Two legal practitioners, Lô Gourmo Abdoul and Moulay El Ghaly Ould Moulay Ely, lawyers for Khatou Mint El Boukhary Foundation, named after the wife of deposed president Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheik Abdallah, were arrested on October 6, 2008 in Southern Mauritania by the Border Police and prevented from travelling to neighbouring Senegal.
They were however released after three hours.

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) correspondent reported that Abdul is an executive member of the Union of Progressive Forces, and a leading member of the National Front for the Defence of Democracy (FNDD) that opposed the August 6, 2008 coup d’etat.

The police who released the two lawyers gave no reason for the arrest except to say that they had received orders from ‘above’ to prevent the two lawyers from crossing the border.

After their release, Abdul told the press that the ruling Junta is suspected to have prepared a list of 200 citizens who would be prevented from leaving Mauritania.

As part of the campaign to crack down on groups opposed to the August 6, 2008 coup, the police also used tear gas and batons to disperse a peaceful protest march held on  October 5, 2008 in Nouakchott by the FNDD, comprising up of Mauritanian political parties opposed to the coup.

Media Foundation for West Africa 

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 

GRA management thanked Mr. Gaye and his staff and urged them to continue the trend as it serves to enable the GRA to meet its revenue targets and even exceed them. According to the letter, GRA management are keeping track of Mr. Gaye’s records and find them very encouraging. The letter is signed by Mr. Madi Jobarteh the head of corporate and public affairs at GRA.

Mr. Gaye, for his part, said this great achievement was made possible during his five months at Amdallan Border Post.

It will be recalled that in 2003 when Mr. Gaye was posted to LRR as a customs preventive officer he increased the regions revenue collection from D6,000 to D10,000. In 2006 Mr. Gaye was moved to URR as CPO and also increased that regions revenue fromD329,854 to D 1,003,341 between July 2005 and July 2006. This was the first time such a large percentage gain had been seen at that post.

During his two years and seven months posting in URR he received two letters of appreciation and recognition from GRA management for his impressive revenue collection in the region.

The border between South Africa and Zimbabwe is more than an international boundary; it also determines the method of payment for sex workers, because on one side cash is taken, while on the other, goods are bartered.

The South African frontier town of Musina is a regional trucking hub that has long been a haunt of sex workers, who use the boredom of truck drivers waiting for their cargo to be cleared by customs as a window of opportunity.

"Women tempt us. They come here in their short skirts and tight jeans and ask us if we want to have a good time," a Zimbabwean truck driver, who declined to be identified, told IRIN. "Naturally, as men, at times it is tough to say, 'no'. I use protection whenever I have sex with a woman."

The transmission of HIV/AIDS among truck drivers has been recognised as an important factor in spreading the virus, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has targeted Musina for HIV/AIDS awareness education since 1999, as part of their "Corridors of Hope" project.

"Shayela nge condom" ("drive with a condom" in the Zulu language) says a mural at the Musina taxi rank, while other wall paintings shout the advice: "Play it safe, AIDS kills" and "Don't take a chance, always use a condom."

Susan - one of the sex workers frequenting the truck parks, who charges R50 (US$6.50) for "a short time" and R150 (US$19.50) for the night - told IRIN that the growing number of sex workers was making it difficult to get these rates. "At times, I can settle for R100 ((US$13) for the night. It is better than nothing - there are more women here."
Another Zimbabwean truck driver, who identified himself only as Dube, said there were now more sex workers from Zimbabwe, and he did not know where truck drivers could get free condoms.

"The situation in Zimbabwe has seen more women trying to make quick money by offering their services to us [in South Africa]. They just want money that will enable them to take care of their families back home," he said.

"The women in South Africa are expensive, but across the border in Zimbabwe you can have a great time for a few bars of soap, and goods like salt and sugar."

Zimbabwe's economy is in meltdown, with more than 80 percent unemployment and an annual inflation rate officially estimated at 2.2 million percent, although some independent economists have put it at about 12 million percent.

South Africa, the continent's economic power house, has become a magnet for Zimbabweans seeking work and an escape from the grinding poverty at home. More than three million Zimbabweans - around a quarter of the population - are thought to have left the country since 2000 for neighbouring states, or further afield for England, Canada and Australia.

The 1999 Corridors of Hope research project, carried out before Zimbabwe's crisis, noted that "The HIV vulnerability of young women, including schoolgirls and young vendors, who seek an income from commercial or casual sex with truckers and other groups of older men with income, is distressingly high."

The report said there were at least 400 permanent, full-time sex workers, and another 300 transient sex workers who visited the town at peak times. "The youngest are aged 15. Most sex workers stay in the informal settlements or low-income suburbs and travel to the border to solicit truckers at the border truck stop."

