a drying-up of wells and barkads [water pans], is forcing many people to leave their homes," said Abdirahman Mohamed Adawe, the district commissioner of Adado, one of the areas hardest hit. NAIROBI Wednesday, March 17, 2010 (IRIN) - An acute water shortage after a prolonged drought in central Galgadud region of Somalia has forced thousands of people to abandon their villages, say officials.

"A prolonged drought, coupled with a drying-up of wells and barkads [water pans], is forcing many people to leave their homes," said Abdirahman Mohamed Adawe, the district commissioner of Adado, one of the areas hardest hit.

However, some parts of the region are receiving the Gu (long) rains.

More than a dozen villages around Adado town, housing an estimated 35,000 people, are affected. Those with livestock are moving in search of pasture and water, while those who lost their livestock, the economic mainstay of the area, are moving to towns.

Many rural people are arriving almost every day "with nothing and camping on the outskirts of town”, he said.

"In February alone, over 500 families [3,000 people] arrived in Adado town [some 620km north of Mogadishu]," he said.

The problem was most acute in Baá Dheer, 75km north of Adado; Goryale, 40km northwest of Adado; Hin Jilaabo, 40km southwest; and Ada kibir, 70km southeast.

"In many of these villages the wells and barkads have dried up and the only other option is water trucking, which is difficult and expensive," Adawe told IRIN. "Some villagers are going as far as 100km to get water."

Moalim Hassan, an elder in the village of Baá Dheer, told IRIN: "The closest water point is 75km away and a drum of trucked water costs 120,000 Somali shillings [about US$4], a sum of money most cannot afford.”

The area has not had any rain for the past two years and the Gu rains – which should have begun – have failed.

In Ada Kibir, the situation is even worse. "We have been in a drought situation for a few years. We had very little rains or none at all in the last two years," Abdullahi Moalim, a resident, told IRIN.

Many residents have left the town. The one borehole had dried up and water was being trucked in from a borehole 60km away. "Those who are left in Ada Kibir are paying the equivalent of $4 or $5 for 200l of water."

Authorities in Adado were setting up a committee to deal with the influx of drought displaced, said DC Adawe.

"We are appealing to aid agencies and Somalis in the diaspora to come to the rescue of the people," he added.

He said there had been no reports of people dying, "but it is just a matter of time if the situation is not addressed soon".

ah/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88454ADDIS ABABA Tuesday, March 16, 2010 (IRIN) - Human traffickers and smugglers in Ethiopia have taken advantage of the upcoming World Cup, duping victims into believing that South Africa has created huge employment opportunities, says a government report, Illegal Migration: Causes, Consequences and Solutions to human trafficking and smuggling in Ethiopia.ADDIS ABABA Tuesday, March 16, 2010 (IRIN) - Human traffickers and smugglers in Ethiopia have taken advantage of the upcoming World Cup, duping victims into believing that South Africa has created huge employment opportunities, says a government report, Illegal Migration: Causes, Consequences and Solutions to human trafficking and smuggling in Ethiopia.

Some 20,000 to 25,000 Ethiopians are trafficked to various countries annually, the January report notes. Together with smuggling from Somalia, the business is worth up to US$40 million a year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Traffickers operate in organized groups of eight to 25 in big towns.

“Human traffickers use various tricks, including the deception that South Africa has created employment opportunities,” Zenebu Tadesse, State Minister for Labour and Social Affairs, said.

Speaking at a national conference on human trafficking and smuggling, she said the government would implement measures to tackle the problem, including repatriating thousands of Ethiopians who had been trafficked out of their country and protecting the rights of those living in various countries.

So far, she added, 2,000 Ethiopians had been repatriated from Tanzania, Yemen, Libya and other Gulf countries, with the support of the IOM, the UN Refugee Agency and other stakeholders.

Some traffickers and smugglers have also been arraigned in court. “Ethiopian police have recently found some eight human traffickers and smugglers and sentenced them to five to 12 years,” said Moni Mengesha, head of the human trafficking and illegal drugs department at the Ethiopian federal police.

Going south

Alemu (not his real name), a 27-year-old businessman, left for South Africa in 2009 but ended up in a migrants’ camp in Malawi.

“I went to one of the secret evening presentations given by brokers in Hosaina town [400km south of the capital, Addis Ababa],” he said. “I decided that night to sell everything, close my small shop and travel to South Africa.”

They travelled in a group of eight. “The broker told us the journey from Ethiopia to South Africa would be very easy,” he added. “[But] one died from hunger as we travelled four days without food, another was shot dead [allegedly] by police around the border between Kenya and Tanzania.”

The group was caught around Songwe River by Malawi police in August 2009 and taken to Dazleka refugee camp in Dowa, some 25km north of Malawi’s capital Lilongwe.

The camp is one of the biggest for refugees from Ethiopia, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. There were about 400 Ethiopians when IRIN visited in September 2009.

“It took me almost a year to reach Malawi,” Alemu told IRIN at Songwe. “The broker in Addis told us we would easily reach South Africa, [but] we were jailed in Tanzania for three months. Each of us had paid them US$1,200. We were duped.

“I cannot reach South Africa now. I have nothing… nothing! I want to go back home. We are treated as terrorists as we steal maize and sugar cane from Malawian farmers.”

"Creating havoc"

“We are worried about Ethiopians and Somali refugees here,” a local resident told IRIN. “They are engaged in theft and robbery. We want the government to stop them from stealing our property and creating havoc here.”

Internal Affairs and Public Security Minister Aaron Sangala told Malawi’s daily newspaper, The Nation, on 6 August 2009: “I have been told they [Ethiopians] go to people’s homes in gangs of 50 terrorizing Malawians. These, to us, are economic refugees who are using Malawi as a transit centre. We cannot tolerate that abuse of our hospitality.”

“Bringing them back cannot be the only solution,” Temesgen Zewde, an opposition parliamentarian in Ethiopia, said.

Another opposition leader, Wondimu Idsa, told parliament: “It is also for political reasons that many people, including MPs, journalists and doctors, are leaving Ethiopia.” The government denied the claims.

Teshome Tadese, special adviser to the president of Southern region, from which many immigrants hail, said: “There is no political problem at all in our region. Our region is very stable; it’s totally in search of better jobs and employment that these citizens are leaving the country.”

That view was echoed by the IOM head of mission in Ethiopia, Josiah Ogina. He urged Ethiopia to ratify and apply UN protocols to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children.

“We conducted research on youth who live in the Amhara region and are potential migrants to the Middle East and South Africa,” he told IRIN. “They told us that their main problem is unemployment not politics.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88438JOHANNESBURG Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - Rivers throughout central and northern Mozambique are swollen above flood alert level and thousands of people have been relocated to higher ground, but national disaster management authorities and aid agencies in Mozambique say "the situation is under control".JOHANNESBURG Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - Rivers throughout central and northern Mozambique are swollen above flood alert level and thousands of people have been relocated to higher ground, but national disaster management authorities and aid agencies in Mozambique say "the situation is under control".

After weeks of torrential rain in Mozambique and its regional southern African neighbours, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC) indicated that 130,000 people were living in risk zones and could be forced to move if water levels kept rising.

A Red Alert was declared on 9 March for the basins of the Zambezi, Pungue, Buzi and Licungo rivers, but the Representative of the UN Children's Agency (UNICEF), Leila Pakkala, who is responsible for coordination in the Humanitarian Country Team, said the government and aid partners had started moving people pre-emptively.

"Thirteen thousand people have already been moved to secure areas," she told IRIN. Although the rain was expected to diminish, they were still "closely monitoring the situation in affected areas to ensure needs are identified and immediately addressed".

The cholera season in central Mozambique is at its peak; given the large populations moving through cholera-affected areas to get to places of safety, Mozambique's Provincial Health Directorate has warned of possible outbreaks in the new accommodation centres.

Pakkala said cholera prevention and response activities - like the rehabilitation of water systems, water chlorination, and informing people that they should adopt hygienic habits - were already ongoing. "Supplies have been dispatched from the pre-positioned locations by the Red Cross and UN partners," she said.

Watching regional water management

The latest National Hydrological Bulletin, released on 10 March by the National Water Directorate, said water levels in the Zambezi, Africa's fourth largest river, would remain above alert level and keep rising, "possibly aggravating localized flooding".

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, water levels in the Kariba Dam – one of the largest on the Zambezi – have been rising and the Zambezi River Authority had to open one of its flood gates on 9 March.

Downstream in Mozambique, the Cahora Bassa Dam has also increased its outflow to 4,700 cubic meters per second, and will maintain this volume until 15 March.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned in its 10 March Southern Africa Floods Regional Update: "While the opening of one Kariba Dam floodgate is not a significant event in itself, any additional flow from the dam may force another increase in discharge from the Cahora Bassa [downstream], increasing the possibility of flooding in Mozambique."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88399JOHANNESBURG Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - Most food crop cultivation in Africa is rain-fed, but climate change is affecting vital rainfall patterns and pushing up temperatures, diminishing yields that could halve in some countries by 2020. This warning has been widely quoted since it first appeared in a synthesis report for policy-makers in 2007 by the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). JOHANNESBURG Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - Most food crop cultivation in Africa is rain-fed, but climate change is affecting vital rainfall patterns and pushing up temperatures, diminishing yields that could halve in some countries by 2020. This warning has been widely quoted since it first appeared in a synthesis report for policy-makers in 2007 by the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Clouds of doubt gathered over the statement after it emerged that the IPCC report had based the projection on a non-peer reviewed research paper -otherwise known as "grey literature".

