Rwandan-backed rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) have accused a rival group allied to the Kinshasa regime of massacring nearly 400 civilians last week in the northeastern Ituri region. "The Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) denounces the widespread massacring of the civil population near Bunia by the RCD-ML led by Mbusa Nyamwisi and allied to the forces of the Kinshasa government," the rebels said in a statement in Kigali.

Ethiopia is to be the headquarters for the newly formed Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism for the regional body, Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

Malawian President Bakili Muluzi has warned donor countries that he will not let foreign governments take advantage of the country's poverty to dictate how he runs Malawi, the Pan-African News Agency reported.

Lawyers in Swaziland have lodged a complaint with the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) against the human rights record of King Mswati's regime. "The government should prepare itself to go and explain... why there is blatant disregard for the basic and fundamental rights of citizens," a representative for the lawyers said.

Vigilante groups in south-eastern Nigeria are responsible for serious human rights abuses which are tolerated, and sometimes actively supported and encouraged, by state government authorities. "The Bakassi Boys: the Legitimization of Murder and Torture," a joint report by Human Rights Watch and the Lagos-based Centre for Law Enforcement Education (CLEEN), documents scores of extrajudicial executions and hundreds of cases of torture and arbitrary detentions by the "Bakassi Boys," a vigilante group set up in 1998 to combat armed robbery.

Despite the misery being caused by the Sudanese civil war - Africa's longest-running and bloodiest - very little is being done to end the suffering of the helpless and innocent, Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the US Committee on International Relations, has told a special Congressional hearing on Sudan. "Somewhere in that land of misery today, a child will die, a mother will lose a limb and young women will be enslaved," he said.

The Uganda People's Defence Forces is not bound by time in its pursuit of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) inside Sudan, where the LRA had bases from which it was launching attacks in northern Uganda, an army spokesperson has said. Under an agreement concluded between the Ugandan and Sudanese governments in March, the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) were authorised to pursue the LRA inside Sudanese territory, within limited periods.

The United Nations has so far received just 15 percent of its US $289-million appeal for aid programmes – excluding food – in the Great Lakes region for 2002, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA) has reported. The $289 million includes a regional appeal for the Great Lakes as well as individual country appeals for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Republic of Congo, and Uganda.

Swaziland's absolute monarch King Mswati III has introduced legislation gazetted on Wednesday that imposes stringent measures to suppress dissent and harsh penalties against those advocating political reform. The Internal Security Bill, 2002, is due to be debated by the country's parliament and sure to be passed as there are no political parties or opposition to the king in the legislature.

London Arts is publishing 'Celebrating Sanctuary', a collection of conversations with London-based refugee artists. Publication of the book coincides with Refugee Week(17-23 June), the national celebration of the contribution that refugees and asylum seekers make to multi-cultural Britain.

Lack of progress in talks between Togo's opposition and presidential bloc has prompted the withdrawal of funding for facilitation of dialogue between the two sides, and heightened fears of a worsening political climate in the West African nation.

Efforts to save girls from the outlawed practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Tanzania's Mara Region in late 2001 have failed.

The European Commission (EC) is to provide Angola with US $117 million to support the country's peace process following the signing in April of a ceasefire between the government and UNITA rebels.

Government forces in Liberia have launched a new offensive against a three-year-old insurgency, attempting to dislodge rebels from their northern stronghold on the border with Guinea, military officials said Wednesday. The troops on Tuesday attacked the town of Voinjama, about 160 miles northeast of the capital, Monrovia, the officials said on condition of anonymity. The government met stiff resistance, and sporadic gunfire continued around the town on Wednesday, they said.

Interior Minister Pierre Oba announced on Tuesday that 51 of 137 available National Assembly seats had been determined in the first round of legislative elections in the Republic of Congo.

A potentially explosive situation is looming in Burundi, where around 700 South African peacekeepers are guarding Hutu politicians. SA diplomatic efforts appear to have run onto the rocks, with Deputy President Jacob Zuma being described as “biased” by a rebel leader, while inside the country social tensions are mounting. Analysts say there is a possibility of direct intervention by Tanzanian and Ugandan troops, but that the SA forces are prepared to get out of the way of any fighting.

Uganda is in the process of reshaping its defence policy so that it can run military incursions into neighbouring states to attack rebels there. Defence Minister Ruth Nankabirwa said the move was part of a four-year defence review programme to set out Uganda’s strategic goals and move its army into a post conflict era.

A funding shortfall is “seriously hindering” the ability of The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to undertake planned, regular humanitarian activities, as well as its capacity for emergency response. The annual appeal for US $24.6 million for emergency programme interventions in the southern sector of Sudan was only 37 percent funded as of the end of April, the agency says.

A new policy for internally displaced persons (IDPs), which the Ugandan government is formulating with support from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA), has reached the last stage of consultations and is expected to be ready for implementation soon, according to a senior official in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).

Jean Marie Biju-Duval of France,lead counsel for genocide suspect Ferdinand Nahimana, has told judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)that an expert witness testifying for the prosecution in the so-called "Media Trial" is mistaken in calling his client's writings "ethnicized." The attorney made the claim when he cross-examined Alison Des Forges, Human Rights Watch Advisor and expert in Rwandan history.