IRIN

Abdoulaye, a Malian, spent more than US$500 to try to reach Spain across the Sahara, but he was caught by the Spanish authorities in Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the northern coast of Morocco and sent home 21 days later.

A few months on, he remains undeterred. “Of course I was discouraged by my experience, but I am going to try again,” he told IRIN. He is currently working doing odd jobs to try to earn enough for another package to Europe.

There are no official estimates of how many migrants arrive in Gao, one of the three main jumping off points for the journey across the Sahara to Europe. Migrants make the 1,200 kilometre journey from Bamako mostly on top of over-loaded trucks and wagons.

“I get at least 20 people a week coming to ask for assistance,” said an official in Gao’s regional administration who says would-be migrants from all over West Africa come to him asking for money to get to the Mali-Algerian border, or up to Kidal 1,100 km north of Bamako where they settle for a few months to accrue more money before continuing on their journey.

“There is no clear way to help them,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

A joint initiative between the government and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has been launched with the hope of persuading young people not to make the perilous journey across the Sahara and the Atlantic to reach Europe. Each year scores of people die on the way, although no one can give an accurate figure because of the vast scale of the poorly-policed region.

The month-long campaign, begun on 20 June is designed to show people what can go wrong on a journey to Europe, using sketches and songs written by failed migrants who talk about their experiences.

The initiative comes amid increasing concern by the Malian government and IOM about the number of people gathering in the northern town of Gao.

“Every week hundreds of people are coming” says Abdoulaye, “There are people from Niger, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, all over West Africa.”

Nicola Graviano, head of the IOM office in Bamako told IRIN “We are spread on in the three main regions of departure, Kayes, Sikasso and Gao… We’ve designed the activities – concerts and debates, to try to reflect people’s real experiences as closely as possible.”

“We know an information campaign is not the ultimate panacea, but the realities of illegal migration are there for everyone to see. It’s important that potential migrants understand that they risk losing their life and all their money – everything that a family or village has saved up for them.”

But these risks are lost on people like Abdoulaye, whose main motivation is lack of work.

“It’s too hard here, there are young people who get married, have families but there is nothing for them to do,” he complained.

Mafia gangs

And even when people are made aware of the potential hazards of irregular migration, they face other hazards such as being targeted by people-smuggling gangs, known as ‘coxers’, who lie in wait in Bamako and Gao to exploit vulnerable young people.

One area of Gao is so full of coxers and migrants that it has become known unofficially as the ‘ghetto’, according to an official in the regional administration, who also asked not to be named.

Sicko Diariba is head of department for Economic Promotion and Reinsertion at the Ministry for Malians Abroad, the government department that handles the cases of migrants who are thrown out of Europe, and she says she is ready to tackle the gangs head-on.

“We are going to target these smugglers who are like a mafia gang. They are people who don’t care about taking money from innocent young people. We will do everything to block the work of these people,” she said.

But she is thin on the detail. “We are just beginning our work, but we will have a system that goes right back to the migrants’ villages.”

The Malian government argues that it is already working to improve Malians’ job prospects. This month the government launched a series of vocational training workshops in various skills and has pledged to create more than 50,000 jobs across the country over five years.

The European Commission (EC) is also pitching in. Later this year, alongside the Malian government, it will open a job centre in Bamako to try to find people employment within the West African sub-region. In the future, Gabin Hamann, head of co-operation at the EC delegation in Bamako, says it may also try to link potential migrants with legal migration opportunities to Europe.

“If people are emigrating now it’s because they have a lack of perspective in their own countries, lack of health care and lack of access to jobs”, said Hamann. “We want to improve the living conditions of people here so they can stay in their own country.”

IRIN 

Niger’s Ministry of Livestock is intensifying its bird surveillance along the 1,500-kilometre border with northern Nigeria after a recent resurgence of bird deaths.

The Ministry of Livestock in Niger has ordered the killing of more than 20,000 birds suspected of carrying the virus since 2006. It has also paid about US$46,000 in compensation to farmers with sick birds to encourage them to hand over infected animals.

Officials in the northern Nigeria states Kebbi, Kano and Katsina reported several thousand poultry deaths on 29 July. Birds have been sent to laboratories in Italy to determine if the H5N1 avian flu virus is responsible.

Two years ago, a bird flu outbreak in Nigeria spread north to Niger. Niger’s Director of Animal Services, Dr. Maiga Zourkaleni, is preparing a team that will visit high-risk border areas Zinder, Maradi, Dosso and Tahoua. “We are working as hard as we can to prevent another cross-border infection,” he said.

Zourkaleni says his team will reinforce a ban on all poultry products coming from Nigeria. The avian flu director says hundreds of inspectors already work in the high-risk zone along the Nigerian border.