The claim was published in Sunday Times newspaper in the UK on 7 February, in a report headlined "Africagate: top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility".

A flood of allegations from all quarters then began to question the credibility of the 2007 assessment report. Governments and policy-makers use the IPCC assessment reports to formulate plans and strategies for coping with climate change.

So, is the projection incorrect? We asked the IPCC and other scientists, but we will have to wait until the end of August 2010 to find out.

On 10 March the UN announced that a Netherlands-based group of 15 national academies of science would review how the IPCC does its work. The Panel publishes periodic assessments by the three committees that deal with the causes of climate change, its impact, and mitigation options. The review committee will also consider whether the IPCC should use non-peer reviewed papers.

What other scientists say

The projection that crop yields could be reduced by 50 percent in some African countries, contained in the synthesis report, was based on a paper cited in the Panel's report on impacts.

Written by Ali Agoumi, a Moroccan climate expert, the paper "is a summary of technical studies and research conducted" in three countries - Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia - submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, "and is a perfectly legitimate IPCC reference", wrote a group of scientists involved in the panel's reports on the popular blog RealClimate, run by them on 14 February.

"The IPCC cites 18,000 references in the AR4 [Fourth assessment report]; the vast majority of these are peer-reviewed scientific journal papers ... it is indispensable to use gray sources, since many valuable data are published in them," the scientists said in defence of grey literature.

"Reports by government statistics offices, the International Energy Agency, World bank ... This is particularly true when it comes to regional impacts in the least developed countries, where knowledgeable local experts exist who have little chance, or impetus, to publish in international science journals," the scientists commented.

Yet it is not the use of grey literature that seems to be the issue. David Lobell, of Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment, who has worked extensively on projecting the impact of climate change on crop yields in Africa, called the IPCC statement in the synthesis report "ill-advised".

"The original syntax was technically correct (i.e., worst years are 50 percent yields drops, and these could become more common), but it was easily misinterpreted as a statement about average yields," he said.

IPCC officials often quoted the statement to illustrate the possible impact of climate change on food production in Africa, when the document on which it was based only referred to three North African countries.

"Part of the problem was that the scientific literature on some of these issues was quite lacking at the time [when the report was being compiled – the report takes three years to be written]," Lobell acknowledged.

"One risk now is that people could interpret the IPCC statement as being wrong, saying that Africa doesn't really face a threat, or that other IPCC statements are also in doubt. In fact, we think Africa faces some of the toughest impacts on agriculture in the world, just not as extreme as the IPCC statement suggested."

The scandal

The Sunday Times report in the UK was among several that followed a controversy dubbed "Climategate", which broke in November 2009, ahead of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. The row started when hacked emails by the Climatic Research Unit at the University in East Anglia, one of the centres that supplied data to the IPCC, were published on a website for climate change sceptics.

Since then, newspapers across the world have published allegations by climate change sceptics, organizations, government officials, and other publications that the IPCC manipulated climate change data or used non-peer reviewed papers as the basis for some of its projections.

The UN panel defended its work until it was forced to admit in January that it had erroneously projected that 80 percent of the Himalayan glacier area would very likely be gone by 2035.

The panel had sourced the projection from a document produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which had used an interview by a scientist with the magazine, New Scientist, in 1999 as the source of the projection, and not a scientific publication.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88400NIAMEY/ZINDER Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - A severe food and malnutrition crisis is looming in Niger, according to aid agencies. More than 20,000 under-five children are being treated for malnutrition nationwide and at least another 200,000 are at risk of severe malnutrition, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).NIAMEY/ZINDER Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - A severe food and malnutrition crisis is looming in Niger, according to aid agencies.

More than 20,000 under-five children are being treated for malnutrition nationwide and at least another 200,000 are at risk of severe malnutrition, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“You need to go to the field to realize that we need to act now,” said Kalil Hamadoun, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) field director for Zinder region in southern Niger, which had the country’s second highest percentage of children underweight for their height, according to a December 2009 government study.

Selling prized cattle, cutting meals, eating food intended for animals and scrounging for anything to sell as firewood or animal feed have become increasingly common, according to local officials and the national information system for livestock sales.

Access to food, rather than its availability, is turning out to be the main problem in 2010, according to the US famine monitoring group, FEWS NET.

The needs are urgent and the response must be immediate, UN Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) head of mission Modibo Traoré told IRIN. “Everything takes time. [Aid delivery] is long and difficult and it can take weeks before it makes it to its destination.”

Food prices up, incomes down

Food and fodder prices in parts of the south are up around 30 percent on 2009, according to FAO and Belgian NGO Aquadev.

But March incomes have dropped to half of what they were last September due to more agriculture workers competing for dwindling jobs, according to the US famine monitoring group FEWS NET.

“We need to ensure people have access to food… We are not even in the hungry season yet,” Aboubacar Mahamadou, the Health Ministry’s deputy director of nutrition services, told IRIN, referring to the June-September planting season when most families have finished eating their previous harvests and are waiting for the next one in October.

Interventions

The World Food Programme (WFP) is planning "blanket" food distributions - months earlier than usual if needed - to 500,000 children aged 6-23 months in 20 of the neediest communities.

“If we look at a map of interventions at the moment, we see they are drops of water in the ocean [of need],” WFP regional director in Zinder, Doumbaye Djimadoumngar, told IRIN.

OCHA has estimated it will cost more than US$200 million to cover 60 percent of Zinder’s food needs before the next harvest, and to continue nutrition activities.

The European Commission for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) has pledged an additional US$27 million to fight malnutrition in Niger and neighbouring Sahelian countries. The exact amount for Niger will be decided in the coming months. Last year, Niger received $17.7 million from ECHO.

The UK government has recently announced additional emergency funding for Niger. This comes on top of $81 million emergency aid from the European Commission, Islamic Development Bank, and the governments of Japan, Spain and the USA.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88402BUKALASI Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - Rose Nakhayetse is lucky to be alive, but her ordeal is far from over. Having narrowly escaped last week’s deadly landslides in eastern Uganda, she and thousands of others are facing fresh dangers. BUKALASI Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - Rose Nakhayetse is lucky to be alive, but her ordeal is far from over. Having narrowly escaped last week’s deadly landslides in eastern Uganda, she and thousands of others are facing fresh dangers.

The 24-year-old and her nine-month-old baby were saved from a muddy avalanche by the wall of her house. “I heard cracks and sounds of explosion but when it persisted, I went outside, only to discover that the earth was moving towards us,” she told IRIN.

“Things were happening so fast, so I decided to run with my baby. That is how I survived. Thank God the moving mud stopped just behind our house, but my two other boys were in the neighbourhood and I have not seen them since. Maybe they are among those who died, but we have not found their bodies,” she said.

Ninety-two bodies have been recovered from the scene of the disaster, and some 367 people are still missing, according to Ugandan officials.

Nakhayetse is one of more than 1,000 people camping in the grounds and four classrooms of a primary school in the village of Bukalasi, where relief efforts have yet to meet the many needs of the displaced. There is a single pit latrine for all of them.

“The numbers here are too big and we do not have enough toilets, so that is making this place dirty,” she said.

Sanitary crisis

“A sanitary epidemic is in the offing [in Bukalasi],” warned David Mulele, a medical worker in the local health centre.

“We have recorded up to 100 cases of diarrhoea and vomiting among children and some adults. The health centre had drug stocks, but now all essential drugs for such ailments, like oral rehydration salts, Flagyl and other such drugs have all run out and we are just improvising to keep these people going,” Mulele told IRIN.

“We have the skills, but we lack the tools.”

Among the immediate humanitarian needs are “safe drinking water, water storage containers, water purification/chlorination tablets, latrines and soap”, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“Other urgent needs include: trucking of water to the affected populations; drilling of boreholes and rehabilitation of water springs; completion and extension of a gravity water flow scheme in Bulucheke; water quality surveillance; and provision of mobile and Ecosan toilets,” OCHA said in a report.

Also required is specific assistance for some of the children who came to the camp without their parents, who are among the missing or dead.

“We have no arrangements yet for these unaccompanied minors,” said Kevin Nabutuwa of the Uganda Red Cross Society.

Patrick Tibet, a community development worker in Bukalasi, said the displaced were in dire need of shelter and clothing as many had run away from their homes with only the clothes they had on.

Nabutuwa said tents had been secured from the government and would be distributed.

Rain risk continues

Heavy rainfall is set to continue in parts of Uganda for several weeks, prompting the government to consider permanently relocating up to half a million people living in mountainous regions.

"A total population of about 500,000 is at risk of landslides and floods. We plan to resettle this population from these very high-risk locations both in the east and west of the country, once emergency operations for the current situation end," Junior Minister for Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru told IRIN by phone.

The rains have flooded many villages near Bukalasi. According to OCHA, many crops and infrastructure, such as roads and schools, in the low-lying Butaleja district are under water.

“In the sub-counties of Budumba, Busaba, Nawanju, Busolwe, Busabi and Busolwe Town Council, thousands of acres of paddy rice fields, cassava, sweet potatoes, maize, sorghum, millet and vegetables – the major source of livelihood – have been affected by water, translating into an-as-yet undetermined loss of crop yield,” according to the OCHA report.

“In total, as many as 20,000 households may have been affected by the disaster with 1,000 households (6,000 people) of immediate concern,” it said.

