The man is said to have been found in his hired room while in company of 6 young boys ages 3 to 10. The media in Norway reports that the man had served a sentence some in 2006 Norway after he was  found guilty of sexually abusing his own son. The abuse lasted for 3 years before he was discovered. His son who is now in his teens is still undergoing therapy.

His ex-wife says the family have suffered a lot due to the man’s behaviour and that the son is still unstable due to psychological scars inflicted.

Now that the man has been arrested in Gambia, if found guilty he may get 14 years sentence.

When he was found guilty of molesting his own son in Norway, he only got one year and ten months in jail, a sentence his ex-wife says was very lenient.

Chief editor Korir, African Press International

SRI LANKA: Stigma stifles HIV reporting

Photo: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/IRIN

Migrant workers like this one in Sri Lanka are reported to form half of those infected with HIV in the country

COLOMBO, 28 December 2010 (IRIN) – Reducing social stigma and improving awareness is needed to better monitor and prevent the spread of HIV in Sri Lanka, experts say.

HIV prevalence in Sri Lanka is relatively low: The latest government figures (December 2009) indicated 1,196 cases – less than 0.1 percent of people aged 15-49, and less than 1 percent of those in high-risk groups.

However, accurate assessment of HIV prevalence is difficult as social stigma and lack of knowledge make HIV prevention and information campaigns difficult. UNAIDS estimates the total number of infections is at least three times higher than indicated by official figures.

“The numbers are probably under-reported,” David Bridger, UNAIDS country coordinator, told IRIN. “What we really need to do is to concentrate on risk.”

“People know that AIDS is dangerous,” said Mohamed Naseer, coordinator of Positive Women’s Network (PWN), a national non-profit network of persons living with HIV. “Beyond that, they know very little else.”

Public efforts to spread knowledge about HIV have sometimes raised opposition, Naseer said.

On 10 December, a PWN director appeared on national TV to speak about HIV prevalence in Sri Lanka. The next day the PWN office was bombarded with threatening phone calls, and taxi drivers refused to give a lift to the official in question.

“We [people] are scared that we can get HIV by just sitting next to a victim,” Naseer said.

The stigma around HIV makes HIV-positive people reluctant to disclose their status or even get tested, warned a joint report by UNAIDS and the Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka entitled People Living with HIV Stigma Index Sri Lanka.

According to Bridger from UNAIDS, this makes it hard to launch programmes targeting high-risk groups, including migrant workers, since no one is sure which those groups are based on prevalence.

Migrant workers

Job recruiters in the Middle East require HIV testing for Sri Lankan migrant workers, and preliminary results indicate HIV infection rates could be on the rise for this group.

More than half of reported HIV-positive cases in Sri Lanka are migrant workers, according to a November 2010 UN report, HIV and Mobility in South Asia.

With over a million Sri Lankans working overseas, and more people travelling since the end of a decades-long civil conflict in May 2009, Bridger warned that HIV monitoring is increasingly important.

“Sri Lanka is returning to normalcy… Tourism is taking off… The impact of this on the spread of HIV? This is a question we need an answer for.”

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source http://www.irinnews.org

SUDAN: Southern returnee deluge leaves aid workers in a quandary

Photo: Paul Banks/UNMIS

A Southern Sudanese returnee family residing in a school premises (file photo)

AWEIL, 28 December 2010 (IRIN) – Build camps and run the risk of long-term dependence, or build nothing and watch basic needs grow: this is the dilemma facing aid workers in Southern Sudan amid an unexpectedly large deluge of people leaving the north of the country in the run-up to January’s secession referendum in the south.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), some 92,000 people of southern origin, many of them displaced during decades of civil war, had crossed from north to south between October and 22 December, and the rate of return was increasing.

The problem is that many are returning by bus, dropped off in major southern towns with no means of completing their journey to their area of origin.

When IRIN visited Aweil, capital of Northern Bahr al Ghazal State, recently, some 5,000 returnees were stuck in limbo there after spending a week on the road.

They were waiting for basic lifesaving assistance, such as water, emergency health services, and latrines, and also waiting for any word from the state government on what was in store for them next.

A week later, a UN official in the area told IRIN these returnees were still camped in the open air in a makeshift settlement that continued to swell with new arrivals.

“Establishing a formal camp means that people become used to the assistance that is given in the camp, [which] creates resistance to the closure and elimination of these camps,” said Giovanni Bosco, head of OCHA in Southern Sudan.

