Sub-Saharan migrants continue attempting dangerous and illegal crossings into Libya and Algeria.

They pick their way through Niger’s Air mountains, circumventing a mountain rebellion, increased mountain banditry, and North African border crackdowns, according to migrants and smugglers in Niger’s mountain gateway town of Agadez.

Freddy Kasseri, a 22-year-old Ghanaian migrant, told IRIN he regretted leaving Ghana in search of work when his truck was stopped on 12 August 2008, 500km from Agadez, en route to Libya. An armed truck intercepted his group: “They made us undress and took everything of value.” Kasseri said the bandits took five Ghanaian women and five Nigerian women into the desert.

Kasseri, interviewed by IRIN in Agadez, said the bandits had stolen over US$300 and taken all his clothes: “I prepared well before leaving [Ghana], but I have lost everything en route and am not sure how I will eat tonight.”

Despite a sharp drop in tourism since the outbreak of a mountain rebellion in February 2007, thousands of West Africans still pass through the former tourist hub of Agadez to reach North Africa - and for some, Europe - according to a May 2007 UN Children’s Fund study.

People smugglers

Upon arrival in Agadez, the job-seeking migrants are greeted by people smugglers.

Agadez resident Raliou Hamed said the smuggler network has grown in recent years: “Since the 1990s, there has been an endless flow of migrants travelling through Agadez to Libya and Algeria to find work, earn some money, and continue onward [to Europe]. Most arrive in Agadez broke, and are forced to do whatever they can to survive to pay these agents.”

He described a well-organised smuggling operation that “rivalled any travel agency, except without the signs”.

The 2007 UN funded-Niger government study estimated at least 10 unauthorised transportation businesses - with a dozen offices and more than 50 employees - were recruiting migrant passengers.

Known locally as Tchagga, these sub-Saharan smugglers help the West African migrants find transportation, lodgings, and meals, bribing officials as necessary.

The study estimated the cost of the trip could run to US$250 per person after all the middlemen’s fees are taken into account.

The average monthly salary in much of sub-Saharan Africa is US$45, according to a 2008 UN estimate.

Rebellion alters routes

Migrants told IRIN they gathered in small groups, lodged in huts 30km from Agadez, and departed at night for Libya and Algeria in tarpaulin-covered Toyota 4x4’s.

Drivers told IRIN the main route to Libya involved a 1600km trip which took the fugitives to Sebha, Libya, and cost US$150 per person.

Mountain rebel violence, which surged in February 2007, has changed the drivers’ normal route into Algeria.

Trucks leaving from Arlit in Niger for Tamarrrasset in Algeria - which cost an additional US$10 per person, and cover 875km - try to avoid police posts and military convoys on the lookout for rebels.

On 8 October, a man requesting anonymity told IRIN his brother, Noura Sountal, died on 19 September when his truck filled with migrants hit a mine 40km from the northern Niger military post of Madama, 1000km from Agadez. He said four of the migrants on board also died.

A 20-year-old migrant from Kumasi, Ghana, who preferred anonymity, told IRIN the risk of violence and security crackdowns would not deter him: “You hear about the risks, but it is hard to know what it is really like out there. You know, everybody has their luck. We just pray to cross the desert.”

A 2008 illegal migration study by the research and advocacy non-governmental organisation Open Society Institute for West Africa (OSIWA) said “draconian” security crackdowns on illegal migrants in North Africa had led to the forced, and at times violent, expulsion of migrants.

Stranded

A man who gave IRIN his name as Abdoulaye said that on one of his several attempts to cross the desert to Algeria, the driver left his group in the Algerian village of Tchmilkom, 70km from the Niger border: “We did not have enough petrol. The driver collected more than US$200 from us, and said he was going to buy petrol and… that it was too dangerous for us to accompany him because of the security checkpoints.”

Abdoulaye said his group walked as far as they could, and then took different commercial convoys back to Arlit in Niger.

However, a migrant smuggler who preferred anonymity dismissed fraud allegations against drivers: “That is totally untrue. Without migrants, we have no business. The migrants’ countrymen cheat them and blame us, the drivers.”
Starting in 2005, security forces in Morocco and Algeria have reported finding the dehydrated corpses of would-be immigrants in the desert.

Second try

The International Office for Migration (IOM) estimated in 2008 that up to 120,000 sub-Saharan Africans were entering North Africa annually, with up to 38 percent continuing on to Europe.