OCHA warned that some 15,000 households risked waterborne diseases because of submerged pit latrines. “Additionally, Doho Health Centre II in Mazimasa sub-county and Namulo Health Centre II in Himutu sub-county are surrounded by water and have been rendered inaccessible,” the report said.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88374JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - Mozambique's National Disaster Management Institute (INGC) has raised the flood alert level to "red" and some 130,000 people living along three main rivers in central Mozambique are at risk of possible floods and need to be moved. JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - Mozambique's National Disaster Management Institute (INGC) has raised the flood alert level to "red" and some 130,000 people living along three main rivers in central Mozambique are at risk of possible floods and need to be moved urgently.

"Teams are already evacuating people," Casimo Sande, Acting UN Emergency Coordination Support Officer, told IRIN. Weeks of torrential rains have swollen the Zambezi, Pungue and Buzi rivers in the central provinces of Tete, Manica, Sofala and Zambezia.

Sande said government agencies, NGOs, the Mozambican Red Cross, UN agencies and the local Civil Protection Unit, UNAPROC, were assisting affected communities, and assessments of the damage were underway. The National Water Board (DNA) warned of floods in central Mozambique on 2 March.

Mozambique is flood-prone: in 2000 and 2001 over 800 people were killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless. Up to 300,000 people in river communities throughout central Mozambique were affected by flooding in early 2008, when 29 people died.

The government resettled entire communities when the recurring floods caused hundreds of deaths and the displacement of many thousands almost every year, particularly at the onset of the rainy season. This year a drought in the resettlement areas lured thousands back to the fertile flood plains and river banks.

More sluice gates on Mozambique's biggest dam, the Cahora Bassa, were opened to ease pressure on the structure, and rains in the region eased off during the past week. According to Sande, "In terms of water level trend, the situation has improved."

tdm/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88386DAKAR Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - The poorest households in Chad will find themselves with no food reserves in the coming weeks, according to the US famine early warning systems network, FEWSNET.DAKAR Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - The poorest households in Chad will find themselves with no food reserves in the coming weeks, according to the US famine early warning systems network, FEWSNET.

FEWSNET’s prediction of the country’s food situation from January until June says the poorest households, notably in pastoral regions, will be forced to resort to harsh strategies such as selling off their productive assets, cutting food intake, and mass migration to more hospitable areas.

According to the government, erratic or late rains led to a 2009 harvest that was 30 percent less than in recent years, and two million people who would normally still be living off the land are having trouble affording food.

Estimates do not take into account the populations living in the remote northern desert regions of Tibesti, Borkou and Ennedi, which cover almost half the country.

These sparsely populated regions are readily accessible only by helicopter, and are heavily mined from previous conflicts and have few projects funded by international agencies.

Underweight children

A nutrition survey conducted last December in Bahr El Ghazel, a semi-arid pastoral region in the west of the country, showed that 27 percent of the 687 under five children surveyed were underweight. This is almost double the emergency threshold set by the World Health Organization at 15 percent.

Loan Tran-Thanh, the head of Action Against Hunger (ACF) in Chad which conducted the survey, told IRIN the results were alarming.

"This was in the middle of the harvest period when malnutrition rates should be lower than [during] the lean rain season,” she said. “If it is already that high in a harvest period, then how bad could it get during the lean period?"

In the nearby district of Noukou in western Kanem region bordering Niger, 19 percent of 540 children surveyed had acute levels of malnutrition.

Acute malnutrition tends to change based on the season, as opposed to chronic malnutrition which results from year-round lack of life-enriching nutrients.

The region has always had chronic malnutrition, said Tran-Thanh, who has worked in Chad since 2004.

Animals wasted to death

"When ACF arrived in the Kanem region, all the attention was in the east [of Chad] with the violence in [neighbouring] Darfur. The rains this year did exacerbate acute malnutrition in Kanem and the areas we surveyed, but these are zones that have always had chronic hunger problems,” she said.

Because of lack of funds, ACF closed its Kanem office but returned to the region in 2008 with funding from the European Commission Humanitarian Aid (ECHO).

Animals in the pastoral zones from the western Kanem region to the eastern region of Biltine wasted to death when pastures dried out because of late 2009 rains, according to the government.

Cattle that survived the erratic rains had problems reproducing and producing milk, according to a government and multi-agency survey in October 2009.

The survey says the animals and their herders started heading south in late October seeking greener pastures - months before the typical migration season.

This "first strategy of nomadic herders” will lead to conflicts between herders and farmers, according to the survey.

Dwindling grazing and cultivable land has led to bloody clashes between pastoralists and farmers in at least two of Chad's neighbouring countries, Sudan and Nigeria.

Emergency needs

The government has about 23,000 tons of cereals, 350 tons of rice seeds and 200 sacks of animal feed, but "the fight against malnutrition is an emergency operation and needs more", said Chadian Minister of Economy Ousmane Mater Brémé.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has pledged $500,000 worth of animal feed for the arid Bahr El Ghazel region and $1 million worth of seeds for the regions referred to as the Sahelian band in west and central Chad.

The UN Children's Fund, World Food Programme and ACF are also preparing to open more than 100 nutritional feeding centres in the same regions.

The agencies will distribute 50,000 cartons of high-energy `Plumpy'nut’ peanut paste and give high fat `Plumpy'doz’ brown paste supplement to 45,000 children aged 6-23 months during the peak hunger months from May to August.

ACF is analyzing findings from its water and sanitation study conducted in Bahr El Ghazel, Tran-Thanh told IRIN.

"If we do not address the underlying issues of malnutrition - Is there access to water or health services? - then malnutrition will continue to exist. The trouble with addressing all these different issues is that there are just not enough actors coming together to study [the various facets]."

pt/pm/cb http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88370MANILA Monday, March 08, 2010 (IRIN) - Warnings have been raised over food security in the Philippines as the El Niño phenomenon wreaks havoc across vast agricultural areas, leaving staple crops such as rice dying in parched earth, officials say. MANILA Monday, March 08, 2010 (IRIN) - Warnings have been raised over food security in the Philippines as the El Niño phenomenon wreaks havoc across vast agricultural areas, leaving staple crops such as rice dying in parched earth, officials say.

The cost of crop damage has topped US$239 million since the phenomenon started a heat wave across much of northern Luzon Island and parts of the central Visayas region in late December, said the Department of Agriculture in a recent report by its special task force on El Niño.

Some 14 provinces have been affected, with the brunt of the crisis borne by the agricultural provinces of Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Cagayan and Isabela, where irrigation has dried up.

The El Niño drought is compounding problems for an already bleak agricultural sector recovering from devastation wrought last year by two powerful storms, Ketsana and Parma, that pummelled Luzon, officials say.

To stave off a potential shortfall in rice supply, the agriculture department has said it may import some three million metric tonnes of rice this year.

Gary Olivar, spokesman for Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, confirmed that the government had entered into import contracts for rice as a "short-term alternative".

"There are no long-term food shortage effects from a short-term phenomenon like El Niño, but we are preparing for its more frequent recurrence due to global warming by expanding our water supply sources, exploring dry weather cultivation methods, as well as similar other policies," Olivar told IRIN.

Range of crops affected

Pig and poultry farmers are also alarmed at the impact on corn crops, fearing skyrocketing prices of animal feeds, since corn is a major raw material.

According to official statistics, 54 percent of the total 487,389ha planted with rice, corn, tobacco and other high value commercial crops have been affected in the northern region.

Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya and Cagayan provinces are officially under a “state of calamity”, so they can now tap extra government funding.

The government is also racing against time to save remaining crops by bringing in additional irrigation pumps and seeding clouds in what has so far been a failed bid to induce rain. Teams of experts are also monitoring possible drought-triggered outbreaks of pests and diseases.

The World Food Programme (WFP) described the situation as "a slow onset emergency".

“We are particularly concerned for people still trying to recover from floods and storms that hit the country in September and October, that now, when they are trying to grow crops, they are again confronted with another natural disaster,” WFP country director Stephen Anderson told IRIN.

Long-term solutions needed

With much of the arable land relying on rain-fed irrigation systems, the situation has become dire, a coalition of rice farmers and traders is warning.

It noted that the bulk of rice production was expected in the last quarter of the year, but this could be weakened by the extended effects of El Niño.

The group is urging the government to help farmers withstand abnormal weather conditions threatening the country’s staple foods instead of “quick fix” solutions like importing rice.

"Being in the typhoon corridor of the Pacific, the Philippines is naturally vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather," said Jessica Reyes-Cantos, head of the Rice Watch and Action Network. "However, the government continues to resort to [the] quick fix solution of importing when struck by natural calamity."

Farmers are marginalized after years of neglect, while the government has failed to "devise strategic and effective measures" confronting the industry, such as climate change, she said.

She said only $212.7 million was needed to put in place working irrigation systems for some 164,000ha of rice fields in the country, thereby increasing yields.

Ernesto Lactao, a 52-year-old father of two in Isabela province, said without proper irrigation systems, small farmers like him had to invest in pumps to draw out ground water, increasing capital outlays but not improving harvests.

“What we need now is support from government, price subsidies and proper irrigation," Lactao told IRIN. "Do we have to wait until people are dying of hunger before we get help?"

El Niño is a weather phenomenon in which warmer water from the western Pacific Ocean flows towards the east, disrupting atmospheric systems.