As Southern Sudan looks towards likely independence following its 9 January referendum, the prospect of multiple new camps outside towns in potentially volatile border states like Northern Bahr al Ghazal and Upper Nile is a significant concern, given the already low levels of infrastructure in the south and the imperative of beginning long-term development work after independence.

“It can take years to close a camp and to do a proper resettlement with durable solutions,” added Bosco.

Makeshift arrival settlements

The dire situation in the makeshift arrival settlements, however, is necessitating a response that the aid community admits could have long-term consequences.

“In an emergency environment and if a population is in need, regardless of where they are, we step in and try to provide them with assistance,” said Lise Grande, who coordinates UN humanitarian operations in the south.

“But we’re very clear that the reinsertion package, which is usually about three months worth of food and support to their households… needs to be delivered in points of final destination. The overall policy is not to have the transit sites become returnee camps,” she said. “But if people are in trouble in transit areas, of course we are going to respond.”

A day before the convoy of more than 600 families was expected to arrive in Aweil, Daniel Gar, the Northern Bahr al Ghazal State official in charge of facilitating their arrival through the government’s Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, said the government was expecting more than 87,000 to return before the referendum.

Allocation of land plots

Asked how the government planned to cope with the influx of new arrivals, Gar said his government “did not have much to give aside from plots [of land].”

“We are asking for the support of the UN agencies and aid groups,” he said.

When the Southern Sudanese government announced in August its plan to bring 1.5 million southerners home before the independence referendum, UN agencies including the International Organization for Migration decided that the organized returns programme proposed by the government could not be led by the international community given the time constraints and the likelihood that this particular returns effort could be interpreted as a political process, notably by the Khartoum government.

In the absence of significant international support for the process, the initial funds allocated by the southern government and by state governments have proven insufficient to support the high numbers of returns, particularly the final step of moving people from the urban centres where they arrive by bus to “points of final destination” in villages and rural areas.

According to OCHA in the southern capital, Juba, and to aid groups operating in towns like Aweil, the problems of funds for transport and the government’s lag in allocating plots for new arrivals in some areas is directly contributing to the threat of the creation of camps.

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source http://www.irinnews.org

NEPAL: Resettlement of Bhutanese refugees gathers momentum

Photo: Brendan Brady/IRIN

Thousands have been resettled

TIMAI, 27 December 2010 (IRIN) – When most of Bhutan’s ethnic-Nepali minority fled their country in the early 1990s, most assumed they would eventually return. But nearly two decades on, this refugee population, which once numbered more than 110,000, has all but abandoned hope of repatriation.

That was not the case in 2007, when the resettlement process was first brokered, said David Derthick, head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Damak, a town in eastern Nepal which acts as the operational centre for seven surrounding refugee camps.

Some in the camps discouraged others from signing up for resettlement, for fear that it would reduce pressure on Bhutan, the UN and international community to reach an agreement on repatriation. Others were holding out for different reasons, still determined to return to their homeland to reclaim their property and live in a familiar environment.

But earlier this month, the 40,000th refugee was resettled, crystallizing a reality that has a snow-ball effect – it is all but certain none will be repatriated.

Of those resettled, 85 percent are living in the USA. The rest are in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and the UK. They have been influential advocates of resettlement, said Derthick.

“[The] people that they trust – the friends and family they have lived with for a couple of decades in the camps – have written [to] them and said, ‘Come’.” The population of one of the camps – Timai – has declined from 10,400 in 2007 to around 7,000 because of resettlement.

73,000 still in camps

“I’m not sure where I want to go but anywhere is better than staying here,” said Phul Maya Tamang, a 30-year-old mother who added that resettled friends and family she talks to by phone tell her they are earning reasonable wages and living a better, if still difficult, life.

Photo: Brendan Brady/IRIN

More than 100,000 ethnic Nepalese fled their native Bhutan

Remittances, via Western Union branches just outside the camps, underscore the economic opportunities available to those who have resettled. For refugees remaining in Timai, options for earning money are few and unrewarding, and unofficial labour in nearby factories and fields is poorly paid since the refugees have no bargaining power.

Of the roughly 73,000 remaining in the camps, only 18,000 have yet to apply for resettlement, says the IOM. But that number is fast-dwindling, as the IOM receives 1,000 new resettlement applications every month.

Dhan Kumar Gurung, 42, who is bound for Toronto, Canada, on 11 January along with his wife and four children, said his preference had been to return to Bhutan but that “he’s going to Canada for the sake of his children… [who] need a real future.”

Exodus

The conflict in Bhutan started in 1989 when – perhaps in response to the country’s growing ethnic-Nepali minority – then-Bhutanese King Wangchuck declared his “One Bhutan, One People” policy, giving primacy to the indigenous Ngalong culture, language and religion.