“Migrants failing, or not venturing, to enter Europe often prefer to settle in North Africa as a “second-best” option, rather than return to their substantially poorer or unsafe countries of origin,” IOM researcher Hein de Haas wrote.

Upon his return to Agadez after a failed attempt to enter Libya, Ghanaian migrant Kasseri told IRIN he was saving money for another attempt: “Sometimes I help a bricklayer in my neighbourhood and earn a little over US$1 a day. My master’s degree in anthropology does me very little good.”

IRIN 

The Nigerian government has announced it is unprepared for the tens of thousands of returnees who have fled the southern Bakassi province over the past month, and is calling on the UN to help it handle the unexpected return.

Up to 76,000 returnees have registered at 12 sites in Akwa Ibom and Cross River states, according to Victor Antai, council chairman of Mbo, one of the sites in Akwa Ibom.

“We never envisaged such a flow of returnees,” Florence Ita-Giwa, head of the presidential task force on the resettlement and rehabilitation of Nigerian returnees, told IRIN. “It is because the situation in Bakassi [now under Cameroonian control] after the [14 August] handover has not been conducive, so they had to flee back to Nigeria. We had thought many of them would have stayed for at least a few more years.”

“There is an urgent need for the United Nations to come in and assist because people are stranded. People are all over the place,” she continued.

A five-year joint administration agreement was set up between Nigeria and Cameroon to ensure a peaceful handover and encourage Nigerians to remain in Bakassi, according to Ita-Giwa.

Youcef Ait Chellouche, disaster management coordinator for the Dakar office of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), told IRIN reports from the region indicate Bakassi residents feared persecution by Cameroon security services.

Nigerians started fleeing Bakassi following the 14 August 2008 ceremony between the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria, which officially handed over administration of the disputed Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon.

Returnees desperate

“Our infrastructure has been overstretched…Our resources can no longer sustain us. It has taken its toll on the council,” said Mbo councilman Antai. The normal population of more than 100,000 in Mbo, the closest point to Bakassi on the Nigeria mainland, has swelled to 180,000 according to him.

In the Akwa Ibom state capital of Uyo, about 1,000 displaced returnees stormed the governor’s office on 22 September to protest what they called ‘inhumane’ living conditions and the lack of federal aid, spelling out their complaints on hastily-cobbled signs: “We are Bakassi returnees, Please Help Us, “Please Help Us, We are Dying, and “We need Shelter, Please Help,” according to observers.

Ikpe Okon Awonshak, one of the protestors, said he felt he had run out of options. “Perhaps we should have stayed back in Bakassi to be killed by the Cameroonian soldiers, rather than come back and face these harsh conditions. We are dying here, our children are malnourished and the medical facilities are inadequate.”

There is as yet a skeletal humanitarian presence on the ground and has been no thorough independent assessment to analyse the situation on the ground in Bakassi, why people have been leaving the peninsula in such large numbers, or what their next steps will be.

Reports of deaths

Local Nigerian media reported on 22 September the deaths of 15 returnees, of which there has been no independent confirmation.

Mbo councilman Atai confirmed separate casualties at an Mbo camp where two people died of high blood pressure.

Government efforts

Essien Ayi, a Bakassi representative in the federal government, told IRIN Bakassi returnees are entitled to federal housing and resettlement help.

“It is the duty of the states, in conjunction with the federal government, to find a way to resettle all returnees because when the handover took place, the government said Nigerians had two options; to come back and be resettled, or remain as Nigerians in Cameroon. So those who opted out should be resettled…as soon as possible.” Ayi said.

The national government provided US$17 million to Cross River state to build a permanent settlement for the returnees; so far, 140 new houses have been completed, but work on the estimated US$200 million settlement has slowed because of money problems, according to resettlement task force member Ita-Giwa.

With federal attention focused on Cross River, authorities in neighbouring Akwa-Ibom cry negligence. “80 percent of the displaced people from Bakassi were originally from Akwa-Ibom,” Antai insisted, “My plea is that the federal government should come to our aid as well…We need to improve the general hospital and build more primary and secondary schools because enrolment is about to jump by 100 percent.”

International efforts

Ita-Giwa says it us the UN’s responsibility to help, given it helped broker the Green Tree Bakassi handover agreement after the International Court of Justice Ruling in 2002.

According to Olivia Hantz at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Office for West Africa is dispatching a human rights team to assess the situation, while other UN agencies are monitoring developments. “It is not yet a humanitarian crisis,” said Hantz, “but we will watch closely to see if that changes.”