It creates a major shift in rainfall, bringing floods and landslides to arid countries and drought to areas in the western Pacific.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88347LAHORE Sunday, March 07, 2010 (IRIN) - Experts say it is only a matter of time before wind carries a deadly wheat stem pathogen into Pakistan, the ninth largest wheat producing nation in the world. Known as Ug99, the disease could potentially decimate the country’s highly vulnerable wheat crop and cause a huge food security problem. LAHORE Sunday, March 07, 2010 (IRIN) - Experts say it is only a matter of time before wind carries a deadly wheat stem pathogen into Pakistan, the ninth largest wheat producing nation in the world. Known as Ug99, the disease could potentially decimate the country’s highly vulnerable wheat crop and cause a huge food security problem.

“There is a real possibility that winds could move the pathogen directly into southern Pakistan from Yemen or even the Horn of Africa. Realistically, I believe it is only a matter of time before Ug99 or variants appear in Pakistan,” said David Hodson of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Wheat Rust Disease Global Programme.

According to FAO, Ug99 is a virulent race of wheat stem rust first identified in Uganda in 1998 and 1999 that leaves behind fields filled with shriveled wheat grains.

Over the past decade, FAO estimates that 29 countries in East and North Africa, the Near East, and Central and South Asia, accounting for 37 percent of global wheat production, have been affected by the wind-borne Ug99 or were at potential risk.

Major wheat rust epidemics have occurred in the past, namely in the 1950s in North America and in 1993-94 in Ethiopia, with devastating consequences. Wheat rust decimated the grain crop across Pakistan in 1977, forcing the government to import over 2 million tons of wheat.

An Ug99 outbreak could be even more disastrous, FAO warns.

On high alert

In 2008, FAO put Pakistan and five other wheat producing countries on high alert following the detection of Ug99 in Iran.

“At present this virulent race of stem rust does not seem to have established a strong presence in Iran. However, the concern is that in time this status in Iran could change and analysis of regional wind patterns indicates that the pathogen could move into Pakistan,” Hodson told IRIN.

Soon after the discovery of Ug99 in Iran, Mujeeb Qazi, programme director of Pakistan’s National Wheat Program, warned that along with 80 percent of all wheat varieties planted in Asia and Africa most of Pakistan’s major wheat strains tested in Kenya over the past few years did not have adequate resistance to the disease.

“The big cause for concern in Pakistan is the widespread cultivation of wheat varieties that are extremely susceptible to Ug99 or variants. Of major concern is the cultivation of single wheat varieties like ‘Inquilab-91’ on millions of hectares in Pakistan,” Hodson said.

He also said many of the wheat-growing areas in Pakistan, particularly in the south, had a combination of heat and moisture that the disease favoured.

In 2008, the government allocated Rs 40 million [US$645,000] for research to combat the threat of Ug99 and over the past two years, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock has been working on developing resistant varieties.

Disastrous consequences

An outbreak of Ug99 would spell disaster in a country where most of the population is dependent on wheat to meet their basic food needs. According to official figures, 22 million tons of wheat is consumed in Pakistan every year, making it the fifth biggest wheat consumer in the world.

“Basically, we eat only roti [flat wheat flour bread] with pickles, day after day. This is all we can afford,” Muhammad Javed, a local labourer and father of six, told IRIN.

There are millions more like him in Pakistan, a country in which 35 percent of its 165 million citizens live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

“If wheat stem rust gets here, we would see famine,” Shahzad Chandio, a farmer in the southern Sindh province, told IRIN from the town of Jamshoro.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88340NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - Here are the most popular new articles on the IRIN website over the last 24 hours. Updated hourly. This feature was launched on 18 July, but will display the latest, most popular items of today.NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - ---http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=73277NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - Health services in Kenya should prepare for above-average precipitation during the March-to-May rainy season, according to a government forecast.NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - Health services in Kenya should prepare for above-average precipitation during the March-to-May rainy season, according to a government forecast.

"Water-borne diseases associated with poor sanitation as well as flooding may emerge in areas expected to receive enhanced rainfall,” the director of meteorological services, Joseph Mukabana, warned in a 4 March statement.

"Health authorities are, therefore, expected to be on the lookout and equip hospitals with necessary drugs to be able to deal with such situations as they arise," he added.

Some regions within seven of the country’s eight provinces are expected to “receive normal rainfall with a slight tendency towards above-normal”, according to the statement, adding that rains in Coast Province may, however, tend towards “below-normal”.

Several districts in northwestern Kenya experienced a prolonged cholera outbreak in 2009; the region is forecast to have above-normal rains from March to May.

Mukabana also urged local authorities to clear drainage systems to avoid flash flooding.

At present, Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) teams are responding to two days of flash flooding in some divisions in Mandera East District, in the northeast, where streams running through the town have burst their banks, the acting head of disaster preparedness, Abdishakur Othowai, told IRIN.

"Residents are not able to cross from one side of the road to the other," Othowai said.

A game reserve in the central northern region of Samburu was also flooded; staff and tourists are being evacuated.

Flooding risk

According to an update by the Flood Early Warning Team of the Ministry of State for Special Programmes, a moderate risk of flooding is expected along the Nzoia River in the west, based on the meteorological department's long rains forecasts.

The Nzoia River perennially bursts its banks, displacing thousands of people in the Budalangi and Kano regions. Mudslides also occur in central, western, and parts of Rift Valley provinces, which are forecast to have increased rains.

As of 4 March, the river basin was receiving very heavy rainfall, with water levels continuously rising to warning levels, raising the risk of flooding, stated the Flood Early Warning Team bulletin.

In 2009, Kenya experienced drought conditions that left millions hungry and thousands of livestock dead, after successive failed rains.

At present, food security has improved in some regions due to enhanced October to December short rains, according to a January to June update by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net). The rains extended to February in some areas.

The availability of crop harvests and short cycle crops between April and June will sustain food security improvements, says FEWS Net, as will normal long rains.

However, it notes that prevailing high maize prices, which are 100 percent above average levels, will still affect pastoralists and urban consumers, who do not produce the staple.

KRCS is providing certified maize seeds to at least 100,000 farmers in the northwestern areas of Turkana East and South as well as West Pokot ahead of the long rains, said Othowai.

"Besides just preparing for emergencies, communities also need to be prepared to take advantage of the rains to avoid perennial dependence on food aid," said KRCS.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88321KABUL Thursday, March 04, 2010 (IRIN) - Rain and warmer temperatures are expected to melt snow and cause floods in parts of Afghanistan over the coming weeks, government officials and experts warn. KABUL Thursday, March 04, 2010 (IRIN) - Rain and warmer temperatures are expected to melt snow and cause floods in parts of Afghanistan over the coming weeks, government officials and experts warn.

“We are very concerned about severe floods this year due to warmer weather and other environmental reasons,” Abdul Matin Edrak, director of the Afghanistan Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA), told IRIN on 3 March.

The country is vulnerable to seasonal floods and other natural disasters but has few disaster management resources, aid workers say.

Natural disasters seriously affect over 400,000 Afghans every year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Last year about 300,000 individuals were affected by floods alone,” said Edrak.

Snow packs are lighter this year due to reduced snowfall this winter, the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-Net), an affiliate of the US Agency for International Development, said in its weekly weather update on 24 February, though rapid warming can cause floods regardless of the thickness of snow cover.

“If heavy rainfall occurs in areas with a deep snow pack, the risk for localized flooding would increase,” it noted.

Led by the second vice-president, Karim Khalili, the country’s emergency commission on 3 March discussed ways to mitigate the impact of floods.

“The government has very limited resources for disaster management and mitigation so we mostly rely on UN assistance and support,” said Edrak, adding that 85 percent of post-disaster aid often comes from UN agencies.

NATO-led Provincial Reconstruction Teams provide evacuation and assistance services in emergencies such as during the Salang avalanche evacuation in February.

Members of parliament often criticize the government for failing to create a functioning disaster management institution, and are critical of the president’s ad hoc cash assistance to natural disaster victims.

“The government must build systems and institutions which should prevent disaster-related casualties,” said Mir Ahmad Joyenda from the lower house. He said the government must end its dependence on international aid agencies in disaster management.

Affect on livelihoods

Flash floods often destroy agricultural land, trees and livestock - the main sources of income for most of the rural population.

Whilst food and non-food aid can meet the immediate needs of flood-affected communities, long-term flood-resistance and alleviation remedies are equally important, said Majid Qarar, spokesperson of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL).

He said MAIL needs US$4 billion to revive and develop irrigation systems countrywide - something that would also reduce the risk of frequent flooding affecting vulnerable communities.

The outgoing special representative of the UN Secretary-General, Kai Eide, has identified agriculture as a critical development sector and asked donors to channel more funds to it.

ad/cbhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88306LOMÉ Thursday, March 04, 2010 (IRIN) - As up to 3.2 million Togolese cast their ballots in the presidential election on 4 March, IRIN asked voters and experts what it would take to reach true reconciliation after decades of political violence. This is the first of a two-part series on Togo's road to reconciliation.LOMÉ Thursday, March 04, 2010 (IRIN) - As up to 3.2 million Togolese cast their ballots in the presidential election on 4 March, IRIN asked voters and experts what it would take to reach true reconciliation after decades of political violence. This is the first of a two-part series on Togo's road to reconciliation.