What followed, say those in the camps, was a systemic and violent campaign not only to enforce the majority culture, but also to rid southern Bhutan of ethnic-Nepalis, who by then were a fifth of the country’s population.

By 1992, more than 110,000 had fled to eastern Nepal, where they lived in limbo, until a 2007 agreement between the government of Nepal, UN and foreign governments paved the way for resettlement to start in 2008.

The Bhutanese government has dismissed allegations that it used violence, and says most of those who left were recently arrived, illegal immigrants.

However, most adults in Timai can readily produce Bhutanese citizenship cards. “Almost all here went back several generations in Bhutan,” said Gurung, holding up his citizenship card. International agencies operating in the camps say roughly 90 percent of the refugees can prove Bhutanese citizenship.

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source http://www.irinnews.org

In Brief: Donors pledge support for Zimbabwe’s poorest in 2011

Photo: UNICEF Zimbabwe

Every child in primary school has new text books, say donors

Johannesburg, 27 December 2010 (IRIN) – An informal group of developed countries has pledged to continue to back programmes in Zimbabwe worth more than US$500 million in 2011 to help the poor, but says “serious concerns remain” on the “protection of fundamental rights, the rule of law, governance and respect for agreements”.

President Robert Mugabe is expected to announce a date for national elections in 2011, according to local media, but NGOs and human rights activists fear they could lead to a surge of political violence.

The Herald, the official daily newspaper, reporting on ZANU-PF’s recent annual conference, quoted Mugabe as saying the party was “a fired-up, fuelled and fast-moving train that would crush anything that dares stand in its way.”

The donor group, which calls itself the Friends of Zimbabwe, said programmes they supported in 2010 helped “Zimbabweans regardless of political persuasion”: Every child in primary school in Zimbabwe now had new text books; some of the water and power networks had been rehabilitated and agricultural inputs had been given to 600,000 households, the statement said.

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source http://www.irinnews.org

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Poverty, peril for diamond mining communities in east

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

“Miners are mostly ignorant of a diamond’s real value”

NAIROBI, 27 December 2010 (IRIN) – Thousands of people dependent on diamond mining in the eastern regions of the Central African Republic (CAR) earn pitiful wages and are continually harassed by local and foreign armed groups, says a new study by the International Crisis Group (ICG).

Poverty and crime characterize the diamond business in CAR, according to the report entitled Dangerous Little Stones: Diamonds in the Central African Republic.

“The inability of artisanal miners to escape poverty holds back development in mining areas and increases the risk of young men and women joining rebel groups in the hope of better alternatives,” it said.

Low education levels, high mining costs and limited production have had adverse effects. “Miners are mostly ignorant of a diamond’s real value and, even if they know it, they are obliged to sell at the price offered, sometimes by written contract to the collector who financed the work… A collector might buy a one-carat diamond from a miner at 80,000 CFA francs [US$160] and sell it to a buying office for 200,000-300,000 CFA francs [$400-$600],” said the report.

Additional costs such as the hiring of equipment and licensing fees make for a hand-to-mouth existence, especially for those struggling to feed large families.

CAR’s diamond deposits are alluvial, making extraction harder and industrial mining less feasible. At present, production is based on trial and error methods, and the use of shovels and baskets to collect gravel from river beds. An estimated 80,000-100,000 miners depend on artisanal mining for a livelihood.

The ICG report recommends formalizing the mining sector to lower mining-related costs, lift living standards and reduce illegal mining networks. Weak law enforcement benefits illegal miners and traders, with bandits also profiting in mining zones. The report also calls for the expansion of livelihood activities, including agriculture. According to the UN Children’s Fund, chronic malnutrition in CAR stems from, among other things, loss of income in mining areas.

Armed groups such as the Convention des patriotes pour la justice et la paix (CPJP) and the Union des forces démocratiques pour le rassemblement (UFDR) remain active in the eastern diamond zone, making “the east a dangerous place to live and move around”, said the report, which noted that while diamond profits are not the only reason for rebel activity, they have contributed to making such rebellions harder to end in CAR.

Chadian connection

In late November, the CPJP took over the town of Birao in the northeastern province of Vakaga, causing population displacement after the departure of UN Mission troops deployed there. The CPJP has since been ousted by joint CAR-Chadian army soldiers.

The UN mission in CAR and Chad was established in 2007 to protect civilians, facilitate humanitarian assistance and protect UN personnel in eastern Chad and northeastern CAR. It ended in May at the request of the Chadian government which pledged full responsibility for protecting civilians on its territory.

