GHANA-TOGO: Government prepares for refugees’ return

Photo: ACCRA, 28 May 2010 (IRIN) – The Ghanaian government will set up shelters for 1,000 returning refugees who fled to neighbouring Togo to escape violence in Bawku in Upper East region following land disputes that have been mounting since late April. The Togolese authorities had set up temporary camps in Tandjouare, in the north near the Ghanaian border. �It�s an emergency situation and the sooner a coordinated response can be taken, the better,� UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesperson in Ghana, Awurabena Hutchful, told IRIN. Bawku has frequently experienced clashes between residents and migrants who came to the area decades ago to trade and put down roots. The violence often falls along ethnic lines, with the Kusasi and Manprusi pitted against one another. The last major clash took place in 2001 when 28 people were killed. Some 1,000 were killed in clashes over land ownership in 1994 and 1995. UNHCR has provided tents, food and security for the refugees, said Hutchful, and will deliver more non-food items in a few days� time. The agency and the Togolese government counted 3,247 refugees in Togo during a joint assessment, but the Ghana Deputy Information Minister disputes the figure, saying just 1,000 refugees need shelter. A Ghana government team is being set up to rebuild all the houses that were destroyed in Bawku. Three trucks loaded with roofing sheets have already been dispatched. In the interim, �the government will have the refugee camp in Togo relocated here [Ghana] even if the rebuilding will be too long. We are of the view that it is better for them to be in Ghana instead of Togo,� said Deputy Information Minister, Samuel Okudjato Ablakwa. The decision followed a 26 May meeting between Ghanaian President Atta Mills and Togolese national security coordinator, Gbevlo Lartey, and other Togolese officials to discuss a solution to the crisis. em/aj/mw source.irinnews

NEPAL: Water crisis intensifies

Photo: Naresh Newar/IRIN

KATHMANDU, 31 May 2010 (IRIN) – Access to safe drinking water is deteriorating across parts of Nepal, activists say, despite the prevailing monsoon season from May until September.

According to the Federation of Drinking Water and Sanitation Users Nepal, a national network advocating water and sanitation rights, half the country now faces drinking water shortages.

Although a study has yet to be conducted on the current scenario, water experts claim more than 20 districts in both the hills and Terai areas of the country have been badly affected.

�This situation could affect a large number of families who have already been reeling under the immense water shortage situation over the last many years,� Ajaya Dixit, director of the Nepal Water Conservation Foundation told IRIN.

According to government statistics, more than 4.4 million people in the Himalayan nation do not have regular access to safe drinking water in rural and urban areas, be it via piped water, wells, rainwater or bottled water.

�With water sources drying up, erratic rainfall and poor management of water resources, the problems are worsening every year,� said Prakash Amatya from the NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation.

Public health concerns are increasing as a result. Already, more than 10,500 children die before their fifth birthday from diarrhoea, mainly due to inadequate access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, according to WaterAid. More than 80 percent of diseases are the result of unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation, according to its 2009 report, End Water Poverty campaign journey in Nepal.

Worsening water crisis

Villagers in remote districts such as Dadeldhura, Doti, Surkhet and dozens of others in western Nepal, all more than 500km from the capital, are already suffering, social workers say.

�A lot of people are taking desperate measures by spending more than five hours every day to fetch water from far-off rivers,� said Anju Karki, a healthcare volunteer in Doti.

The government has more than 50,000 healthcare volunteers who work closely with the rural communities and are also a major source of information for NGOs, media and government where there is limited access.

nn/ds/mw source.irinnews

GLOBAL: Asia most at risk from natural disasters *

Photo: Maplecroft

Natural disaster index 2010 – click here for larger view (pdf)

NAIROBI, 31 May 2010 (IRIN) – Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran and Pakistan top a new ranking of countries at “extreme risk” of experiencing natural disasters compiled by a global risk assessment company.

The Natural Disaster Risk Index (NDRI), released on 27 May by Maplecroft, ranks 229 countries according to the human impact of natural disasters in terms of deaths per annum and per million of population, plus the frequency of events as well as the likelihood of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, storms, flooding, droughts, landslides, extreme temperatures and epidemics. Asia accounts for most of the disaster-related deaths since 1980.

Ranking countries most vulnerable to natural disasters over the past 30 years could enable businesses and investors to identify risks to international assets while supporting humanitarian efforts to push governments into investing in disaster risk reduction initiatives.

African countries at extreme risk are Ethiopia, Sudan and Mozambique, with 95 percent of casualties due to drought. Since 1980 drought has caused 9,800 deaths in Ethiopia, 5,300 in Sudan (ranked fifth) and over 3,400 in Mozambique (ninth).

According to experts, unlike earthquakes and storms, drought damage is more difficult to detect, both in terms of human lives and economic loss because it is a slow onset disaster.

Whereas France and Italy, respectively ranked 17 and 18, are the most vulnerable countries in Europe because of the 40,000 people who died in heat waves in 2003 and 2006, the US, with more than 8,000 lives lost over 30 years, is highly susceptible to hurricanes and storms and ranked 37th.

Haiti and China are respectively at numbers eight and 12 among the countries at highest risk. The earthquake in Qinghai Province on 13 April 2010, of almost the same magnitude as the one that hit Haiti on 12 January, cost the lives of 2,187 people, against 230,000 who died in Haiti.

The countries least at risk are Andorra, Bahrain, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Qatar, San Marino and the United Arab Emirates.

In line with the data produced by Maplecroft, a study by the UN Development Programme says that 85 percent of the people exposed to earthquakes, tropical cyclones, floods and droughts in the past 10 years live in countries having either medium or low human development.

Pedro Dabase, head of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (ISDR) regional office for Africa, told IRIN: �In these types of rankings, the variables to look at are the time period of analysed data, types of hazards and vulnerabilities to natural disasters. This is because countries that face similar patterns of natural hazards often experience widely differing impacts when disasters occur, depending in large part on the kind of development choices they have made.

�If one looks at the frequency of earthquakes and cyclones in Haiti in the past 100 years, the situation of the country would not be considered as worrisome, unlike the past 10 years, with great human losses caused by flooding almost every year and hurricanes in 2004, 2005 and 2008.

�In terms of impacts for example, the recent earthquake in Chile, of the same magnitude as Haiti, recorded about 100,000 deaths but in terms of economic losses it registered US$22 billion, versus the $8 billion estimated for Haiti. Therefore, the vulnerability of Chile in terms of economic loss is higher than Haiti, which instead caused more losses in terms of human lives,� Dabase told IRIN.

Figures produced by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters�(CRED) at the beginning of 2010 highlighted that in the past 10 years 3,852 disasters killed more than 780,000 people, affecting more than two billion and causing an economic loss of $960 billion.

According to ISDR, earthquakes, followed by storms (22 percent) and extreme temperatures (11 percent) are the deadliest natural hazards of the past 10 years and remain a serious threat to millions of people worldwide.

ISDR also ranked the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 as the most deadly disaster of the decade, with 226,408 deaths; followed by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008, which killed 138,366 people, and the Sichuan earthquake in China in 2008, causing the deaths of 87,476 people.

�Due to climate change, extreme hydro-meteorological events are predicted to increase and given the impact on the countries not at risk of being directly affected by natural disaster, we advise the need for even the wealthiest countries to focus on disaster risk reduction,� said Maplecroft�s environmental analyst, Anna Moss.

cp/mw source.irinnews