The IFRC is sending an assessment mission within the next week to determine how many people need support, what kind of support they need, and how to help the government meet these needs in the short term while stressing that the IFRC's efforts will be finite.

According to the IFRC's Ait Chellouche, a 2006 government census listed only 32,000 people in the Bakassi peninsula, so the numbers need to be verified. It is possible, he says, that some who have moved, do not originally come from Bakassi.

“The situation is chaotic”, said the IFRC’s Ait Chellouche, “we need to establish the facts. The situation can change very quickly."

As national and international groups start answering their calls for help, returnees remain despondent. Returnee Affiong Okon told IRIN, “We really don’t know what plans the government has for us. We are in the dark concerning our future.”

IRIN 

Local government officials say cholera outbreaks across Katsina, Zamfara, Bauchi and Kano states in northern Nigeria have killed 97 people in the past two weeks, making it the worst outbreak in the north for several years, according to an official from National Primary Healthcare Agency (NPHA) in Abuja.

More than 60 people have died in Zamfara state in the past two weeks, according to Tukur Sani Jangebe, Zamfara’s state commissioner for religious affairs.

“It is quite alarming and it is quite unusual for northern Nigeria. If up to 100 people have died from cholera in just two weeks, you can only imagine how many more are affected by the disease,” an official from the government-run NPHA who requested anonymity, told IRIN.

National government officials have not yet publicly stated if the outbreaks across the separate states are related, or provided figures on the number of affected people.

Jangebe said the death toll may be higher as reports of new infections are still coming in.

In Katsina state in the villages of Makadawa and Kagadama, 20 people, mostly women and children, have died while 30 others have been hospitalised according to local government chairman Masur Usman Murnai. Another nine people have died in Nabardo village in Bauchi state since 13 September, with 40 more affected, according to Garba Sale, a primary health care coordinator. Kano State’s health commissioner Aisha Isyaku Kiru told IRIN five people have died of cholera in the state within the past week.

Dirty water

Across northern Nigeria, heavy rains have washed dirt, rubbish, sewage and other contaminants into ponds and open wells in affected villages where the majority of people get their water, according to Sani Ibrahim, an epidemiologist at Kano state’s Bayero University.

“Torrential rains have been recorded this season and have washed lots of dirt into ponds and open wells. This is in contrast with last year where we had scanty rainfall and no recorded cholera outbreaks,” he said.

Response

In Katsina state, Murnai told IRIN local officials have been running an awareness campaign to urge people to pay close attention to household hygiene and to boil all drinking water.

Health coordinator Sale said in Bauchi state a health surveillance team has been sent to Nabardo village to analyse and disinfect drinking water sources.

In Zamfara state, the local ministry of water resources is trying to find ways to provide clean drinking water to affected communities to halt the spread of the deadly disease, according to local commissioner Jangebe.

But Halliru Salisu, coordinator of a network of Muslim groups in the state, says local government officials were slow to admit the cholera crisis and slow to respond.

Cholera is a bacterial intestinal tract infection that leads to vomiting and diarrhoea, and if untreated, can be deadly.

In March 2008, at least 35 people died of cholera in the towns of Madurdi and Oturkpo in southern Nigeria.

IRIN 

Even by the usual violent standards of Nigeria’s conflict-ridden, oil-rich southern Niger Delta region, it has been a bloody seven days, with dozens of civilian casualties and many more wounded or displaced, according to local observers, in clashes in Rivers state between the military and rebel fighters.

The clashes – reportedly the heaviest in two years in the region – were sparked on 13 September when government security forces allegedly razed the villages of Soku, Kula, and Tombia, in Rivers state while looking for Farah Dagogo, a member of rebel group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

Civilians caught in crossfire

“I got distress calls from the affected areas saying two of the villages had been razed to the ground, and there was an urgent need for medical teams to go there, but it was not possible for us to go.” said Chika Onah with the Nigerian Red Cross (NRC) in Port Harcourt.

Ongoing insecurity has cut off access to parts of Rivers state, making it hard for disaster workers to count how many of the estimated 20,000 inhabitants in the three towns have fled, according to NRC.

Nevertheless, Onah told IRIN civilian casualties are high. “There is no way the civilian population will not suffer in this kind of attack.”

