Rival youth gangs have clashed at Seme, the main border crossing between Benin and Nigeria, killing at least four people and setting fire to cars. The violence broke out on Monday after Benin police tried to arrest a suspected Nigerian thief. Lagos State police commissioner told the BBC that security forces from both countries had now calmed the situation.

Innocent Nkung, a 35-year-old asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), suffered such homophobic and political persecution that he had to flee the DRC and is now fighting to stay in the UK after his asylum claim was refused. Innocent, who has a background in campaigning on human rights issues had been arrested in the DRC a number of times between 1992 and 2005. For example, he was arrested and detained in June 2004 after taking part in a demonstration against the UN's failure to act after the Rwandan army entered the Bukavu province.

The need to urge people to look at refugees as humans is part of the campaign launched by the UNHCR. “There’s a big confusion about who the refugee is. Not just in Malta, but everywhere. The media plays an important role in passing on the right message, which is why we are concerned with the fear that can create xenophobic attitudes and manipulate realities,” spokesperson of the UNHCR Laura Boldrini said.

Angolan and Congolese refugees are deserting camps in Zambia to scavenge for food in villages after they were placed on half rations due to worsening food shortages, officials reported. The exodus occurred after the World Food Programme (WFP) said food shortages in the camps had become critical. Aid workers warn supplies will run out in April reports Reuters.

As Libya emerges from long-term international isolation, the government has taken some important steps to improve human rights, including the recent release of 14 political prisoners. But the Libyan government continues to hold political prisoners, conduct unfair trials, and severely restrict free speech and association, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today (January 25). “We welcome Libya’s first steps toward reform,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch who visited Tripoli this week to present the government with the report. “But the government has a long road to travel before it meets the international standards of human rights.”

Kenya's Ministry of Water and Irrigation has warned of a severe water shortage in the region unless the existing sources are protected. In a report entitled "The Draft National Water Resources Management Strategy, 2005-2007," the ministry gives a damning indictment of the management of Kenya's natural environment and its accompanying water resources over the past 30 years. The document has for the first time mapped the country's surface and ground water, its quantity, quality and availability for human and animal use.

Most of the children who come back to Burundi after spending years attending classes in refugee camps in Tanzania know no other school. But policies enacted by their government mean that those returning do not feel out of place in Burundian schools. Reintegration of repatriated schoolchildren into the school system of their country of origin has been made much easier by the decision in 2000 to harmonise classes given at primary and secondary level both in camps for Burundian refugees in Tanzania and in Burundian schools.

More than 220,000 Sudanese from Darfur have fled the ongoing violence in their region and crossed the border into the desert of eastern Chad. Most of the refugees are now in camps; however, several thousand remain outside camps, waiting to be registered. With the crisis continuing, it is estimated that many more refugees will flee to eastern Chad. In the midst of this crisis is the education and reproductive health of adolescent girls being neglected?

The Egyptian government has said that it will not deport hundreds of Sudanese detainees who lack status as refugees or asylum seekers. The detainees were arrested after a three-month sit-in protest in front of UN offices in Cairo resulted in a violent clash with Egyptian police on December 30, resulting in 27 deaths. The Sudanese protesters sought resettlement in a third country. The Ministry of Foreign Affair has said that following extensive interviews with the detainees by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, none will be deported to Sudan, and that Egypt will take steps to grant legal status to those who do not qualify for international protection. Egypt had earlier announced plans to deport 654 Sudanese refugees, but this was met with pressure from the international community, reports The Jurist.

The release of four foreign oil workers on January 30 by a previously unknown militia group underscores the chronic instability in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The oil workers were kidnapped by militants at Shell's offshore EA oil rig on January 11. While the group that claimed responsibility for the kidnappings - the Movement for the Emancipation of the People of the Niger Delta - is previously unknown, it has links to prominent local leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, the imprisoned leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (N.D.P.V.F.). Indeed, the kidnappers initially demanded the release of Dokubo-Asari in exchange for the hostages' freedom; the kidnappers also demanded that Shell pay local communities US$1.5 billion to compensate them for the environmental pollution caused by the oil company.

The bulldozers are set to move in to clear a string of informal urban settlements as the Swazi government and local authorities clamp down on unplanned housing. Forty homes have been earmarked for demolition in the Madonsa settlement, a tract of peri-urban land bordering the central commercial town of Manzini, 35 km east of the capital, Mbabane. A further 100 homes at Ludzidzini royal village, 20 km east of Mbabane, also face destruction. The Ludzidzini residents are to be evicted to make way for an extension of King Mswati's home, to accommodate his growing number of wives and their children. The king now has 13 wives.

Zimbabwe's security minister was quoted Friday in a government-controlled newspaper as saying that "the net will soon close" on those remaining journalists whose criticism of the government threatens the nation's security. The warning from the official, Didymus Mutasa, followed the arrest this month of employees and directors of Voice of the People, a news organization based in the capital, Harare, that had broadcast uncensored reports into Zimbabwe via a shortwave transmitter in Madagascar operated by the Dutch government.

One key to exacerbating ethnic divisions is the concept of Ivoirité, which means the state of being a true Ivorian. The term manifests itself throughout all levels of society, and is held up by many observers as a root cause of the country's violent downward spiral from its status throughout the 1970s and '80s as the most prosperous, stable country in volatile West Africa.

Merlin, the British medical aid agency, is treating refugees from the Ivory Coast who have crossed the border into Liberia to flee from violence. More than 80 refugees, mostly women and children, arrived in Tuzon following fighting in the town of Guiglo, western Ivory Coast. All reported witnessing or hearing of heavy exchanges between UN troops and pro-government militia.

A major political corruption scandal in the United States has again focused attention on the role of senior Democratic Alliance official Russel Crystal in apartheid-era dirty tricks, reports South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper. Central to the scandal is Jack Abramoff, a former high-flying Republican lobbyist, who pleaded guilty on January 3 to charges of conspiracy to bribe public officials, fraud and tax evasion.

On the 24th of January 2006, oral arguments in the matter of Khulumani et. al. v. Barclays et. al. began in the USA. In Khulumani v. Barclays, 87 South Africans (victims of gross human rights abuses during Apartheid) charge 23 foreign corporations with aiding and abetting the Apartheid Regime. This is a very serious charge, as aiding and abetting is equivalent to actual perpetration under international law. The case will be heard in the Court of Appeals, second District of New York.

The UN Security Council on Tuesday authorized UN and French peacekeepers to remain in divided Ivory Coast until Dec. 15 but, bowing to US opposition, took no action on a plea for reinforcements. A resolution adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council authorized the more than 10,000 international peacekeepers already in the volatile West African nation to keep enforcing a fragile peace there until at least six weeks after elections due to take place before the end of October 2006.

Thousands of Congolese have fled fighting in the Kivu provinces in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to western Uganda, the United Nations reported this week. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said about 7,000 of the 20,000 new refugees in Uganda arrived this week. Meanwhile, the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC) said its efforts to remove Ugandan Lord Resistance Army (LRA) rebels from the country’s Garamba Park had been called off.

Nigerian militants who have kidnapped four foreign oil workers and attacked a Shell oil platform say they are preparing to carry out more raids. The rebel group says it wants more control over the Niger Delta region's enormous oil wealth, and is demanding the release of two local leaders. Negotiations between the government and the rebels are said to be continuing.

The government of Sudan and its Janjaweed militia allies are massing a greater number of troops in the El Geneina vicinity along the border with Chad, according to the website of Damanga, a coalition for freedom and democracy. "Despite having witnessed more than two years of internal conflict with massive civilian abuse, six different individuals communicated with Damanga during the past week and reported further violence against civilians."