SUMMARY

· The Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission (EEBC) announced its verdict on the delimitation of the border between the two countries on 13 April 2002.

· The Eritrean and Ethiopian United Nations Country Teams met together in Ethiopia from 21-22 March 2002 to discuss humanitarian and development assistance activities to support peace building and reconciliation efforts;

· WFP and UNICEF signed a letter of understanding on 2 April 2002 to promote an Integrated Basic Service for children in war and drought affected regions of Eritrea and returning refugees from Sudan and their host communities.

· Since the voluntary repatriation of Eritrean refugees from the Sudan started on 12 May 2001, UNHCR has repatriated 43,638 Eritrean refugees;

· The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) assisted the repatriation of 86 civilian Eritreans and 144 civilian Ethiopians to their respective countries on 15 March 2002.

PEACE PROCESS

The EEBC announced its verdict on the delimitation of the border between the two countries on 13 April 2002 at The Hague. Both governments have re-assured their acceptance of the verdict and further confirmed their readiness to cooperate with the Border Commission and UNMEE to demarcate the border on the ground.

The 13^th meeting of the Military Coordination Commission (MCC) was held in Djibouti on 22 April 2002. The commission, during the meeting reviewed the military situation in Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) which was reported to be calm and stable. The commission exchanged views on the implementation of the border delimitation decision, as well as military and security implications of the implementation process. Further the MCC agreed to meet more frequently to address matters related to implementation.

The 14^th meeting of the MCC will be held on 10 May 2002 in Djibouti.

ERITREAN AND ETHIOPIAN UN COUNTRY TEAMS MET IN

ADDIS ABABA

The Eritrean and Ethiopian United Nations Country Teams met together in Ethiopia from 21-22 March 2002 to discuss humanitarian and development assistance activities to support peace building and reconciliation efforts.

The country team participants developed a draft action plan and exchanged views related to the recovery of affected populations, reconciliation and confidence building measures, activities related to UN joint programming and an advocacy strategy.

The two-day meeting in Addis included for the first time national officers from both Eritrea and Ethiopia who shared their experience in developing initiatives that will effectively address the issues affecting both countries and move forward the process of reconciliation.

The meeting was co-chaired by the two United Nations Resident Co-ordinators from Eritrea and Ethiopia, Simon Nhongo and Samuel Nyambi. Remarks were also made by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), Legwaila Joseph Legwaila and his deputy in Addis Ababa, Cheikh-Tidiane Gaye.

Eritrean and Ethiopian UN Heads of agencies provided assessments on the current humanitarian situation and the status of recovery assistance. An update on the UN peacekeeping operation was also presented by UNMEE.

Since 1998, the two country teams have held five joint meetings, one in Yemen, two in Kenya, one in Eritrea, and now in Ethiopia. During these earlier meetings, the teams exchanged views and devised a common framework to address the humanitarian needs of the two countries. The next joint meeting is scheduled to take place in Asmara in October.

POPULATION MOVEMENT

Repatriation of Nationals

The ICRC assisted the repatriation of 86 civilian Eritreans and 144 civilian Ethiopians to their respective countries on 15 March 2002. Since the General Peace Agreement was signed between both countries on 12 December 2000, the ICRC has repatriated 3,151 civilian Eritreans and 22,766 civilian Ethiopians to their respective countries. In addition, the ICRC has organized the repatriation of 939 Eritrean and 703 Ethiopian prisoners of war.

Repatriation from Sudan

UNHCR, UNICEF and the Gash Barka Zone administration signed Letter of Understanding (LoU) on 17 April 2002 to join efforts on water, health and nutrition, education, mine risk education and HIV/AIDS awareness. A joint statement issued by UNHCR and UNICEF highlighted that the LoU will bring the parties together in an effort to address the social and economic reintegration needs of returning refugees and the host communities.

Delegations from the State of Eritrea, the Republic of Sudan, and UNHCR met in the sixth meeting of the Tripartite Repatriation Commission in Asmara on 25-26 March 2002.

During the meeting all parties agreed to speed up the ongoing voluntary repatriation operation. The Commission decided that in 2002, minimum of 60,000 and up to 90,000, camp-based Eritrean refugees will be assisted to repatriate. In addition, up to 62,000 will be assisted to return in 2003.

The parties reaffirmed the importance of effective socio-economic reintegration as the key to a sustainable return, and in this respect UNICEF, WFP and UNDP outlined plans to support the reintegration process through complementary activities. To date, $2.2 million have been committed for projects in the Gash Barka region for the construction or rehabilitation of schools and health centers, sanitation facilities, life-skills education programmes, and for the most critical need in this arid area for provision of clean water.

Since the voluntary repatriation of Eritrean refugees from the Sudan started on 12 May 2001, UNHCR has repatriated 43,638 Eritrean refugees.

IDPs

There has been no reported IDPs movement recently.

MINE ACTION

UNMACC reported that a mine incident occurred on 11 April 2002 in Bushuka, Gash Barka Zone where three people sustained light injuries. Similar incident happened in Musa Ali, Southern Red Sea zone on 25 March 2002 after a young girl detonated a landmine.

The Mine Risk Education (MRE) team from the HALO Trust continues its work in Sector East and will shortly be assisted by a new Eritrean Demining Agency (EDA) MRE team. The members of the EDA team are all from Sector East and will be equipped to operate in the region.

30 people completed a workshop on landmine safety brief hosted by the UN Mine Action Coordination Center (UNMACC) from 5-6 April 2002. Another 21 people completed the same workshop on 1 March 2002. Positive feedback was received from all attendees who also included members of the Italian Military Police contingent attached to UNMEE.