“Our team will continue to raise awareness about the virus’ reappearance in nearby Nigeria. We will make sure inspectors are actively blocking any illegal imports, and that they quickly act on any suspected cases.”

Most West African countries, including Niger, have already banned poultry imports from Nigeria, a policy that the UN Food and Agricultural Organization says is counterproductive.

“To put a ban on anything when you do not have the means to control ports of entry pushes people into clandestine trade,” said Juan Lubroth, the director of infectious diseases at the FAO.

“Clandestine commerce makes things worse because you cannot control and monitor the problem. Bans on poultry are not functional. This is a part of the world where there has been cross border trade for centuries… Managing risks makes more biological sense.”

While more than 140 million birds have died worldwide as a result of H5N1 infections, the virus has not caused a human epidemic, as experts have feared since its resurgence five years ago. According to the World Health Organization, about 200 people have died from contracting the H5N1 virus.

Alex Thiermann with the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health says it is critical to remain vigilant.

“People become complacent when you predict an emergency and it doesn’t come. However, the risk of a pandemic hasn’t disappeared. The virus has been good to humans thus far; even though it is highly mutative, it does not yet easily infect humans. But we don’t know what will happen. My advice is deal with this problem in poultry, then, we won’t have to deal with it in humans.”

IRIN 

About seven people from the border village of Giboro in Kombo East are currently on trial after being embroiled in a dispute over land.

The seven men, including the Alkalo of Giboro, have reportedly descended on the settlement of Gidda and damaged properties there-in. The act, which occurred in November of 2007, was said to have been provoked by an alleged encroachment on the land of Giboro by the inhabitants of Gidda.

The case, in the meantime, resumed on Friday at the Brikama Magistrates’ Court. At Friday’s court session, the counsel for the seven beleaguered men, Borry Touray, continued with the cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses. Earlier, the prosecution officer, 413 Sanyang, objected to the application of counsel Touray to quiz his witnesses. Sanyang argued that Touray was just trying to lengthen the case as he could have cross-examined the witnesses since November if he had so wished.

But magistrate John Njie exercised his rule over the matter, disallowed Sanyang’s arguments and allowed counsel Touray to quiz the prosecution witnesses.

Lawyer Touray, in cross-examining the 1st prosecution witness, Nuha Badjie, asked Badjie about his age and if he was in the knowledge that it was the people of Giboro who gave land to the people Gidda. In response, Badjie said he was 50 but that he was not aware if it was the residents of Giboro that welcomed the people of Gidda. Further quizzing Badjie, counsel Touray wanted to know why the need for a boundary between Giboro and Gidda. Badjie, in his reply, maintained that Giboro did not want Gidda to record an expansive growth.

At that point, the case was adjourned for further hearings. 

Land dispute is one of the thorny issues confronting our traditional administrations and the problem has now assumed an alarming proportion.

About 95 people are awaiting the result of their trial for allegedly launching an attack on the village of Babylon in Kombo North. Houses and properties were destroyed in the wake of the attack, which was reportedly engendered by a dispute over land.

Fighting in recent years in eastern Chad between the government and rebels has usually taken place away from civilian populations, but in the latest battle on 1 April more than 50 civilians were killed and injured.

“One was a little girl who picked up an unexploded ordinance which then exploded in her face,” Jan Peter Stellema, head of mission in Chad for the non-governmental organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), told IRIN.

The fighting, which took place in Adé near the border with Sudan, left seven civilians dead and 47 wounded, he said.

Medical workers from MSF and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) treated the injured civilians on the spot in Adé expect for the nine most serious cases which were transferred to facilities at the regional capital Goz Beida.

Stellema said MSF is “pleased that access had been granted to treat the civilians”, but he also expressed concern that Adé's 1,000 inhabitants and the 10,000 displaced Chadians living alongside them remain vulnerable to attack and that they have been neglected by international aid agencies.

"Adé has one of the most underserved populations in eastern Chad. The UN has not gone there because of security concerns nor are other humanitarian groups present.”

Only MSF and the ICRC have projects in the area, Stellema said. “MSF is providing health care but people there need is so much more."

Representatives at ICRC expressed concern that an escalation of the fighting would further hamper the delivery of humanitarian assistance adding that the high number of civilian causalities at Adé was a worrying development.

”The type and setting of past armed confrontations in eastern Chad has led to a very limited number of civilian causalities,” ICRC deputy head in Chad Nicholai Panke told IRIN by email. “ICRC calls on all parties to [continue to] spare civilians from hostilities.”

Hundreds of civilians were killed in Chad’s capital N’djamena in early February when rebels temporarily entered the city. Some of the civilian causalities occurred when government forces attacked rebels with helicopter gun ships, observers told IRIN.