Local human rights workers told IRIN they were caught in helicopter and boat gunfire. Sofiri Joad Peterside, a human rights campaigner in the Delta told IRIN, “These were aerial strikes without clear targets. What we are calling for right now is an independent assessor to determine the extent of civilian vulnerability to all these strikes.”

He said the violence hit civilians directly. “The centre of the violence was full of civilians. We live in riverine areas and in every riverine area, you have a forest where people go to pick seafood, and you have a community.”

But Nigerian army spokesman, Emeka Onwuamaegbu, said the military did not carry out a full-scale offensive.  “We are applying minimum force in tackling the situation…we cannot go all out to kill our own people. Can we?”

Surge in violence

On 14 September, MEND declared war against foreign-owned oil companies working in the Delta, pledging to destroy oil pipelines and  flow stations, and warning companies to evacuate their staff and stop pumping. MEND claims five attacks since its oil war threat.

Rebels have escalated attacks in recent months against oil production spots, according to locals who do not want to reveal their identities because of the region’s volatility.

A government effort to reign in oil smuggling by shutting down 200 illegal oil refineries in the past two months has sparked more fighting, according to the governmental Joint Military Task Force.

The Niger Delta, 70,000 kilometres of mostly wetlands, is home to some 20 million people who sit atop more than 30 billion barrels of top grade crude oil, according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
The region’s oil production has slumped after periodic attacks by local rebels who say criminal gangs and government military forces are siphoning and smuggling oil wealth, leaving behind polluted, malaria-infested, lawless marshlands that have seen little return from oil revenues.

‘If you drink our water, you’ll get sick’

Oil revenue from the Delta will amount to US$66 billion in 2008, according to an August 2008 report by the UK-based Centre for Global Energy Studies, but Delta residents say they see little of this money invested in the delta communities surrounding the oil fields.

Rebel leader Tom Polo in Wari, in western Delta, told IRIN, “We are suffering in the Niger Delta. If you drink our water, you’ll get sick. They [the government] are not doing anything for us. Every day they say oil prices have gone up, but we don’t see any tangible benefits from it.”

He said the government has not given back to local communities. “If you go to other countries that are rich in oil, they build first-class universities in oil-producing communities, but here there is nothing like that.”

Government spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi pledges more development, but says security must come first. “The government takes the Niger Delta very seriously. It is one of the seven key priorities of this administration…we are doing everything possible to improve living conditions in the Delta, but the security forces will continue to check the excesses of all those seeking to exploit the situation to make money through criminal tendencies.”

Red Cross worker Onah says spiralling criminality is hampering efforts to protect civilians. “The issue in the Niger Delta has now gone beyond the struggle for a greater share of the region’s resources. If they [criminal gangs masquerading as militants] can kidnap a one-year old baby or a sixty-year old grandmother, organisations like ours that want to help have to be very, very careful.”

Government tries to quell violence

On 10 September 2008, the Nigerian cabinet appointed a new ministry for the region. 

Presidential spokesman, Olusegun Adeniyi, announced the ministry’s plans to “tackle the challenges of infrastructural development, environmental protection and youth empowerment in the region. We believe this is an important step in building confidence about this government’s plans for the Niger Delta.”

In 2000, the government set up a similar Niger Delta Development Commission to relieve poverty in the region, hoping this would end unrest. But the commission lacked funding and astute management, according to most analysts.

Tony Uranta, executive secretary of the non-governmental United Niger Delta Energy Development and Security Strategy, says the government needs to honour its promises if fighting is going to end- definitively.

Coming out of a meeting with President Umaru Yar’Adua on 19 September, he told IRIN, “It is a mistake to approach the Delta problem as a security problem rather than a development or justice problem. There is a bit of sincerity [from the government] beginning to show but it is still early. Once we see this sincerity in action…there will be changes for the better in the region.”

As the two sides wrangle over oil wealth distribution, Samuel Atori, a Delta native and founder of the Abuja-based Izon Prayer Network, concluded, “When two elephants wrestle, the grass suffers.”

IRIN 

Up to 100,000 Nigerians displaced from Bakassi in southern Nigeria are sheltering in makeshift camps 10 kilometres away in the state of Akwa Ibom. More keep arriving according to the Nigerian Red Cross, leading local authorities to fear an impending humanitarian crisis.

The influx has overwhelmed Akwa Ibom’s local authorities who are struggling to feed, shelter, clothe and medicate the returnees, most of whom have come empty-handed, according to local journalist Tommy Solomon.

Aniekan Umanah, Akwa Ibom’s information commissioner, warned IRIN “There is no way we can handle things for much longer.”