SECTORAL WORKING GROUP (SWG) REPORT

WFP and UNICEF signed a Letter of Understanding (LoU) on 2 April 2002 to promote an Integrated Basic Service for children especially girls in war and drought affected regions of Eritrea and returning refugees from Sudan and their host communities.

The LoU denotes implementation conditions for a local partnership between UNICEF and WFP to support the government of the State of Eritrea for the implementation of an Integrated Basic Education and School Feeding Programme, Supplementary and Therapeutic Feeding, Nutritional survey, Food for Heath (FFH) and Food for Work arrangements, particularly in the water and sanitation sector.

Agriculture

Department of Crop Production of the Ministry of Agriculture stated that the agricultural situation in the Northern Red Sea Zone (NRSZ) is not promising. The agricultural activities of NRSZ depend very much on the rainfall of the highland and short rains of the eastern escarpment. The main rain of the highland had very little impact on crop production due of its shortage. It also failed to rain at the end of September, which was very important for land preparation and sowing sorghum in sub zone Shieb, which is the most potential area in the zone. Rainfall in January was poor and limited only in the three sub zones, which was reported as not satisfactory.

Education

The Education SWG group held its meeting on 27 February 2002. During the meeting the Ministry of Education (MoE) acknowledged receipt of progress reports from some partners and reminded those who have not submitted their reports yet to do so as soon as possible. An assessment on school reconstruction and rehabilitation is going on. The report will be distributed shortly. Procurement of drugs for a de-worming programme is underway.

Food

The Food SWG in its recent meeting stated that there is 40,784 MT available food stock in the country which is a carryover from 2001. According to report from ERREC the emergency relief food supply has become a worrying humanitarian concern. In the absence of commitments to the CAP 2002 food distribution have been reduced to half of the beneficiary targets. In addition due to shortage of stock a great number of war and drought affected population have been left out of the general food aid distribution.

The Ministry of Health (MoH) nutrition team carried out a brief visit to Tesseney and areas in the TSZ. No baseline assessment has been undertaken. A lot of work is expected to be done.

Health and Nutrition

The health and nutrition SWG in its meeting of 27 February 2002 stated that health and nutrition condition in the TSZ and outside is generally stable. There was no epidemic outbreak reported. A new vaccine DTP-Hepatitis-B has been introduced in almost all health facilities.

It was reported that consultants from WHO are assisting the Ministry of Health (MoH) in educating health workers to facilitate the eradication of Polio by the 2002. In addition sensitization of health workers on Acute Flaccid Paralysis (including Polio), Neonatal Tetanus and Measles is ongoing.

Health facilities, which have been destroyed during the war, are providing immunization, maternal, child health and other services from temporary shelters or under tents. A joint assessment in respect of health facilities was conducted by MoH and UNICEF in Gash Barka Zone. Health facilities are being overstretched due to the repatriated Eritreans from Sudan. Health care is being provided through mobile clinics. It was recommended that permanent fixed health service delivery system especially in the three sub-zones of Gash Barka namely: Tessenei, Goluj and Haykota be established. UNFPA in collaboration with MoH has prepared a plan of action for Northern Red Sea and Southern Red Sea Zones.

Shelter and Non Food Item

Rehabilitation of 3000 damaged houses in Tsorona and Senafe sub zones has been completed and inaugurated. Rehabilitation of 1000 houses in Serha new town and in sub-zones of Tsorona, Areza, Adi-Quala and Senafe is progressing.

The rehabilitation of 2400 partially damaged houses in Gash Barka is continuing and around 1500 housing units have been completed and the beneficiaries are showing high interest in the activities (re-roofing, rehabilitation of doors and windows). The re-roofing of 418 partially destroyed housing units in Omhajer is completed. The project, which included the rehabilitation of the market and the administration building, is also completed.

UNDP/PoWER through MOVIMONDO is installing metallic Agudo-Structure shelters to accommodate 271 families in the locality of Debai Sima (TSZ area) which were completely destroyed by the border war.

The construction of 60 new houses (30 in Tessenei and 30 in Goluj) by UNDP/PoWER has been successfully completed. Despite the effort being made in rehabilitation and reconstruction

of war damaged shelters, it is still far from meeting the needs.

As the rainy season is approaching, temporary shelter has become one of the critical problems in almost all IDP and expellee camps. Recently the ICC field team has been conducting shelter assessment in IDP and expellee camps.

The outcome of the assessment highlighted that 11,901 IDPs households living both in Gash Barka and Debub zones need urgent replacement of their worn out tents, over and above 2001 IDP families need covering such as plastic sheeting before the rainy season. The Eritrea Relief and Refugee Commission (ERREC) reported that at present there is no stock of tents to respond to this urgent need.

Water and Sanitation

There are still many war and drought affected areas that are underserved with respect to water and sanitation facilities.

The IDPs living in camps are also increasingly facing problems in some areas, such as Dembedoran and Korokon in Gash Barka, Endaba-Estifanos in Debub and many areas of Southern Red Sea where the water table is falling, and water trucking is undertaken.

More water trucking is expected to be needed in the coming months but this will be difficult during rainy season as these places will be rendered inaccessible.

Sanitation interventions are still needed in many areas especially in schools. Efforts are being undertaken to ensure a higher degree of coordination with the authorities, and ensure that awareness campaigns is an integrated part of all sanitation interventions.

For further information relating to the ICC Update please contact ICC Information Officer Sirak Gebrehiwot Tel: 182923, 185154 or

E-mail: icc@gemel.com.er