GENEVA, July 11 (UNHCR) -The UN refugee agency said today it planned to
launch a special appeal for funds to cover unforeseen needs in seven
different African countries, none of which has received much international
attention.

UNHCR's 'All Africa Special Appeal', totaling just over US$ 14 million, is
designed to address a number of new situations involving the displacement
or relocation of more than 100,000 people. All these situations have
developed since the beginning of the year and are therefore not covered by
the agency's current annual budget for Africa.

Almost half the required sum (US$ 6.7 million) is to provide emergency
assistance to 41,000 refugees who have fled to Chad from the Central
African Republic. The influx began in April, when fighting broke out
between government and rebel forces in the north of the country. A recent
joint assessment by UNHCR and the World Food Programme revealed that many
of the refugees, who are located in extremely remote parts of southern
Chad, are in dire need of aid. They need food, water and proper shelter,
despite the provision of 5,000 tents by UNHCR and Médecins Sans Frontières
(Belgium).

The money will be used to set up organized camp structures, including
health, sanitation and educational facilities in the two main areas where
the refugees have settled, taking some of the burden off the local
authorities and communities.

In Kenya, an extra US$ 2.1 million is needed to pay for major repairs and
reconstruction in the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in the northeast of
the country. Both camps were badly damaged by April's heavy rains and
subsequent serious flooding, which completely destroyed around 1,000
refugee shelters and badly damaged a further 2,500 others. In addition,
parts of a key access road to Dadaab were swept away, 200 latrines
collapsed, some food stocks were lost and water supplies were contaminated.

In addition to repairing the damaged infrastructure and providing emergency
relief supplies, UNHCR plans to relocate 16,800 refugees living in the most
floodprone area of the Kakuma camp to higher ground, before the next rains
arrive in October. This will also mean setting up a new hospital and
secondary school, since the existing ones were both badly damaged in the
April floods and are unlikely to survive another flood, even a relatively
minor one.

In neighbouring Uganda, an extra US$ 850,000 is needed to cope with 9,000
new refugees who have fled recent interethnic fighting and atrocities in
the Bunia region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The refugees
have settled in the western Ugandan border areas around Lake Albert and the
Semeliki River, and are currently sleeping out in the open or sheltering
under local villagers' verandas. In some villages, refugees outnumber local
inhabitants, placing considerable strain on existing health, sanitation and
educational facilities.

UNHCR is requesting a further US$ 890,000 to relocate 15,000 Sudanese
refugees who were forced to flee their camp in northern Uganda late last
year by the repeated predations of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels.
Several refugees were killed and injured during the most severe attack on
refugees by the LRA, in August 2002, and as a result the entire population
of 24,000 refugees living in Acholpii camp fled southwards. Since then, the
refugees have been living in very overcrowded conditions in the Kiryandongo
settlement. Although 8,000 have already been relocated from Kiryandongo,
overcrowding remains a serious problem, contributing to two cholera and
three measles outbreaks. A third cholera outbreak is now affecting the
settlement.

The rest of the funds are needed for a variety of situations, including
unexpected repatriations from the Central African Republic to the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and from Gabon to the Republic of
the Congo (ROC). In Ethiopia, the UN refugee agency is planning to relocate
around 5,300 Eritrean refugees from the disputed border between the two
countries. And in Rwanda, UNHCR is trying to consolidate two existing camps
into one.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, has introduced the appeal
at the African Union Summit currently under way in the Mozambique capital,
Maputo. The appeal will be formally presented to donors next week in Geneva.

Prior to the new appeal, UNHCR's annual programme budget for Africa stood
at just under US$ 330 million, with an additional US$ 65 million requested
for four special programmes in Liberia, Côte D'Ivoire Angola and Zambia.
The latest appeal thus takes the overall total amount required by UNHCR for
its protection and assistance programmes in Africa to more than US$ 400
million.

Story date: 11 Jul 2003
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