"Impunity will no longer be tolerated, the blood of Togo's sons and daughters will no longer flow freely on our land, the land of our ancestors." These words, penned five months after a bloody poll in April 2005 that killed at least 400 and dispersed tens of thousands, formed the basis of a truth and reconciliation commission, created to help the country move past decades of recurring political violence.

"Elections will not be enough to bring together the people," said Gameti Akuyo, a fabric vendor in the capital, Lomé. "Those who carried out violence must recognize their wrong and ask for pardon. If not, reconciliation is just a joke, and evil will continue."

President Fauré Gnassingbé, whose post is up for grabs, took power after his father died in early 2005 in an election marred by a security crackdown that included torture, rape and extrajudicial killings, according to Amnesty International, a human rights watchdog.

The truth and reconciliation commission was formed in 2006 as part of a peace pact between the opposition and ruling parties, but its president, Christian Barrigah, told IRIN that the commission had not yet begun the formal process of reconciliation so as to not destabilize the country before the elections.

When to start?

"We decided not to inflame again the hearts of Togolese [so near the election], but instead to ensure the holding of transparent elections ... to begin the reconciliation process afterwards," Barrigah told IRIN.

The commission interviewed more than 20,000 people in July 2008 about their vision of justice and reconciliation, and decided not to proceed with identifying the perpetrators of human rights abuses, or rendering justice.

But peace pacts and elections do not always guarantee lasting peace. "The commission is here to offer to Togolese the peace of mind of 'never again'. We have had violence, but still do not know who is guilty," a Lomé-based traditional justice expert, André Anfanou, told IRIN. "Beyond raising awareness [about its mission], which is a good thing, the commission should have the courage to propose harsh punishments."

Until the Togolese could close this chapter, there would always be the risk of renewed political violence, he said. "The same causes can produce the same effects ... You have to somehow attack as much as possible these germs of violence."

Voter Ankra Wiliam was sceptical about lasting reconciliation. "It is the same ruling party that was in place during the 2005 violence, and I am sceptical we will reach a true reconciliation when the process is managed by the same people who have hurt us - I strongly doubt it."

Next steps

Commission president Barrigah told IRIN that once the elections were over, the group would start identifying the perpetrators of human rights abuses and "soothe the hearts of Togolese, and help them heal their wounds."

The 2007 legislative election was judged to be mostly fair and free, which unlocked a 13-year partial freeze on funding by the European Union (EU), imposed in protest over Togo's human rights record. The EU, Togo's largest bilateral donor, has re-launched programmes and committed US$441 million from 2008 to 2013.

Yet elections were only a first step in reconciliation. "A presidential election is not enough to reunite Togolese, but a well-run one would mark a very important step in the process of reconciliation," Barrigah commented.

Unlike the presidential poll in 2005, the 2010 presidential election is being scrutinized by hundreds of international election observers and more than 3,000 local observers.

The office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights in Togo is on alert; two hotlines have been set up to report any violence; 600 Togolese Red Cross volunteers were trained in election day scenarios and have been posted at all voting stations, and a number of Togolese simply chose to abstain from the vote.

Ajavon Zeus, president of the Collective of Associations Fighting Against Impunity in Togo, a local NGO, told IRIN: "Reconciliation is not an incantation, it is not a slogan, it is concrete acts that must be carried out."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88317DAMASCUS Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of people have fled drought-affected eastern Syria and those that remain are struggling to survive on limited food stocks, according to a UN report released at the end of February.DAMASCUS Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of people have fled drought-affected eastern Syria and those that remain are struggling to survive on limited food stocks, according to a UN report released at the end of February.

The third consecutive year of drought has caused widespread food insecurity in what has long been the poorest part of the country.

“This has led to a dramatic decrease in communities’ resilience capacity,” said Selly Muzammil, spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Syria.

According to the report  - billed as a mid-term assessment of the Syrian Drought Response Plan (SDRP) formulated in August 2009 - 65,000 families have left the region since early 2009. Those who remain face chronic food shortages.

Eastern Syria, comprising the governorates of Deir Ezzor, Hassakeh and Al-Raqqa, has always been a poor and vulnerable part of the country, heavily dependent on agriculture. Economic development has been difficult; levels of education, health and nutrition lag behind those in the rest of the country.

The steppe-like terrain is susceptible to desertification, and irrigation methods are poor. Furthermore, water-intensive crops, like cotton, have depleted water resources.

UN and government figures say 1.3 million inhabitants have been affected - 800,000 severely.

Up to 80 percent of the severely affected are living on a diet of bread and sugared tea - not enough to cover daily calorific and protein needs for a healthy life, according to the report, which said: “Most families have not consumed animal protein in months. Daily meals have been reduced from three to one for adults, and to two for children.”

The report says the population will remain in “dire need” of food, agriculture and other assistance until mid-2010, when crops are expected to mature owing to recently improved rainfall patterns.

However, the SDRP has only received 19 percent of the revised-down request for just under US$44 million, forcing cutbacks to food handouts and other measures.

WFP this week started distributing emergency food aid to almost 200,000 people in the northeastern region, the agency said in a statement on 3 March, after plans to reach 300,000 beneficiaries were scaled down owing to a lack of funds.

Children at risk

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said it was especially concerned about the nutritional intake of the region’s children. “It is not just about a scarcity of food: there are poor traditional feeding practices [as well],” said a spokesperson for UNICEF Syria.

According to the report, there was a drastic increase in nutrition-related diseases between 2006 and 2009. Recent data show 42 percent of children in the northeastern governorate of Al-Raqqa suffer from anaemia.

Other factors such as high food and fuel prices and the global financial crisis have aggravated the situation, said WFP’s Muzammil.

The UN has set up a Food Security Coordination Team, and aid agencies are focusing on their programmes in the region in the hope of preventing full-scale and irreversible devastation.

WFP said on 3 March it would start distributing supplementary food rations to under fives and pregnant and nursing mothers in Al-Shadadi District, Al-Hassakeh Governorate, one of the worst-affected areas with the highest rate of migration and school closures.

The report warns that more funding is needed to ensure future food security: Current interventions offer only short-term solutions when the region requires long-term development, say agencies.

“The region was improving before the drought,” according to UNICEF. “This is a real setback.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88294AGADEZ Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - The unusually large-scale migration of southern Nigerien farmers and pastoralists, heading north to look for work, has prompted concerns about food shortages in the northern Agadez region, according to local authorities.AGADEZ Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - The unusually large-scale migration of southern Nigerien farmers and pastoralists, heading north to look for work, has prompted concerns about food shortages in the northern Agadez region, according to local authorities.

"This seasonal migration always happens during the period between [harvests] and Agadez always welcomes people with open arms," said Almoumoune Ibrahim, son of the region’s highest ranking traditional leader.

“Normally after the harvest [in the south], the men leave the women and children with a stock of food and they come here to find work as farm labourers,” said Alhadji Guichem Kari, a member of a government committee set up after last September’s floods in the Agadez region, which displaced thousands and destroyed more than 3,000 homes

But this year’s increase in the number of migrants is testing the north’s perennial hospitality.

"Due to the shortages [of food] in the south, people have come earlier and in greater numbers… This year entire families have been coming. Some have found work and others beg," Kari told IRIN.

Flood damage around Agadez is still evident: Destroyed crops and homes, dead cattle, and sand-infested vegetable gardens no longer able to employ seasonal migrants.

Near the airport, Mariama Adao camps out with hundreds of other migrants. Originally from the southern town of Matameye near the Nigerian border, she arrived in Agadez three months ago with six of her eight children.

"This year when we saw that the rain was not coming I came here very quickly," she told IRIN. "Normally we harvest 20-25 sacks [of millet, sorghum, cow peas and peanuts], but this year we did not even harvest five… We needed to make headway and get here quickly to find a way to survive."

Abnormal rains in several parts of the country, including Agadez have led to crop deficits, forcing families nationwide to dip into their food stocks earlier than normal. Over half the population had only two months of food reserves left as of February - to last them until the next harvest in October, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Mariama Adao found work cleaning homes, as did her 17-year-old son. "I come here every year but this year there are a lot more of us than usual. Everyone [from the Matameye region] has had problems," she said.

"People who come here would never die of hunger because there is a real sense of solidarity [between people from the south and the Agadez region]," Hama Dilla Abdoulaye, the mayor of Agadez, told IRIN.

Food prices up

However, the local population is already facing higher food prices as a result of the region's poor harvest and higher demand prompted by the influx of migrants.

Two and a half kilograms of millet, a local food staple, which previously cost at most 500 CFA francs (US$1) between harvests, is now sold for 600 CFA francs in Agadez, according to residents

"Agadez is a small town; we feel the pressure of food and rent prices straight away," said Ousmane Issouf, a driver.

A recent national survey on household food security classified Agadez as one of the least vulnerable regions in the country - 7 percent of households faced problems getting food compared to the national average of 20 percent.

But the authorities were only able to carry out the survey in three urban areas of a 660,000sqkm desert region. A government travel ban and state of alert were recently lifted in the northern half of the country after years of rebel fighting, but rural zones - filled with pastoralists and farmers cut off from markets, hemmed in by sporadic fighting and hit by flooding - are still largely inaccessible.

