It took courage for Noe Sebisaba to tell his fellow Burundian refugees in Kanenbwa camp, in western Tanzania, that he was HIV positive. "Yes, to be HIV positive is a shame in our refugee society," he wrote of his dilemma in a refugee organisation's annual report.

More than 30,000 people were displaced during four days of religious riots in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, the Nigerian Red Cross said last Thursday.

Aids and human rights are so closely linked that any attempt to stop the spread of the killer virus must also fight against poverty and exclusion, the French chapter of Amnesty International said on Sunday to mark World Aids Day.

Robert Mugabe's successor will not be named until 2006, the state-run Sunday Mail said in an apparent bid to quash speculation the 78-year-old longtime leader could be replaced.

At least 33 Sudanese refugees have been shot dead in violent clashes at a refugee camp in western Ethiopia, humanitarian organisations said on Monday.

Police say at least 11 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Israeli-owned hotel near the Kenyan port city of Mombasa. The attack coincided with a failed rocket attack on an Israeli airliner taking off from Mombasa airport.

Recent army massacres of civilians and the bombardment of Bujumbura by the rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) raises the risk of further widespread killing of civilians in Burundi, Human Rights Watch says in a briefing paper.
Related Link:
Rebels Shell Bujumbura
http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31046

In 1999, Africa’s top resettlement officials filed into a sunlit room in the Joint Voluntary Agency (JVA) compound in Nairobi, Kenya for an important meeting. The topic: Do we resettle the Sudanese “Lost Boys” or the Somali Bantus first? History plays out in such moments, and destinies of thousands of people are shaped and changed. The Sudanese boys would go first. The Somali Bantus would wait three more years. Now, their time has come.

Tension is rising in Sool and Sanaag regions of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, to which both Somaliland and the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland have laid claim, a local journalist told IRIN on Monday.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has started issuing identity cards to tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighbouring Republic of Congo (ROC), the agency reported.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), has distributed 2,496 kg of high-protein biscuits to some 1,600 households displaced last Friday by fighting between rebels and government forces in Mount Sion, in Gikungu, the agency's communications officer, Sara Johansson, told IRIN.

The organisers of the Kenyan-hosted Somali peace conference are reported to be in a buoyant mood after three major clans and minority groups delivered lists of their participants to the six technical committees, a source close to the talks told IRIN on Tuesday.

Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said on Monday that 25 new political parties had applied for registration for general elections to be held next year following a relaxation of stringent eligibility criteria.

Human rights violations by an ill-equipped and under-trained police force, as well as inflammatory speeches and articles in the press, were some of the causes of last year's political violence in Zanzibar, a presidential commission of inquiry has concluded.

Government troops in the Central African Republic (CAR), backed by a militia from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), have expelled rebels from the northwestern town of Bossembele, 157 km from the capital, Bangui, thereby ending weeks of occupation, state-owned radio reported on Wednesday.

A coalition of major aid organisations launched an appeal Wednesday for new donations of food assistance for Ethiopia, which is facing its worst hunger crisis since the famine of the mid-1980s.

The United Nations Security Council has extended its arms embargo on Liberia for another six months, after accusing the government of continuing to import weapons. The ban includes the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd).

The government of Côte d'Ivoire has responded to an army rebellion by committing abuses against innocent civilians, Human Rights Watch charges in a new report. Government forces have killed and arrested individuals on the basis solely of their ethnicity, religion or support for the opposition party.

When the government of Mengistu Hailemariam was overthrown and replaced by a new government headed by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in 1991, Eritreans had hoped that there was finally a government in Ethiopia that had foresworn hegemonic ambitions towards Eritrea. The war (1998-2000) shattered this illusion. Eritreans had also hoped that with the conclusion of the war of independence and a presumably friendly new government in Ethiopia, Eritrea would focus on rebuilding political, social, and economic institutions. The war derailed such hopes. By carefully documenting the events of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the author unravels the complexity of the dispute and places it in the context of both a regional and international political dynamic.

President Bakili Muluzi has warned that he will start snatching maize from NGOs who are politicizing the distribution of the commodity in rural area.