Umanah told IRIN they have received no assistance from the federal government, and are relying on non-governmental organisations like the Nigerian Red Cross.

Okon Eyo, 45, a now homeless fisherman and father of seven has tried to access dwindling emergency supplies at Mbo camp in Akwa Ibom. “We want the federal government to move in quickly and assist us,” he pleaded. “We want to get on with our lives. We don’t want this thing to drag for too long.”

Government help slow to arrive

Nigerians started fleeing Bakassi following the 14 August 2008 ceremony between the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria, which officially handed over administration of the disputed Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon.

According to Umanah, Akwa Ibom received 75,000 returnees over the last two weeks of August. Just when local authorities believed the last returnees had arrived, 20 more buses came in early September. “We were helpless. We had to shelter them in a local school and make arrangements for their food and security. We don’t know when it will end.”

The Nigerian National Boundary Commission, which helped steer the Bakassi handover, pledged more than US$7 million in federal funds to resettle Nigerian nationals from the disputed territory into the neighbouring Cross River state. But none of this funding was slated for Akwa Ibom, according to Florence Ita-Giw, head of the presidential task force on Bakassi returnees.

As a result. many returnees may not be eligible for federal help. The National Boundary Commission also set up the government’s aid package expecting people with family in other parts of the country to return there, according to Tunde Orebiyi, national secretary of the Nigerian Red Cross.

Returnees to Cross River have as yet seen little government help.

Ita-Giw with the national government, counsels patience. “We are working hard to make as many houses ready [as possible] for occupation by the returnees, but it can’t be done overnight,” she told IRIN. The Red Cross’ Orebiyi has warned resettlement can take as long as one year.

Resentment

Some 300,000 Nigerians lived in Bakassi before its transfer to Cameroon. In the process leading up to the handover, authorities had discussed a transitional arrangement allowing joint administration by Nigeria and Cameroon for an initial period to guarantee the fair treatment of Nigerians left behind.

But this was not put in place, according to returnees and journalist Solomon.

“The returnees said most of them were being terrorised by the Cameroonian police and they did not find life easy under the new ruling,” Solomon explained. According to him, the Cross River authorities are investigating reports that Cameroonian soldiers recently killed Nigerians in Bakassi.

Mambou Deffo Roland, chief of the Cameroonian military police, declined to comment on these allegations.

But in a 21 August speech following the handover, Cameroon President Paul Biya assured the safety of Bakassi-based Nigerians. “I reassure them: their safety and rights will continue to be guaranteed, they will be able as in the past, to continue their lives in peace as long as they abide by the laws of Cameroon.”

Some Nigerians took their loss of Bakassi with outrage, accusing the government of betraying them.

An activist in Bakassi, who asked to remain anonymous, said lingering resentment among returnees could escalate into a full-blown insurgency.

The peninsula has suffered attacks by both Nigerians and Cameroonians over the past year, with casualties registered on both sides.

But the Nigerian military is keen to play down such fears. “There is absolutely no security threat,” said Nigerian military spokesman Mohammed Yusuf, “Threats by whom, to whom?” he asked. “Nothing is happening. There is no problem in Bakassi.”

Nigeria and Cameroon have been praised for the peaceful resolution of their border dispute in a conflict-prone continent with colonial era borders.

But for some the pain incurred by the recent re-drawing of the map will be slow to subside. A prominent Bakassi chief Edet Okon told IRIN, “The emotional and sentimental attachment to one’s ancestral home is not something you can do away with in a short period of time.”

IRIN 

Environmental experts warn gas flaring by the Nigerian oil industry in the southern Delta region causes acid rain, respiratory infections, skins diseases and land degradation in dozens of local communities, but some environmentalists defend the country’s right to continue flaring.

“Nigeria produces almost 25 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in Africa from its gas flaring by oil firms in the Niger-Delta,” said Stefan Cramer, director of the Nigeria office of Heinrinch Boll Stiftung, a German environmental NGO, who spoke to IRIN during a UN-organised climate change conference in Accra.

For decades, gas flaring has been used in Nigeria to separate non-commercial grade gases from the market-worthy crude oil. Nigeria emits 13 percent of the global 150 billion cubic metres of gas flares every year, even though it is only the world’s eighth largest oil producer, Cramer said. Most countries generate power with the gas leftover from oil extraction, rather than burn it.

