The UN refugee agency has said that heavy rains have hit Somali refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, damaging tents, flooding roads and affecting aid delivery. This comes as the refugee population in southern Ethiopia swells to more than 150,000. 'In recent weeks, Dollo Ado in southern Ethiopia has been receiving a weekly average of 450 new Somali refugees. More than 8,500 have been registered so far this year, pushing the refugee population in the area's five camps past the 150,000 mark,' said a UNHCR spokesman.

Sudan has declared a state of emergency in areas bordering South Sudan, giving authorities wide powers of arrest a day after they detained three foreigners in a flashpoint town along the frontier. The detentions and Sunday's state of emergency declaration heightened tensions even further along the border between the old rivals, who in the past month came to the brink of an all-out war because of renewed fighting in disputed areas.

President Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire promised paved roads, an end to power cuts and water shortages, better mobile phone coverage, and a new university in the country’s west as part of an 'emergency plan' to develop a region that has been steeped in violence and insecurity for a decade. But for some displaced Ivoirians still unable to return to their homes, the promises ring hollow.

The captain who led a coup in Mali last month before handing power back to a civilian president has rejected the decision by West African states to send troops, casting a shadow over delicately-balanced negotiations to resolve the country's crisis. 'All the decisions announced in Abidjan were reached without consulting us,' Amadou Haya Sanogo told reporters on Saturday. 'I do not agree with the deployment of soldiers from the Economic Community of West Africa States.'

The junta in Guinea Bissau has 'unconditionally' released the two leaders seized nearly three weeks ago, state media said Saturday. The two men include the interim President Raimundo Pareira and the former Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior. Both men have since been flown to the Ivorian capital, Abidjan.

Officials and witnesses are reporting a death of around 20 people after attackers with bombs and guns opened fire at worshippers attending church services at a university in northern Nigeria on Sunday. Explosions and gunfire rocked Bayero University in the northern city of Kano, and witnesses said they targeted two campus church services – one outdoors, the other in a building but with the crowd spilling outside.

A grenade attack in a Nairobi church has killed one person and injured at least 15 others, police in the Kenyan capital say. Moses Ombati, the deputy police chief for Nairobi, confirmed the number of killed and injured. Charles Owino, deputy spokesman for the Kenyan police, said the grenade was thrown into the God's House of Miracle Church in the capital's Ngara neighbourhood.

The scheduled reopening of the trial of those accused of murdering Ernest Manirumva, a Burundian human rights defender, is a positive step, said the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) and Protection International. Ernest Manirumva was vice-president of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Malpractice Observatory (OLUCOME). He was kidnapped from his home on the night of 8 April 2009 and murdered in the early hours of the morning of 9 April.

In March, 44 countries called on the Government of Eritrea to end its use of arbitrary detention and torture of its citizens. Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights Concern - Eritrea and the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project welcomed this long overdue attention paid to the widespread and systematic human rights violations continuing in Eritrea for over a decade. In a statement to the UN Human Rights Council, states from Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America and North America expressed their concerns about the government’s refusal to hold national elections or allow opposition parties, independent media or international non-governmental organisations to operate.

Parliament has passed a law that spells out the punishment for torture - 15 years imprisonment or a fine of Shs 7.2m upon conviction. It is intended to define and criminalize torture, and provide for sanctions and compensation in case of the offence of torture, and regulate the use of information obtained through torture.

On the eve of Sierra Leone’s Independence Day, former Liberian President Charles Taylor was found guilty of war crimes committed during that country’s civil war. But does the verdict represent a major victory for Sierra Leoneans beyond its symbolic value?

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) called on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to take urgent action to protect and promote human rights in Swaziland during its submission to the organisation's 51st session in Banjul. In a statement, OSISA urged the Commission to work with states to scrap outdated, colonial era offences that serve to criminalise poverty and homelessness, and allow for arbitrary arrest and detention by the police.

In two days of consecutive protest, Egyptian youth continued to demand the release of human rights lawyer, Al Gizawi, who is detained in Saudi Arabia for allegedly defaming its monarchy. The human rights lawyer is particularly contentious due to a lawsuit he filed in Egypt against King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz over alleged arbitrary detention of hundreds of Egyptians.

US wants to use South Sudan to gain strategic advantage but China may be the peace broker.

After bitter debate within the Security Council, and strong pressures from France to avoid any kind of progress in the resolution of the conflict in Western Sahara, the member states of this “non-democratic” international body adopted a new resolution completely void of any sense or reason.

Despite the escalating aerial bombardment deep into her territories, South Sudan has called for resumption of talks with Sudan to resolve the outstanding issues that include demarcation of the fragile borders, status of Abyei and security. Meanwhile, in Beijing, South Sudan’s leader accused Sudan of declaring war as Khartoum’s warplanes bombed border regions in defiance of international calls for restraint.

Five people have been killed and 10 injured in two separate attacks in central Nigeria - one targeting football fans, officials have said. Unknown gunmen shot dead five villagers in an overnight attack on Rim, 50km (30 miles) south of Jos in Plateau state. Earlier, in Jos city nine people were injured after a blast outside a venue where fans had been watching the Chelsea-Barcelona football match.

Four senior judges in Kenya have been declared unfit for office in a landmark ruling by a new committee investigating the impartiality of the judiciary. The vetting panel was set up as part of the deal to end post-election violence in 2008 when it was agreed to reform political and judicial institutions. Five other judges were cleared. The four told they are unfit to continue have seven days to appeal.

Migreurop, a coalition of organisations from thirteen European, African and Middle Eastern countries, has produced an extremely useful and powerful report which describes in detail ways in which the policy of preventing the entry of undocumented migrants is implemented. The first part of 'At the margins of Europe: the externalisation of migration controls', looks at the outsourcing of control at the eastern border area of Turkey (the main overland route to the EU via Greece), the high mountains, snowy and treacherous, crossed by ‘illegal’ travellers who might be from Iran or Afghanistan, Somalia or Eritrea.

This policy brief from the International Organisation of Migration looks at the situation of migrants who have returned home to several West African countries as a result of the conflict in Libya. It aims to provide an understanding of the factors that led to migration to Libya, in the first place; the migrants’ journey to Libya and their efforts to make a new life; the hasty return home; and the current needs of returnees and context to which they are returning.