Uganda can provide 2,000 more troops needed to bring the African Union force in Somalia to its full strength if no other nation volunteers, the army's spokesman said. "We are capable of providing the required force if other countries fail to do so," Ugandan army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said. "I should say, however, that I think it is appropriate that other countries contribute."

At least five more suspects linked to last Sunday's bombing in Kampala have been arrested bringing the number of suspects in police custody to 12. The police bomb squad was on day four still on its toes as telephone lines were jammed with calls of suspected bombs dumped in several areas, including outside Kampala City.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a second arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, adding genocide to the list of charges for crimes he has allegedly committed in the war-ravaged Darfur region. The Court’s pre-trial chamber said that there are reasonable grounds to believe Mr. al-Bashir is responsible for three counts of genocide against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, including genocide by killing; genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm; and genocide by deliberately inflicting conditions of life meant to destroy each target group.

The 13th conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) will be hosted by the Refugee Law Project, Kampala, Uganda from July 3 to 6, 2011. The conference aims to explore key dimensions of the relationship between forms and tools of governance on the one hand and patterns and experiences of forced migration on the other. Under the title ‘Governing Migration’, IASFM 13 will enable a wide-ranging exploration of both the direct and indirect relationships between conflict, governance, forced migration, and transitional justice

Uganda has begun “forcibly” deporting hundreds of Rwandans from two southwestern refugee camps, at gunpoint according to one witness, prompting the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to call for a suspension of the operation. Both countries have long tried to rid Uganda of Rwandan refugees who for their part say they do not feel safe going home.

Tens of thousands of people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have fled their homes amid an army offensive against Ugandan rebels, presenting fresh impetus to humanitarian agencies’ efforts to adapt their response mechanisms to sudden displacement. Local NGOs listed 50,000 displaced civilians who had taken flight since DRC military operations against the Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF/NALU) started on 25 June in the North Kivu district of Beni.

Hundreds of refugees have been moved from a camp in northern Kenya after the killing of a teenager sparked riots in the facility and violence between its Sudanese and Somali residents, according to an official. Staff of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, held talks with community leaders in Dadaab to calm and reconcile the refugees following the 13 July killing .

Swaziland's judiciary is concerned by an absence of detention facilities for children, which forces them to share jail cells with adult criminals. "Do we have facilities for keeping a minor?" enquired presiding High Court judge Thomas Masuku during the recent trial of a 16-year-old boy, when it became apparent that the accused was being held in the same cell as adults in the northern town of Pigg's Peak.

While the number of armed conflicts has decreased since the late 1990s, those between national governments and non-state armed groups (NSAGs), or between NSAGs, continue to cause large-scale and prolonged displacement, both internally and to other – particularly neighbouring – states. The FMR Editors are looking for practice-oriented submissions, reflecting a diverse range of opinions but focusing on situations of forced displacement

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights chairman Maina Kiai has trashed the current USA led war on terrorism saying it has led to massive human rights violations and growth of autocratic governments globally.

Following Edward Herman and David Peterson’s challenge to Gerald Caplan's critique of their book 'The Politics of Genocide', Adam Jones provides a powerful riposte to their arguments, emphasising what actually occurred in Rwanda in 1994. 'Herman and Peterson’s attempts to disguise and deny it constitute,' writes Jones, 'the nadir of their respective careers.'

[/img"> The report made a number of recommendations to the governments of Uganda and Rwanda, and to UNHCR, in order to improve protection for this group of refugees. In particular, it stated that the Ugandan government must scrupulously uphold its international and national legal obligations with regard to the protection of refugees and to the truly voluntary nature of any repatriation.

We therefore call for an immediate halt to the current removal process. We also call on the Ugandan government to ensure that any failed asylum seekers are able to exhaust the appeal processes provided for under the Refugees Act, and, where these routes have indeed been exhausted, that the Government follow due process for deportation as provided for under the Citizenship and Immigration Control Act.

For further information or comments, please contact;
Dr. Chris Dolan, Director, Refugee Law Project,
[email][email protected], +256 414235330/ 343556

or

Dismas Nkunda, Co-Director, International Refugee Rights Initiative,
[email][email protected] +256 782310404

Following persistent rumours and threats of a resumption of xenophobic attacks following the World Cup, there have been a number of violent incidents targeting immigrants, particularly in the Western Cape. In this joint statement, the Social Justice Coalition, the Treatment Action Campaign, and Equal Education, have called on the South African government to acknowledge that people are being attacked on the basis of nationality, and act swiftly to ensure their safety and security.

Responding to Glenn Ashton's , Owen Sichone points out that riots are not necessarily driven by xenophobia.

Responding to growing rumours of the threat of a xenophobic reprisal accompanying the end of the World Cup, South Africa's Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba seeks to condemn discrimination and animosity towards foreign nationals.

A series of meetings to educate residents about xenophobia in the informal settlement of Du Noon, Cape Town, will begin on 7 July and run until the final game of the FIFA World Cup on 11 July. On 27 June units of the South African army were deployed to the township in what police described as an "anti-crime operation", after widespread reports had been circulating that foreign nationals would be attacked on 12 July - the day after the final soccer world cup match.

An international autopsy team looking into the death of a prominent Congolese human rights activist was unable to give a conclusive cause of death. The death of Floribert Chebeya, whose corpse was found in his car last month after he was summoned to see the police chief, caused outrage and led to calls for an international investigation.

Hundreds of Somalis in five towns controlled by Islamist rebels protested against plans to deploy extra peacekeepers in Somalia. The protesters including veiled women and children brandishing AK-47 automatic rifles took the streets in the port town Kismayo, around 310 miles (500 kilometers) south of the capital of Mogadishu. They were chanting slogans against the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and western backed government led by former Islamist leader Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) today suspended proceedings in the case of a Congolese warlord accused of recruiting child soldiers, saying that prosecutors have refused orders to disclose information to his defence. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the founder and leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots in the Ituri region of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), faces two counts of war crimes: conscripting and enlisting child soldiers into the military wing of his group and then using them to participate in hostilities between September 2002 and August 2003

Representatives from the United Nations and the African Union met in New York to discuss ways of boosting cooperation between the two bodies to support the efforts of post-conflict countries, particularly in Africa, to establish lasting peace. This was the first consultative meeting of the members of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and the AU Peace and Security Council, and builds on the visit of the PBC to the AU’s headquarters in Addis Ababa in November 2009.