Meanwhile, some say increased migration to the Agadez region has also been stimulated by rumours of free food handouts in the wake of the flooding. "People heard that food was being distributed in Agadez so they came here, [but that food] was only for people who been affected [by the floods],” Mayor Abdoulaye told IRIN.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88296AGADEZ Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Mariama Adao, aged 40 and a mother of eight, makes the 400km journey from Matameye in the south of Niger to Agadez in the north almost every year to make ends meet between growing seasons. However, this year’s poor harvest forced her to leave earlier - and bring six of her children with her. AGADEZ Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Mariama Adao, aged 40 and a mother of eight, makes the 400km journey from Matameye in the south of Niger to Agadez in the north almost every year to make ends meet between growing seasons. However, this year’s poor harvest forced her to leave earlier - and bring six of her children with her.

She told IRIN about her life:

"My husband is a farmer [in the Matameye region]. We grow millet, sorghum, cow peas and peanuts. Normally we produce 20-25 sacks, but this year we did not even get five. There was not enough rain. We have only known one other year like this [in 2005].

"When we saw that the rains were not coming I came here very quickly... with six of my children. I could not just stay there with my arms folded. I had to make headway and come here quickly [to Agadez] to make money to survive. My husband is old. He stayed with our two eldest daughters, who are married. They manage to provide him with food.

"We travelled for more than two days in a truck. A month after we arrived I managed to find a job doing housework in someone’s home. My [17-year-old] son was also employed in another house. My youngest is two years old. The children do not go to school.

"We come to Agadez because, of the eight regions [of Niger], we feel that we will find the most solidarity here. You can find more food here too. We were told that there was a food distribution [intended for people in the Agadez area affected by the September 2009 floods] here, but we have not received anything yet.

"I come here every year but this year there are a lot more of us than usual. Everyone has had problems [in the Matameye region]. Among my neighbours [in Agadez], a few have managed to find work and the others beg.

"At the moment we are getting by; we help each other. If one person has nothing to eat, we share with them. There is a sense of goodwill, but it is hard. I will not go back before the next rainy season in the south [May]. We need rain."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88297VIENTIANE Tuesday, March 02, 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of people living in a fertile wetland on the edge of Vientiane may lose their livelihoods and be relocated as part of the capital's urbanization plans, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says.VIENTIANE Tuesday, March 02, 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of people living in a fertile wetland on the edge of Vientiane may lose their livelihoods and be relocated as part of the capital's urbanization plans, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says.

Beung That Luang is a 20 sqkm marsh on the eastern edge of Vientiane Municipality. More than 35,000 people live there - 5 percent of the municipal population.

According to FAO, a new urban centre is slated for construction in the wetland area, while many other large-scale development projects have been proposed.

"Many of these projects would result in the relocation of hundreds of families and the destruction of livelihoods for thousands more. It is therefore crucial that Beung That Luang be developed consistent with the needs of the poor households living in and around the wetland," the FAO's Representative to Laos, Serge Verniau, told IRIN.

The 670ha urban centre is to be built by foreign companies under a 49-year land concession in the wetland area, according to the FAO. Local media reports say the centre is being developed at a cost of US$1.1 billion, while compensation for those relocated is estimated at more than $100 million.

Resistance mounting

However, residents in the wetland say they do not want to move. Nine village chiefs have started bringing in relatives and friends to boost the population.

"Villagers are unaware of the development projects. We fear that our villages will be relocated one by one. We hope that if the population rises, the relocation and development process will slow down," Peung Sungala, chief of Konkhornneua Village, said.

To preserve the wetland's economic activities and its ecology, the FAO has proposed an ecological park for the area that advocates sustainable agricultural activities, ecological tourism, reforestation, and a visitor education centre.

Endangered livelihoods

The wetland is considered the most fertile farming land in Vientiane Municipality. The Ministry of Public Works and Transport, FAO and environmental NGO WWF estimate the marsh generates nearly $5 million a year for the local economy, which would be lost to urbanization.

Forty-five percent of the total population on the marsh engages in agriculture and fish farming as their primary source of income.

"We have all been asked to sell and move off our farm land, but we are uncertain of when they will force us to leave," said Bountieng Keomanyvong, a farmer from Nonwai Village Xaysettha District, in the wetland.

"It is rumoured that we will be moved to apartment blocks and will no longer be able to farm. We are all uncertain of what we will do if this happens, because at the moment we farm rice for a living," he said.

The marsh also works as a natural water purification and waste treatment system. Besides jeopardizing livelihoods, the FAO says urbanization plans may cause severe flooding, since the marsh acts as a floodwater retention system for Vientiane Municipality.

"Our marsh will soon become a concrete urbanization project," Vieng Keow, director of the Culture and Heritage Department at the Ministry of Information and Culture, told IRIN. "The farmers will lose a primary source of income and their cultural heritage [which is] attached to the marsh's history."

Uncertain future

Villagers say many questions regarding their resettlement are still unanswered, including the location of their new homes, what the houses will be like, and how they will be compensated.

Land titling is one of the most sensitive areas of debate in Laos, where many people can be moved off their land because they do not hold titles.

"Most villagers have no land owner certificate and some new buildings will occupy the protected areas," said Keow.

Those with land titles will be compensated by the government, but there is little guarantee that their livelihoods are protected.

"We are afraid that farmers will not be able to recover their livelihoods. There is no guarantee that farmers' resettlement compensations will secure a better life," said chief Sungala.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88281JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, March 02, 2010 (IRIN) - Long dry spells in parts of Africa and erratic rainfall in Asia have cast uncertain clouds over crop yields for 2010 in the world's poorest countries. Food prices in most developing countries are down from their 2008 crisis levels, but still higher than they were in 2007. JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, March 02, 2010 (IRIN) - Long dry spells in parts of Africa and erratic rainfall in Asia have cast uncertain clouds over crop yields for 2010 in the world's poorest countries. Food prices in most developing countries are down from their 2008 crisis levels, but still higher than they were in 2007.

In the first of a four-part series on food security in some of the world's most vulnerable countries, IRIN asks, "Are we heading for another crisis?"

It would take "two consecutive bad years" for a repeat of the 2008 food and fuel crisis to arise, said Abdolreza Abbassian, economist and secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Unlike the situation in 2008, global cereal stocks are at comfortable levels.

But there were "many factors at play" in food prices. "In fact, we're projecting prices to stay firm, even in the medium term (the next 10 years), although they may not exceed the highs witnessed in 2008," Abbassian commented.

It is still a matter of adequate supply to meet growing demand, and the supply of food cereals has been declining. The gradual reduction in subsidies and support for the world's biggest producers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries - the US and the European Union (EU) in particular - has meant smaller surpluses.

"On the other hand, population growth and economic prosperity fuel demand - as in Asia, especially in China and India - therefore, we are moving into a situation whereby supply expansion could decelerate, while demand will continue to grow - sometimes even faster than in the past," said Abbassian. 

A paper by the OECD suggested that food prices would start rising again, "(albeit not to 2008 peaks) once economies come out of the recession, as the basic structural demand and supply-side determinants are still very much present ... [with] demand growing faster than supply. Food prices should therefore no longer be seen as a 'shock' or short-term 'crisis', but rather as a longer-term structural issue."

Biofuels still a threat

Some of the structural changes that brought about the 2008 food price crisis, such as diverting agricultural land from producing food cereals to grains for biofuel, had yet to be addressed, Abbassian said.

ActionAid, an international NGO, calculated in its new report, Meals per gallon: the impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger, that by 2020 biofuel consumption in the European Union (EU) would jump nearly four-fold, and that two-thirds would be imported, mainly from the developing world.

"Biofuels are conservatively estimated to have been responsible for at least 30 percent of the global food price spike in 2008," said ActionAid, which warned that a repeat of crisis could be in the offing, with the supply of food cereals likely to be compromised by a demand for biofuels in the EU.

"Up to 100 million more people could go hungry if Europe commits itself to a huge increase in biofuels consumption in order to meet new European Union legislation," said the report.

The legislation dates back to an agreement between the EU states in 2008 to meet 10 percent of their transport fuel needs from renewable sources, including biofuels, hydrogen and green electricity, by 2020.

In a scenario that takes into account a planned and predictable biofuel expansion in some countries, the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), projected maize prices rising by more than 20 percent by 2020, and by more than 71 percent in a drastic expansion scenario.

C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, academics at the University of Minnesota, wrote in an article published in 2007 in Foreign Affairs, an American magazine, that if the prices of staple foods continued to increase as per the IFPRI projections, the number of food-insecure people in the world would rise by over 16 million for every percentage increase in the real prices of staple foods.

ActionAid noted that "If all global biofuel targets are met, it is predicted that food prices could rise by up to an additional 76 percent by 2020." The NGO said it found that EU companies had already acquired, or were negotiating for, at least five million hectares in developing countries, which could threaten food supplies of some of the most vulnerable populations.

According to FAO, one in six people in the world are now hungry, with the 2008 crisis having pushed another 100 million into poverty and food insecurity.

There could be a solution. The global stock of cereals, which has relied on countries in the western hemisphere, has begun to look towards the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a regional organization comprising the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia.

Abbassian pointed out that Russia has become the world's second largest exporter of wheat after the US. "Unfortunately, they [the CIS] are located in a part of the world which is extremely vulnerable to environmental shocks."

Weaker international prices for sugar, dairy and cereals have caused FAO's Food Price Index, released on 2 March, to register a decline: "The index is down 21 percent from its peak in June 2008, but up 22 percent from the corresponding period a year ago," said Abbassian.

There was always a chance that prices might spike "as a result of market imbalances but, overall, high prices will encourage more investment in agriculture, which in turn will help in closing the gap between supply and demand", he noted.