Cramer said Nigeria’s contribution to the global environmental crisis is still insignificant when compared to industrial countries in Europe, Asia and the United States.

Nigeria not to blame

Christian Teriete, a spokesman for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), said the African continent emits around 40 billion cubic metres of carbon every year, which he says is “negligible” when compared to Europe, Asia and the US.
“It doesn’t make sense for Nigeria and South Africa to reduce their emissions while the industrialised nations [which] are largely responsible for climate change do not make any efforts to reduce theirs,” Teriete said.

Ewah Otu Eleri, head of the Nigerian International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development agreed Africa’s emissions are negligible and their reduction should not be used as a tool to deprive the continent of development.

“Emissions reductions should not be used as a ploy to create obstacles on our [Nigeria’s] way to development. The developed countries should help us with low-carbon technology.”

Failed attempts to outlaw flaring

Nigeria outlawed gas flaring in 1979, planning to completely eliminate it by 1984. In February 2008, the government approved the trapping and converting of gas flares to economic use, expected to earn about US$500 million annually, according to Nigerian energy officials.

Nigeria’s government has shifted the deadline to end gas flaring to the end of the year, but Nigerian environmentalist Eleri said he does not think the government has committed itself to a firm flare out date.

IRIN 

The Niger army says it has seized a stockpile of more than 1,000 anti-personnel landmines it found abandoned on the Niger-Chad border. If confirmed as anti-personnel mines, this would be the first time such a large quantity of these outlawed mines, intended to maim and kill individuals rather than blow up vehicles, has been discovered in Niger.

Both the Niger army and rebels have admitted using anti-vehicle mines, but deny using anti-personnel mines, in an on-going conflict that has claimed at least 300 lives and displaced more than ten thousand in the north.

In 1999, Niger’s government adopted the International Mine Ban Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention, which bans anti-personnel (AP) mines.

AP mines are generally used to target people because it takes as little as five kilograms to detonate one, as opposed to anti-vehicle mines which require a much greater weight. Pressure, a tripwire, or remote control can set off these hard-to-detect mines that can instantaneously amputate or kill a passer by.

AP mine causes fatality

Mai Moctar Kassouma, the president of the Niger government’s Commission for the Collection and the Control of Illicit Weapons, said the army found in eastern Niger a stockpile of hidden, abandoned weapons, including 1,042 AP mines this past July.

While moving the weapons to a military storage barrack in Diffa, Kassouma said a mine accidentally detonated, killing those in the transporting vehicle.

“We are talking about black market, poor quality mines we did not neutralise correctly. They may have been unearthed for resale by smugglers.”

Kassouma said he is not sure whether it was an anti-vehicular mine or AP mine that detonated, but says he is sure it was an AP mine that caused another deadly explosion in Goure on 24 August.

According to Kassouma, the fatal AP mine got mixed in with a stockpile of weapons that ex-rebels were surrendering in a handover ceremony, and caused dozens of injuries and at least one death when a participant stepped on it.

Kassouma says he is not aware of any AP mines that have been planted in Niger during the past year and a half of renewed rebel violence. He added that no international mine experts have evaluated the mines to confirm they are anti-personnel mines.

In February 2007, Niger desert rebels re-launched a decades old conflict against the Niger government demanding more community resources and uranium revenue.

Surge in landmine deaths

As of June 2008, landmine attacks had killed dozens, and wounded about 120, including civilians, according to Niger’s government and international monitors.

Monitors have documented only the use of anti-vehicle mines during this conflict; landmines were largely absent during the last wave of desert violence in the 1990s.

In June 2008, a de-mining commission headed by Kassouma issued a statement declaring Niger free of AP mines. But Kassouma said this statement was never definitive, given the on-going conflict.

“Traffickers are taking advantage of this conflict to try and sell their weapons here, knowing they have a market. Our June 2008 statement qualified that as long as there is conflict, we cannot say AP mines will not appear in Niger.”

Banned, but still available

Though more than 150 countries have adopted the Mine Ban Treaty, the Geneva-based non-governmental organisation International Campaign to Ban Landmines reports there are still 13 producers of AP mines.

Even in countries that have signed the treaty, like Niger’s neighbour Chad, de-mining efforts have been under-funded and delayed by lack of accurate surveys and sporadic, on-going violence between various rebel fronts and the government.

As of 2007, Chad government officials reported clearing 10 square kilometres of an estimated 1,000 square kilometres that may have mines.

