File photo: Chadian rebels train in one of their camps on the Sudan-Chad border, February 10, 2006 REUTERS/Opheera McDoom
Chad&${esc.hash}39;s on the boil, fertiliser&${esc.hash}39;s in fashion in Africa and cocaine&${esc.hash}39;s red hot in Kenya...News has come through this morning of the death of the commander of Chad&${esc.hash}39;s army, a nephew of President Idriss Deby. Military sources say he died from injuries sustained during clashes with a key rebel group and Sudanese government-backed janjaweed militia from Darfur in the eastern area of Moudeina.
In recent weeks, violence along the border with Chad has been on the rise, with villagers being displaced by militia attacks. The area is highly volatile, and Deby has long been concerned that the Sudanese government is backing Chadian rebels and janjaweed incursions to destabilise him.
In a separate development, the U.N. refugee agency has condemned the seizure by armed groups of several hundred Sudanese refugees from camps in eastern Chad for military training in neighbouring Darfur. It says it&${esc.hash}39;s not yet clear who carried out the recruiting operation.
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Further bad news on food security in Africa &${esc.hash}39; a new report from the Alabama-based International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development reveals that around three-quarters of Africa&${esc.hash}39;s farmland has been severely degraded and no longer contains the nutrients needed to grow key crops successfully. According to Britain&${esc.hash}39;s Independent newspaper, the worst-affected countries are Guinea Bissau, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.
The report says population pressure has caused African farmers to plant crop after crop, without fallow periods. Lack of access to fertilisers (fertiliser use in Africa is less than 10 percent of the world average) is also forcing African farmers to use marginal land. All this explains why productivity has remained stagnant, leading to rising malnourishment. The &${esc.hash}39;Africa Fertiliser Summit&${esc.hash}39; in June in Nigeria will look at ways to address this soil crisis and revitalise agriculture in the region.
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Reports are coming through of increasingly violent conflict between pastoral communities in drought-hit Kenya. According to Kenya&${esc.hash}39;s Nation newspaper, herders from the North Eastern Province have invaded farms in Coast and Eastern provinces looking for water and grazing land, and cattle raids are taking place. The paper says the movement of the pastoralists has sparked robberies, poaching and outbreaks of livestock disease. Authorities in six districts are planning talks to find a solution.
Earlier in the week, the Nairobi-based East Africa newspaper reported that the drought had also triggered clashes between Kenyan and Ugandan pastoralists on the border. Hundreds of Kenyan families have crossed the border in search of fertile grazing land. Livestock raids are on the increase, and at least six Kenyans are reported to have died in clashes between the Ugandan Dodoth tribe and Kenyan Turkana.
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Sticking with Kenya, the authorities have set light to one of Africa&${esc.hash}39;s biggest drug hauls today: 1.1 metric tons of cocaine are being burned in two incinerators. The cocaine, with a value of ${esc.dollar}88 million, was seized by police last year in the coastal town of Malindi. The BBC says falling drug prices and a number of arrests of Kenyan Airways staff carrying cocaine into the UK have fuelled speculation that some of the consignment may have leaked onto the market. The eight-hour incineration is seen as a PR exercise to quash such rumours. Apparently, officials reassured invited witnesses they would not be affected by the fumes emanating from the incinerators... Perhaps some had been hoping otherwise!
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The World Food Programme is set to miss its April 1 target to resume operations in North Korea. as it has yet to reach agreement on conditions with Pyongyang, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo. Spokesperson Gerald Bourke told the wire that negotiations are continuing. At the end of last year, the WFP pulled out of the reclusive country after North Korea said it no longer needed humanitarian assistance and wanted to shift to longer-term development support. Discussions have begun over a downsized two-year food aid programme, but the operating conditions Pyongyang wants to impose are proving a sticking point.
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Displacement near the Guinea-Bissau/Senegal borderis a story we&${esc.hash}39;ve been watching this week. The International Committee of the Red Cross said this morning that clashes between Senegalese separatists and the Guinea-Bissau army have displaced as many as 7,000 civilians on both sides of the border. The local bureau of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs puts the number at 8,100. According to the ICRC, many are being sheltered by relatives and friends but some 700 are living in a makeshift camp on the Senegalese side. The ICRC is supplying basic relief supplies and helping provide transport, in tandem with local Red Cross societies.
Megan Rowling AlertNet reporter
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