Roundup on African conflicts

Chad

A senior commander in Chad's army has been killed in the fighting around the border between Chad and Sudan.

Chad's senior army commander has been killed in fighting with rebels on its border with Sudan, army officials say.

Gen Abakar Itno - the nephew of Chad's President Idriss Deby - died of injuries in clashes in the Moudeina area, south of the border town of Adre.

Chad alleges Rally for Democracy and Liberty rebels receive support from the Janjaweed militia operating in the neighbouring Sudanese region of Darfur.

Aid officials say the fighting involved about 1,000 men on each side.

Gen Itno was commanding the military operation launched 10 days ago against the rebels.

"Gen Abakar Youssouf Mahamat Itno has died of his injuries," an unnamed military source told Reuters news agency.

"Caught without communications, the general was surprised by the rebels who seriously wounded him," the source added.

The start of the operation came a week after the Chadian government said it had foiled a coup attempt against President Deby.

Uganda

The fighting in northern Uganda has created terrible conditions.

Some 146 people die each week in the northern region where rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have waged war against the Uganda government for two decades, charity groups said in a report published on Wednesday.

War-related deaths in the region are three times higher than the number of killings in Iraq since the United States-led invasion that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003 - a death rate that represents 0.17 deaths per 10,000 people, compared with 0.052 per 10,000 in Iraq, according to the report, entitled "Counting the Cost: 20 years of war in northern Uganda". It was prepared by 50 aid agencies working in the region.

"Twenty years of conflict have had a devastating impact on children," said the Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU) report, which was released as Jan Egeland, United Nations Under Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs, arrived in the country to discuss with Ugandan officials a new approach to the situation before visiting camps for the internally displaced in the north.

"Twenty five thousand children have been abducted during the course of the war, 41 percent of all deaths in the camps are amongst children under five [and] 250,000 children in northern Uganda receive no education, despite Uganda's policy of universal primary education.

"An estimated 1,000 children have been born in LRA captivity to girls abducted by the rebel army. At the times of heightened insecurity up to 45,000 children 'night commute' each evening and sleep in streets or makeshift shelters in town centres to avoid being abducted by the rebel LRA," the report added.

Liberia

Charles Taylor will at last answer for his crimes.

UN peacekeepers delivered handcuffed former Liberian president Charles Taylor into the custody of a UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone on Wednesday where he will be the first former African head of state to face prosecution for war crimes before an international tribunal.

A UN helicopter brought Taylor from the Liberian capital Monrovia directly to the landing pad of the Special Court in Freetown where officials whisked him directly to his waiting cell.

Nigerian police captured Taylor, who is indicted on 17 counts of war crimes, on Tuesday after he disappeared from the mansion where he was living in exile in the south of the country.

Taylor was detained Tuesday night in Borno state in northeastern Nigeria, Information Minister Frank Nweke told reporters. Authorities immediately informed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo who is on a visit to the United States and the Nigerian leader ordered Taylor's immediate deportation to Liberia.

DR of Congo

The awful practice of using children as soldiers is not that uncommon, but steps are being taken to combat the practice.

The United Nations and international human rights organisations have long campaigned against recruiters of child soldiers, urging their prosecution as war criminals.

But the first break came only last week when the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague decided to arrest Thomas Lubanga, a founder and leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC), on charges of conscripting children in the current insurgency against the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
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Unicef has estimated that up to 300 000 children globally are being used by armed rebels and military forces in a variety of roles, including as combatants, cooks, porters, messengers, spies and for sexual purposes.

Somalia

The lack of a strong central government in that country is allowing chaos to flourish.

Talks between militias who unleashed the worst clashes in years in Mogadishu collapsed on Wednesday, fuelling fears last week's fighting could resume and spread to the seat of government.

Islamist militia seized a seaport and airstrip formerly controlled by warlord Bashir Raghe in four days of clashes with the town's most powerful warlords. Between 70 and 90 people were killed.

Since the fighting ended on Sunday, religious leaders and elders have been trying to broker a full ceasefire, but the warlord alliance -- which dubbed itself the "Anti-terrorism Coalition" -- has not taken part.