According to a 1 December report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the UN Security Council, risks in the northeast are attributable to ethnic, economic and political issues, with security remaining “stable, yet fragile” as security forces in Birao have limited capacity to fend off potential attacks.

LRA threat

Ban added that the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) also posed a threat, although the major sources of insecurity are banditry and people passing through the area with arms to sell. The most urgent threat, Ban said, stems from armed internal political opposition groups, especially the CPJP.

The LRA presence further south is, according to the ICG, “yet another reason for the UFDR to postpone disarmament”. A July decision by President Francois Bozizé – for Ugandan soldiers in pursuit of the LRA in CAR to leave Sam Ouandja, in Haute Kotto Province, in favour of more international support – left a gap which has been filled by UFDR.

The lack of peacekeepers there, given the Ugandan army withdrawal, is cause for concern as “[Ugandan] troops provided at least some protection to civilians,” said advocacy group Resolve.

Insecurity in parts of the southeast, due to the LRA presence, often forces residents to leave their villages. The population in and around M’Boki, Zémio, Rafaï and Obo in Mbomou and Haut-Mbomou provinces has almost doubled, with impacts on food and water availability, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The two provinces border the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Orientale Province and Southern Sudan’s Western Equatoria region, which have also come under a series of LRA attacks, prompting a recent call by humanitarian agencies for international action against the LRA.

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source http://www.irinnews.org

PAKISTAN: Suicide bombing highlights risks to Bajaur returnees

Photo: Kamila Hyat/IRIN

Terrorism remains a threat to IDPs

PESHAWAR, 27 December 2010 (IRIN) – The moment news came in of a suicide bombing in Khar, the principal town in Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal agency along the border with Afghanistan, Salar Khan, who comes from Bajaur but has been based in Peshawar for several years, began making calls to his family.

“My cousin used to go regularly to the World Food Programme [WFP] distribution point where the blast took place. I was concerned he may have been hurt or even killed,” Salar said.

His cousin survived the attack unhurt, but 43 others were killed and around 60 injured on 25 December. The bombing highlighted the risks to local people, including tens of thousands of returnees.

“This is terrible. I am unemployed, we have no money. My house is still unrepaired and now with the food centres closing I wonder how we will eat,” said Shahzer Ali, who had accompanied his badly injured younger brother to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, where some of the injured victims were airlifted after the blast.

Amjad Jamal, a spokesman for WFP, told IRIN four distribution centres had been operating in Bajaur, but the suicide bomber had not targeted them, rather a “secure hub where many government buildings are located”.

However, “food assistance will be suspended in Bajaur for some time as the security authorities have imposed a curfew and the area has been sealed. After reviewing the situation we will resume food distribution,” he said. There is no certainty as to how long supplies will be suspended. Jamal said “at least 500 families” used to visit the centres regularly to receive food.

The food aid is “meant for internally displaced persons (IDPs) returning to their areas” Jamal said. About 94,000 people had been displaced from Bajaur agency, according to official figures, after the start of an army operation there in August 2008. Returns began in 2009, but gained pace after the military declared victory in Bajaur in March this year.

Aid efforts criticized

Returning IDPs have since then, however, criticized the lack of assistance offered them.

“We were displaced for almost two years,” Zahid Khan, 50, head of an extended family of 10, told IRIN. “When we got back to our village near Khar we found a destroyed home, ravaged land and, of course, no livestock.” He said the family had received “almost no help at all except from neighbours,” and “continued militant activities remain a threat.”

While the authorities say they do not know the motives behind the latest attack, local residents believe the target could have been Salarzai tribesmen, known to be anti-Taliban, who were collecting rations at the time.

“We do not know the motive, but a woman carried out this attack,” Tariq Khan, the assistant political agent of Bajaur, told IRIN. The bomber was clad in a burqa, and, according to media reports, resisted attempts to search her. This adds to risk factors in a society where, for social and religious reasons, women are often not searched – as most security personnel are male.

“The attack at the food distribution point shows these people are ruthless. We are all at risk,” said Zahid Khan.

An administrative official in Khar, who asked not to be named, said: “Local people who oppose the militants are being intimidated by them in some areas and IDPs are blamed for going away during the months of fighting.”

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source http://www.irinews.org

COTE D’IVOIRE: Political impasse sparks food price hikes

Photo: Alexis Adélé/IRIN

Vegetable sellers say many would-be clients walk away when they hear the cost of goods

ABIDJAN, 28 December 2010 (IRIN) – While political rivals in Côte d’Ivoire trade barbs, diplomats make declarations and regional groups issue warnings, many Ivoirians are eating less so they can feed their children, as prices for basics like cooking oil, rice and flour climb, in some cases doubling.