Allegation of AP mine build-up

The main Tuareg-led rebel faction, Movement of Nigeriens for Justice, accuses the Niger government of stockpiling AP mines for combat. Rebel leader Aghaly Ag Alambo told IRIN AP mines are worrisome at many levels. “We have learned the army has been buying AP mines, intending to plant them, and then blaming explosions on the rebels. This will be awful for us. Yes, this is a combat zone now, but we are fighting where we live. This is the land that will have to nurture us when the conflict is over. This is the land we hope tourists will revisit, where our animals can graze again.”

Government de-mining commission president Kassouma denied the army is acquiring AP mines for combat, and said he has begun approaching international authorities to deal with the seized AP mines.

The mines are currently being stored in a military barracks in the eastern Niger town of Diffa.

IRIN 

All she saw was blood. Ouma Ibrahim knew it was not normal to have so much blood after delivering her son at home. She consulted a midwife at the nearby Dagamanet Clinic near her Agadez home, who sent her to the regional hospital five kilometres away.

But as evening approached, Ibrahim could not find a neighbour willing to drive her.

Normally, a taxi should have cost US$0.50, but the only taxi driver she found charged $3, “Just because they know they can,” said Ibrahim. “No one wants to be on the streets at night. It just is not safe. Neighbours will pretend they don’t hear knocking, and pleas to borrow their car. If it had been any later, I would have just had to stay at home and wait until morning.”

Fear spreads in Agadez

Agadez, a main entry point to the Air Mountains bordering the Sahara desert, is under a state of alert after northern desert rebels took up arms a year and half ago against the government. All buses and private cars travelling to the north can only do so every other day when military convoys are available.

Until 2007 the town was at the centre of a thriving tourist industry receiving charter flights direct from Europe, but today the government says it is too dangerous for any tourists to visit.

The fighters demand more community investment and a larger share of mining profits from the resource-rich north.

Violence has spilled from the mountains into Ibrahim’s hometown of Agadez, which contains a regional military base in charge of government military operations against the rebels.

Agadez has one of two regional state-funded hospitals that cover the entire northern half of the country.

Drop off at hospital

Last March, government officials decided the Agadez hospital had outgrown its space in the town centre. The available plot of land on the edge of town to construct a new hospital faced the military base. The military base is perceived to be a potential rebel target.
Ibrahim arrived to this hospital 21 August at 20.30, more than 40 minutes after she started bleeding. The hospital’s lead gynaecologist, Dr. Hamadou Idrissa, said the patient was severely anaemic upon arrival, and needed a blood transfusion.

“Since we moved to this site, I have seen a large drop off in those coming to the maternity ward. We have not had any reports of the military stopping people from seeking services at the hospital, but people cannot get past the psychological barrier of seeking care so close to the base.”

The doctor said fear, rather than actual experience, makes people think the military may block them. The military sets up check points at 19.00.

Agadez mayor Abdoulaye Hama said he has ordered a car that will serve as a town ambulance, which is expected to arrive next month. UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has pledged to cover gasoline costs.

Conflict cuts off access

Since violence broke out again last year, Mahaman Hanissou Ouedraogo, director of the UNFPA Agadez office, says it is hard to reach expecting mothers who live beyond town limits, which is roughly where paved roads end. Access to the mountains, which has been the centre of much of the fighting, is strictly cut off.

The most recent information on maternal mortality in Niger was gathered before the latest surge in violence. According to the Niger government, in 2006 about 14,000 women died from pregnancy complications.

“Because of the insecurity, UNFPA does not have access to patients in the mountains [centre of sporadic attacks]. We must send everything through the government. We can’t follow up, and must trust that it is getting to the women, and they are using the kits correctly.”

UNFPA has given 6,000 birthing kits for home deliveries and 3,000 hygienic kits to government officials for distribution in the 15 communes that make up Agadez (the region’s largest commune is also called Agadez).

According to regional statistics, there are 40 functioning government-funded health centres and 79 smaller “huts” in more remote areas in the bush, in addition to the two regional hospitals. According to a government census last month, there are about 400,000 people scattered throughout the desert, mostly nomads far from towns.

Previously, health centres sent out staff in all-terrain vehicles deep into the bush to offer care. But the government has discontinued these mobile health clinics because of the violence.

Ouedraogo says nurses from health centres still use motor bikes to distribute medicine because it is easier for them to manoeuvre the bikes through the risky terrain.