Liliana Balbi, a senior economist at the FAO Global Information and Early Warning System, said she thought speculation was contributing to price volatility. "The fact is, prices go up quickly but don't come down fast."

Nevertheless, Abbassian was optimistic. "Technological progress and changing diets will help in maintaining a stable global food situation, even though developments at country/local level may not always be as rosy!"

The percentage hike in food prices varies between countries, as do the causes. Balbi's unit identified 33 countries that were the world's most food insecure in its Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for February - the first in 2010. Many were going hungry because they could not afford food.

Most countries on the February list have been there before; new entries are rain-poor Niger, conflict-torn Yemen and earthquake-hit Haiti.

The ActionAid report found that "each 10 percent increase in the prices of cereals (including rice) adds nearly US$4.5 billion to the aggregate cereals import cost of those developing nations that are net importers."

In the next three parts of the series, IRIN will provide a snapshot view of food vulnerability in the 33 countries spread across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88287QUETTA Monday, March 01, 2010 (IRIN) - Significant development and poverty challenges in Balochistan Province, southwestern Pakistan, are being exacerbated by growing security concerns, according to aid workers. Decades of nationalist unrest, underdevelopment and the scaling down of UN and NGO activity have left residents feeling neglected and fearful for their safety, they say. QUETTA Monday, March 01, 2010 (IRIN) - Significant development and poverty challenges in Balochistan Province, southwestern Pakistan, are being exacerbated by growing security concerns, according to aid workers.

Decades of nationalist unrest, underdevelopment and the scaling down of UN and NGO activity have left residents feeling neglected and fearful for their safety, they say.

President Asif Zardari on a recent visit to the province, which is nearly as big as Germany but has a population of only 10 million, said he was aware of the problems but urged people not to resort to violence.

In April 2009 ethnic violence led to a wave of killings and riots.

“We know there is a feeling of sadness in Balochistan. The people here do not sob, and prefer to pick up guns,” he said in a statement on 25 February. He called for patience: “I have good knowledge of the problems of Balochistan. I need some time to solve these problems… There might not be any immediate relief, but over a period of time, you will witness significant change in your lives.”

Abductions

In recent years, there have been a number of abductions of aid workers, causing the UN and many NGOs to scale down operations, making life even harder for the most vulnerable. There have also been recent media reports of Taliban militants operating in the province.

“A few years ago, many NGOs were active here, running schools or offering aid. Now many have pulled out,” said Naimat Khan, 60, a resident of a village a few miles outside Quetta, the provincial capital. “This has also led to unemployment, because some NGOs have let local staff go.”

The head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) office in Quetta, John Solecki, was kidnapped in February 2009 and released a few months later. Because of concerns over the safety of its staff, the UN scaled back operations in Balochistan in July 2009, and in October the World Food Programme (WFP) closed 20 food hubs, though Amjad Jamal, a spokesman for WFP in Pakistan, told IRIN WFP projects in the province were continuing “as usual”.

The reported abduction on 18 February 2010 of four Pakistani employees of US-based NGO Mercy Corps while visiting projects in Balochistan has added to concerns.

“Our programmes in Balochistan have been temporarily interrupted as we determine the nature of this incident,” Joy Portella, director of communications for Mercy Corps in Seattle, told IRIN.

Impact on health care

Access to health care is limited in Balochistan and officials in Islamabad and Quetta accept there is a need to improve the situation.

“There was good work going on for us here. Doctors came in to take care of women, but now after this latest incident where people have been abducted, we are worried no one will come,” local resident Azmatullah Jalal told IRIN from the town of Zhob, some 300km north of Quetta.

“Security concerns further handicap people, since few volunteers or NGO activists are now willing to travel in Balochistan,“ said Robina Mughul, who runs a voluntary clinic in Quetta.

Meanwhile, I.A. Rehman, secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told IRIN: “The problem in Balochistan is the perception of injustice as well as the reality of deprivation that people suffer.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88267JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Temperatures seem set to soar to perilously high levels because of climate change. In another 40 years, would maize still be the staple food in Kenya, already hit by five failed rainy seasons? If not, what could people grow and eat? And if you could grow maize, how much water and fertilizer would it need? JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Temperatures seem set to soar to perilously high levels because of climate change. In another 40 years, would maize still be the staple food in Kenya, already hit by five failed rainy seasons? If not, what could people grow and eat? And if you could grow maize, how much water and fertilizer would it need?

If you live in the remote semi-arid Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda - beset by 14 droughts in 25 years - you might also want to know what your options are for continued food security.

For the first time, a customized regional climate model linked to crop growing and water models, run on a supercomputer at Michigan State University (MSU), will help provide crop breeders in three East African countries - Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania - with detailed answers on crop yields.

Many research institutions have been working on models to predict the impact of climate change on food production in Africa, but in a few months the MSU model will help scientists and breeders to zoom in at a regional level on the possible impact of climate change on a wide variety of crops in these countries.

The research could help produce climate-resilient varieties of food crops, said Jennifer Olson, lead researcher and associate professor at MSU's College of Communication Arts and Sciences.

"East Africa is already experiencing the impact of climate change - food crops are experiencing extreme water stress," she commented. People living in Kenya's highlands, who have traditionally grown tea and coffee, have begun experimenting with maize and beans as the climate has grown warmer.

Work on the model began 10 years ago with the recording of relevant data, such as the impact of nutrients on a certain food crop, or the impact of water stress on another, which were subsequently fed into the model. "The model is still being perfected," said Olson.

The model can experiment with the impact of climate change, such as high temperature and water stress on a certain crop variety, saving the time that would have been spent on field trials, "which will help speed up the agricultural research cycle", she noted.

The researchers intend to launch the model at a workshop in June. Concern about increasing food insecurity in East Africa has prompted two institutions to set up a research grants to encourage innovative solutions.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), based in South Africa, and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, announced a US$10.67 million grant from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) to support the establishment of a multidisciplinary competitive funding mechanism for biosciences in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

ILRI's Bruce Scott said they would be looking for innovative solutions using bioscience to improve crop resilience to climate change, or perhaps to improve the shelf-life of a food product.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88225ABIDJAN Monday, February 22, 2010 (IRIN) - An uneasy calm has been restored in cities across Côte d’Ivoire following fresh protests over the past few days, according to aid workers. ABIDJAN Monday, February 22, 2010 (IRIN) - An uneasy calm has been restored in cities across Côte d’Ivoire following fresh protests over the past few days, according to aid workers.

The latest protests in the central-western city of Gagnoa left five dead and a dozen injured on 19 February. In the rebel-stronghold of Bouaké in central Côte d’Ivoire protesters set fire to cars, smashed up shops and looted a government office on 20 February, according to the defence minister.

Angry protests have affected Korhogo in the rebel-held north, Divo in the southwest, Man in the far west, Toumodi in the centre of the country, as well as the commercial capital Abidjan.

"The situation has become so alarming so quickly,” Abidjan-based teacher Patricia Konan told IRIN. “We have reached the stage where there is a large risk of wider conflict, with each further protest just adding more fuel to the fire.”

Teachers and children across Abidjan are too scared to turn up to school, she said.

Alfred Kobenan, an Abidjan-based government tax collector, witnessed the violence in Kumasi, a district in southeast Abidjan. “The demonstrators burned everything in their path and many I saw looted anything they could find. We can no longer go to work because we are too scared.”

Context

The demonstrations followed President Laurent Gbagbo's dissolution of the government and electoral commission on 12 February, delaying long-awaited presidential elections that had been set for March 2010 after six delays since 2005.

In mid-January Gbagbo accused electoral commission head and opposition party member Robert Mambe of adding more than 400,000 names to the voter register. The president said their Ivoirian identity had not been cross-checked.

Because of the draw of cocoa production, much of the population has roots in neighbouring states and the question of national identity, or “ivoirité”. Around 2,000 politicians cynically fomented xenophobia for their own ends. The issue helped bring on the civil war that broke out in 2002 and continues to fuel inter-communal tensions over land rights.

Prime Minister Guillaume Soro will announce the make-up of the new Ivoirian government on 22 February, according to a statement. A group representing Côte d’Ivoire’s leading opposition parties, Rally of Houphouétistes for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), are insisting they be included in the new government.

“We have asked the militants to confront the dictatorship that has been established in our country. Gbagbo’s decision to dissolve the independent electoral commission and the government is unacceptable, and we have already said we will no longer recognize him as head of state,” RHDP spokesperson Alphonse Djedje Mady said in a 20 February communiqué.

Protests have taken place amid deteriorating living conditions country-wide, with unemployment rates at 70 percent; chronic malnutrition at 40 percent in the north; and a series of power cuts across the country.

The number of people living on less than US$1.25 a day has risen from 10 percent in 1985 to 49 percent in 2008, according to the World Bank.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88191JUBA Friday, February 19, 2010 (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. JUBA Friday, February 19, 2010 (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 [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87661] 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.

“Projections for 2010 indicate that the situation is likely to worsen,” the office said in an overview of humanitarian issues, citing lack of resources and capacity among security forces for resolving conflicts.

In the run-up to a January 2011 referendum in which southerners will decide between secession or unity, “there is a real, but hopefully avoidable, possibility that the humanitarian crisis will engulf Southern Sudan, jeopardizing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement”, according to the overview.