For now the crunch is hitting mostly poor families, Ivoirians in the commercial capital Abidjan told IRIN. This is a growing population group: In 2008 nearly half of Côte d’Ivoire’s then 20 million people were below the poverty threshold of about US$1.25 per day, compared to about one-third in 2000, and 38 percent in 2002, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“Poverty has increased on a steady trend [in the past 20 years] as a result of the successive socio-political and military crises,” IMF said in a May 2009 country report.

“We’re at the end of our tether,” Françoise Mahan, a midwife in Abidjan’s Abobo District, told IRIN, one month after the presidential run-off election which ended in unprecedented deadlock with two political camps claiming power. Already after the October first round, tensions led to some prices creeping up.

“I can no longer get what I need at the market with 2,000 CFA francs [$4] for my family of three. Now I need about 50 percent more – but at the moment we just can’t afford that.”

Food prices are soaring in Abidjan and other main cities. In the northern city of Odienné and in Gagnoa in central Côte d’Ivoire, before the election crisis a kilogram of sugar cost the equivalent of about $1.25. It now costs $2.40; and the same goes for a litre of cooking oil. A sack of rice now costs around $35 in Odienné and the centre-north city of Korhogo; families could buy the same sack before the political crisis for around $26.

In Abidjan a kilogram of meat cost $2.80 before; now prices range between $4.40 and $5.

As the government of the internationally recognized president, Alassane Ouattara, called for a nationwide strike to begin on 27 December – to try to force incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo to step down – many Ivoirians are simply trying to make ends meet.

“We heard about the strike call,” said a youth in the central town of Gagnoa. “But it’s the holiday season and some people wanted to come out and try to make at least a bit of money.”

Karim Koné, petrol station attendant in Abidjan’s Adjamé District, said he eats less per day to make whatever food the family has go further. “I’ve started depriving myself of food during the day. I prefer to leave whatever I’d eat in the middle of the day for the family’s evening meal.”

Snowball effect

People’s lack of buying power is hitting vendors and this is having a snowball effect. “Before, I could make about 15,000 CFA francs [$30] a day, but since about a week ago that’s impossible,” said meat vendor in Adjamé Ousmane Diallo. “People just aren’t buying.”

Photo: Monica Mark/IRIN

“Everyone’s having a tough time,” said one vendor

In Abidjan’s wealthier neighbourhood of Cocody, Fatim Touré sat waiting for clients. “Many people just turn around when I tell them the prices,” she told IRIN. “But it’s not the vendors’ fault; with this crisis, hauliers are charging more for moving vegetables into Abidjan.”

She said a sack of aubergines which used to cost her $20, now cost $26.

For now petrol prices, which fluctuate periodically, have not yet risen significantly during the crisis; but chauffeurs told IRIN given the instability fewer drivers are venturing out and transport prices – for both passengers and goods – are up.

“Some of our colleagues have not come out because of the strike,” Abidjan taxi driver Drissa Fofana told IRIN. “But we’ve got to feed our families. The situation is tense so we take the risk; we’ve doubled our tariffs, even if petrol prices have remained the same.”

Cooking fuel is costing families more: In Abidjan a 12-kg bottle of propane gas that went for about $9, now costs about $13. A market vendor in Gagnoa told IRIN charcoal there used to be $10 a sack; now it’s double that.

“Everyone’s having a tough time, so one really can’t blame the vendors,” said the mother of seven who sells juices and other items in a Gagnoa market. The crisis has simply worsened what was already a bad situation for her family; she said her husband is unemployed and they cannot afford to put their children in school.

Higher-income families in Abidjan are able to keep extra food at home just in case of further unrest. Some said the most significant impact for now is that they feel confined to their homes.

“Every week we stock up at the supermarket, just in case,” bank executive Bertrand Comoé said. “I don’t allow the children to be out after 6pm. Everyone is home by that hour; it’s like a prison. It’s stressful, but we have to do what we can to avoid the worst.”

A 5 December joint statement by the African Development Bank and World Bank expressed concern about the political situation’s impact on the average Ivoirian. Having re-engaged in Côte d’Ivoire in 2008 after suspending relations in 2004, the World Bank has closed its office in the country and stopped disbursing funds since the election crisis.

“The sustained crisis in Cote d’Ivoire will drive many more Ivoirians further into poverty and hurt stability and economic prosperity in the West African sub-region,” the statement said.

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source http://www.irinnews.org