IRIN 

On 17 August 2008 at about 10.30 p.m. (local time), Mr. Paul Abayomi Ogundeji, a member of the editorial board of the Lagos-based private daily newspaper "Thisday", was shot dead in Dopemu, a suburb of Lagos, by yet-to-be identified gunmen.

According to the Nigerian Police, while driving home Ogundeji was ambushed by armed robbers who had earlier stolen another car. The police allege that the bandits ordered him to stop and to open his car door, and that when he refused to obey, the robbers shot him. Nothing was removed from the Kia Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) which he was driving.

However, an eyewitness gave a different account. The unnamed witness said the journalist was shot at close range by men in police uniform who had been manning a roadblock at the location of the shooting. The witness said the victim was stopped by the uniformed men who ordered him to open his door. When he refused to obey, one of the policemen shot him dead and the officers then boarded their vehicle and left the scene. The victim's family believes this version of the incident.

Ogundeji, who joined the editorial board of "ThisDay" about three months before, had worked with several other publications previously, including "The Guardian", "The Punch", and the defunct "Comet" newspapers. He was also chief press secretary to former Lagos state deputy governor Femi Pedro.

This incident comes barely two years after the murder of "ThisDay" newspaper's then-editorial board chairman, Godwin Agbroko, on 22 December 2006. Agbroko was shot dead as he was returning home from the office. His killers have not yet been found.

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Send appeals to the Lagos police commissioner: - calling for a full investigation into the murder of Ogundeji to bring the culprits to justice - urging that he ensure the Nigerian Police, especially the Lagos State Police Command, provide adequate protection to journalists

APPEALS TO:

The Commissioner of Police
Lagos State Police Command
Police Headquaters
Oduduwa Crescent
Off Oba Akinjobi Rd
GRA, Ikeja -Lagos.
Tel: +234 1 017745705 / 7745702; +234 0 8023127351 6

Media Foundation for West Africa

At least 100,000 infants die from the sickle-cell genetic disorder in Nigeria every year, and the country still has the highest incidence of the illness in Africa.

“From available statistics, 100,000 infants die from sickle-cell disease in Nigeria annually, making it the number one sickle-cell endemic country in Africa,” Sadiq Wali, president of the Nigeria Sickle-cell Foundation, told IRIN.

“Based on World Health Organization [WHO] indices, Nigeria accounts for 75 percent of infant sickle-cell cases in Africa and almost 80 percent of infant deaths from the disease in the continent”, Wali said.

According to the WHO, 200,000 infants are born with sickle-cell in Africa every year, with Nigeria accounting for about three-quarters of these births. Sixty percent of the 200,000 will die as infants.

Sickle-cell disease is an incurable genetic disorder widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and among descendents of Africans worldwide. Sufferers have no visible symptoms, but periodically experience severe pain and are also highly prone to anaemia because the blood cells break down after only 10-20 days, rather than the usual four months.

A person can only inherit sickle-cell disorder if both parents are carriers of the genetic trait, and then there is a one in four chance of giving birth to an affected child. WHO says that in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, up to 2 percent of children are born with the condition. For more on this see Africa: Little help for those who suffer from blood disorder.

“This genetic disorder alone accounts for 8 percent of infant mortality in Nigeria which calls for urgent attention”, Wali said.

Around four million Nigerians are estimated to suffer from the disease, while 25 million others carry the genes which they pass to their offspring.

Link with malaria?

According to the WHO, sickle-cell is particularly prevalent in areas of high malarial transmission.

“The mutant sickle-cell gene confers a survival advantage against malaria which explains the prevalence of the disease in Nigeria where malaria is endemic,” explained Ibrahim Musa, a Nigerian medical expert based at Kano general hospital.

Carriers of sickle-cell are less prone to being infected with malaria, which attacks red blood cells. However, those with sickle-cell disease are more vulnerable to malaria because of their weakened health, experts say.

Although sickle-cell in infants is curable through bone marrow transplants, lack of expertise and the high cost of the operation makes preventive measures the best option, medical experts say.

“This is why we advocate genetic counselling by intending couples before marriage to determine the status of their genes”, Nigeria Sickle-cell Foundation’s Wali said.

“People should go for a genetic test in the same way they determine their HIV status before marriage as the most effective way to protect their children and curtail the disease”, he said.

Sickle-cell contributes to 9 percent of deaths in children under five in West Africa, and up to 16 percent in some countries. Sickle-cell has a heavy impact on children: malaria is the leading killer of under-fives in Africa.

IRIN