Hunger is also a major problem: the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the number of people in the south needing food aid has more than quadrupled, from just less than a million in 2009 to 4.3 million this year, because of conflict and drought. [http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/number-hungry-quadruples-southern-sudan-amidst-conflict-and-drought]

Security threats

Votes will be cast for both the president of the republic and for the semi-autonomous south, as well as for national, southern and state legislative assemblies.

“Election security is a major issue,” the US Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration told reporters in Juba on 18 February. “The efforts we are taking right now are to reduce the potential for violence.”

Despite recent steps forward on several key issues, tensions remain between the former civil war enemies: the south’s ruling Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the northern National Congress Party (NCP).

“The single most important factor influencing the success or failure of the Sudanese peace process is the nature of the relationship between SPLM and NCP,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned in a 19 January report. [http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2010/31]

“The current atmosphere of pervasive mistrust, in which any gain by one party is viewed as a loss by the other, dramatically undermines that political will, effectively disrupts international efforts to assist, and sets the stage for renewed conflict,” it added.

But many fear pressures within the south too: while the top leadership of the SPLM has vowed not to restrict the campaigns of opposition parties, distrust remains high among lower level officials and the armed forces.

A splinter faction known as SPLM Democratic Change (SPLM-DC) is seen by many in the south as a proxy force of former enemies in Khartoum – an accusation strongly rejected by the SPLM-DC itself.

Meanwhile several senior SPLM leaders have broken party ranks to contest seats as independents against the official candidates - including for influential state governor positions – raising concerns it could create local flashpoints for violence.

“We do not want violence, I can assure you that,” said Dau Aturjong, a general in the Southern army and SPLM stalwart, but who is running as an independent for the governorship of Northern Bahr el Ghazal state.

“But I cannot talk on behalf of others: if people realize they are weak and are going to be defeated, they may think of making violence.”

Complex poll

“These elections are so complex many do not understand - we are trying hard to explain to people but still they find it difficult,” Barsaba added. “Even some of the candidates themselves don’t understand it.”

Instead, many in the south appear more concerned with the independence referendum slated for January 2011.

However, successful elections are a vital stepping stone towards that vote, officials have warned.

“Credible elections are crucial for a smooth post-election transition to the referendum,” Ban’s report added.

“A credible process will also reduce the possibility of election-related violence and will help to legitimize bodies that will oversee the referendum processes.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88167NAIROBI Friday, February 19, 2010 (IRIN) - Many HIV-positive African patients are starting treatment too late for it to be effective, new scientific studies have shown.NAIROBI Friday, February 19, 2010 (IRIN) - Many HIV-positive African patients are starting treatment too late for it to be effective, new scientific studies have shown.

Studies [http://app2.capitalreach.com/esp1204/servlet/tc?c=10164&cn=retro&e=12359&m=1&s=20431&&espmt=2&mp3file=12359&m4bfile=12359] from South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe presented at the 17th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco (ending 19 February), all found late enrolment of patients on life-prolonging antiretroviral treatment (ART) to be a significant barrier to treatment programmes.

"Over each calendar year, we see increasing numbers of patients [enter] the programme," said Susan Ingle, from the University of Bristol in the UK, who co-authored a study on pre-treatment mortality in South Africa's Free State Province. "However, there are still many deaths that occur in the period while waiting to start treatment; these deaths are most likely to occur in the most immuno-suppressed patients."

Patients with stronger immune systems - measured by a higher number of CD4 cells per cubic millilitre of blood - were not monitored frequently enough to enrol them for treatment at the correct time, Ingle said.

During the study, almost 3,000 of 22,000 participants had CD4 counts better than 250 - the then nationally stipulated threshold - and so did not start treatment immediately.

"The median time to their next CD4 measure was six months; however, within this time patients had experienced a median CD4 cell decline of 113," Ingle added. "By the time these patients were assessed again, a large proportion of them would have dropped to well below the treatment eligibility threshold."

Patients with CD4 counts below 200 are at high risk of opportunistic infections. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently reviewed its treatment guidelines to recommend that treatment start sooner, at a CD4 level of 350.

Ingle noted that "loss to follow-up" - where patients starting HIV care turn up for a first visit and are not seen again - was also a significant problem.

Late enrolment, poorer results

Presenting findings from a Development of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (DART) in Africa trial [http://www.ctu.mrc.ac.uk/dart/default.asp] in Uganda and Zimbabwe, Paula Manderi from the Uganda Virus Research Institute [http://www.iavi.or.ug/] said patients starting treatment with very low CD counts were unable to see their immune counts recover to levels above 250.

"If a patient still had a CD4 count of below 50 cells after a year of treatment, there is only a 9 percent chance that they would ever attain 250 cells," she said.

A CD4 cell count of below 125 after a year of treatment was identified as the cut-off point at which patients were unlikely to reach 250.

"Our data highlights the importance of expanded earlier diagnosis and earlier initiation of treatment at higher CD4 counts," Manderi said.

Ingle suggested that pre-ART mortality could be reduced by fast-tracking the most immune-deficient patients, raising the treatment eligibility guidelines in line with the new WHO recommendations, and improving monitoring and retention of patients not yet eligible for ART.

According to the WHO, almost three million people in sub-Saharan Africa are enrolled in ART programmes, which represents 44 percent of people who need treatment.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88168KUTUPALONG Thursday, February 18, 2010 (IRIN) - A violent crackdown on undocumented Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh is pushing humanitarian conditions to the brink at a makeshift camp for them, aid workers and campaigners warn.KUTUPALONG Thursday, February 18, 2010 (IRIN) - A violent crackdown on undocumented Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh is pushing humanitarian conditions to the brink at a makeshift camp for them, aid workers and campaigners warn.

Close to 30,000 undocumented Rohingya are now at the site, which is adjacent to a government camp for 11,000 documented Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar District.

“MSF is extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Kutupalong makeshift camp, where the number of unrecognized Rohingya refugees is growing at an alarming rate,” Paul Critchley, head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), told IRIN.

The Rohingya - an ethnic, linguistic and religious minority who fled en masse from neighbouring Myanmar decades ago - have long had a tenuous relationship with the Bangladeshi authorities.

Under Myanmar law, they are de jure stateless.

The Bangladeshi government views the Rohingya as illegal migrants, while local resentment over jobs and resources has intensified in recent months.

In an 18 February report, [http://www.msf.org.au/uploads/media/MSF_Rohingya_Bangladesh_PublicBriefing_Feb_2010.pdf] MSF calls for an immediate end to the violence, which has already forced thousands to flee the district and head to the makeshift camp.

Due to the crackdown, the number of unregistered Rohingya has swelled at the makeshift site by more than 6,000 since October, including 2,000 in January alone, according to MSF.

The Arakan Project, an advocacy organization for Rohingya, reported on 16 February that Bangladesh law enforcement agencies had been targeting unregistered Rohingya [http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs08/Bangladesh-Crackdown.pdf] in Cox’s Bazar District since January.

A similar campaign in Bandarban District, which started in mid-July 2009, is ongoing, it said.

The group cited increasing violence against the Rohingya, noting that hundreds of unregistered refugees had also been arrested, pushed back across the border to Myanmar, or sent to jail on immigration charges.

“A humanitarian crisis is looming,” Chris Lewa, the project’s director in Bangkok, said. “People need to wake up to what is happening and wake up now.”

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), there are some 200,000 Rohingya living in Bangladesh, of whom only 28,000 are documented and in two government camps assisted by the agency.

Little assistance

There are only two international NGOs - MSF and Action contre la Faim - working at the makeshift camp.

In MSF’s first preliminary assessment in March 2009, 90 percent of the over 20,000 people at the time were deemed severely food insecure.

Malnutrition and mortality rates were past emergency thresholds, and people had little access to safe drinking water, sanitation or medical care, the NGO found.

But with the crackdown worsening and more Rohingya arriving, concern from aid workers is growing.

They receive no assistance other than nutritional, mental health, and water and sanitation services from ACF, and medical services from MSF - making food a major issue.

Residents previously went outside the makeshift camp to work, allowing them to buy or borrow food from other refugees, but under the current crackdown, that too is proving difficult.

“That coping mechanism is weakened and that’s what has changed in the humanitarian context,” said Glen Hughson, programme coordinator for ACF at Kutupalong. “As a result, they have more and more difficulties to get some food.”

Sharing food rations

As dusk falls on the site, many residents cross into the official camp - pot in hand - to beg from documented refugees, many of whom share their food rations with them.

“This is putting a strain on our resources here,” AFM Fazle Rabbi, the camp’s CIC (Camp-in-Charge), the government’s most senior official at the official Kutupalong refugee camp, told IRIN.

He said many of the camp’s water and sanitation facilities were situated along its periphery, attracting many undocumented residents.

UNHCR quandary

The situation is proving particularly difficult for UNHCR, which assists the documented refugees in the official camps, but is not permitted to work at the makeshift camp.

The government has not allowed the agency to register newly-arriving Rohingya since mid-1993.

In its report, MSF calls on UNHCR to take greater steps to protect the unregistered Rohingya seeking asylum, and not to allow its agreement with the government to undermine its role as an international protector.

But according to Kitty McKinsey, the agency’s spokeswoman in Bangkok, those concerns have been taken fully on board.

"We are obviously very concerned about the unregistered refugees in the makeshift camp and it pains us to see refugees living in such dire conditions,” she told IRIN.

“We are working together with the Bangladeshi government and very much hope we can together find a solution for their plight."

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