In the meantime border tensions are mounting with Sudan reportedly accusing Chad of sending a helicopter into Darfur which bombed the town of Um Kenjub, and firing a missile on the Sudanese military in the area. Chad’s government denied the report.

Following the 1 April attack in Adé, 47 injured soldiers were flown by the French army, which is based in Chad, for treatment in hospitals in the eastern town of Abeche and N’djamena, a diplomat who asked to remain anonymous told IRIN.

IRIN contacted a French commander in Chad but he would not comment.

State radio said on 3 April that the army recuperated 45 heavily armed pickups that the rebels had abandoned. There is no information on numbers of rebels injured but ICRC confirmed the Chadian army had taken prisoners.

“ICRC will visit them over the next days to monitor their conditions of detention, as we usually do with all captured opposition fighters in Chad,” Panke said.

IRIN

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is to step up the repatriation of Southern Sudanese refugees from Uganda, despite logistical constraints that have slowed progress.

"We expect that up to 50,000 refugees will be repatriated this year," the high commissioner, Antonio Guterres, told reporters in the Ugandan capital of Kampala on 6 March. "Logistics have not been enough ... [but] people want to return home."

Guterres, who visited northern Uganda where most of the thousands of Sudanese refugees live, said UNHCR would double the number of returnees going back each week.

According to government statistics, Uganda hosts 174,000 refugees, including 97,000 Sudanese, after some 60,000 returned home spontaneously in recent years. The current numbers include 39,000 from Democratic Republic of Congo, 18,000 from Rwanda and about 17,000 from Kenya. Since May 2006, UNHCR has helped nearly 35,000 refugees return to South Sudan from Uganda under its repatriation programme.

During a visit to Madi Okollo camp in Arua district on 5 March, Guterres told residents: "When I met with your leaders we agreed that we should intensify the return operation."

Together with the Luxembourg Minister for Development, Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Jean-Louis Schiltz, and Uganda's Minister of Relief and Disaster Preparedness, Tarsis Kabwegyere, Guterres flagged off a convoy carrying 450 refugees to Magwi County, South Sudan.

"Just as we have supported you on this side of the border [in Uganda], we will not forget you in South Sudan," the Luxembourg minister said. "I want to ask you to take up the opportunity for return." Luxembourg is UNHCR's top donor per capita, contributing US$25 per inhabitant in 2006 and 2007.

Many of the refugees in Madi Okollo camp sought shelter at the height of fighting between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Talks are currently going on in Juba to end the conflict, which lasted more than two decades.

Guterres told reporters in Kampala that he hoped pressure on UNHCR operations in Uganda would ease once there was more commitment to political engagement and reconciliation in Kenya, where recent political violence had forced civilians across the border.

"We have been visiting the Kenyan refugees and we felt there was still some anxiety among the people," he said. "Many people are afraid to go back. I want to appeal to the new government to carry out national and local engagement so that the people can return."

A political settlement to a disputed December election was reached last week in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, but according to UNHCR, the refugees living in Mulanda, near the Uganda-Kenya border, are still cautious about returning to their homes.

"Many say they are waiting to see how the political settlement will be translated into reconciliation in the border town from where they fled," a UNHCR statement said.

Health officials from Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso have agreed on a cross-border strategy to combat the spread of the meningitis infection.

“From now on as soon as there is a [meningitis] outbreak in either of our countries the other country should be informed immediately so we can start planning, and mobilise our resources together,” Jean Denouma, assistant director-general of the Côte d’Ivoire health ministry said.

The Burkina Faso authorities requested an emergency meeting after they realised most of the new cases in the towns of Mandogara and Banfora and the village of Helintira near the Cote d’Ivoire border and the village of Helintira in the southwest, were made up from Ivorians who were crossing the border, Denouma said.

The Burkina Faso health authorities feared if the two countries did not coordinate, their vaccination campaigns to combat the spread of the infection would fail, said Sylvestre Tiendrébéogo, director of Burkina Faso’s disease control centre. 61 percent of cases at health centres close to the border in Burkina Faso came from Côte d’Ivoire.

Health officials on both sides of the border are most concerned about the situation in the town of Moussokanto which straddles both countries, fearing if the infection is not brought under control it could spread to Bondoukou and Bouna in Cote d’Ivoire, both of which have reported cases and have not vaccinated people since 2005, according to Ivorian officials.

The two countries agreed to conduct synchronised vaccination campaigns, to vaccinate border populations free of charge, and to improve joint epidemiologic surveillance in border regions.

“It is a trans-border epidemic that needs to be managed by authorities from both countries,” said Mamadou Guingaré, a World Health Organization (WHO) official.