UN, MILF to immunise children in Philippines

The United Nations Children's Fund on Monday launched a massive immunisation and health programme in the southern Philippines.

Under an agreement with the 12,000-member Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Unicef is to provide basic health services to 707 small villages on Mindanao and other southern islands.

Unicef's country representative for the Philippines, Nicholas Alipui, said: "It is time for us to bridge the gap and reduce the stark disparities that affect children in the Philippines."
"We are building bridges that will help consolidate peace and development as we work together to bring about more investment in programmes for children."

Unicef said some 30,000 infants would be immunised against preventable diseases between April 16 and the end of June.

The health services would cover many of the poorest areas of the Philippines and would eventually include vitamin supplements (beginning with Vitamin A), a de-worming programme and tetanus shots for 16,500 expectant mothers.

The joint communique signed by Unicef and the MILF also called for the delivery of "additional basic services" including "birth registrations, malaria control, educational supplies," and the setting up of "community-based health programmes in selected areas."

Most of the target villages were chosen by the MILF. The campaign will be jointly managed by the MILF development agency and Jesus Dureza, President Gloria Arroyo's adviser on peace talks with the the Muslim rebels.

"The Days of Peace campaign requires a commitment to full cessation of hostilities from all parties to facilitate maximum delivery of services for children," the joint communique said.

"The MILF will be in charge of providing access and guaranteeing security for the service delivery teams."

The Philippine government is observing a three-year-old ceasefire with the MILF, helped by a small team of international monitors from Malaysia, Libya and Brunei.

However, peace talks have stalled since September last year over MILF demands for a share of revenues in areas in the south that it considers part of the large Muslim minority's "ancestral domain".

The Philippines is a largely Roman Catholic nation that has battled Muslim separatism since the early 1970s.

It signed a peace treaty with another faction, the Moro National Liberation Front in 1996 that gave limited Muslim self-rule in several impoverished Muslim provinces in the south.