For over five years, thousands of displaced people have been living in camps in North Kivu. This report analyses the camps of Bihito, Kalinga, Kilimani, and Lushebere, located in Masisi, a territory especially affected by displacement. In order to gain a better understanding of durable solutions that are suitable for the IDPs living in the camps, this report investigates the causes behind their displacement, as well as their living conditions and their prospects for the future. Finally, it offers concrete suggestions to the actors involved, such as authorities in DRC, as well as international and Congolese organisations that provide assistance and protection to IDPs in the camps and support durable solutions to their displacement.

A 2008 agreement preventing new Somali-owned shops from opening in Khayelitsha was undermined by bribery and the demands of local residents, it emerged at a meeting called on Wednesday to find a solution to recent tensions between local business owners and Somali traders.Recent, belated enforcement of the 2008 agreement reached between the Zanokhanyo Retailers Association and the Somali Retailers Association in the aftermath of the xenophobic attacks that year resulted in two Somali-owned shops being looted and at least 25 others being forcibly closed over the last two weeks.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith insists Australian soldiers and spies overseas always act within legal restraints, but he has refused to comment on the secret operations of Australian commandos in Africa. Fairfax Media revealed the previously classified operations of Special Air Service 4 Squadron, raised in secret in 2005 and deployed to at least three African nations for covert intelligence collection. The troops have operated out of uniform in Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

Sudan and South Sudan have agreed a framework agreement to give their citizens basic freedoms in both nations, African Union mediators say. They have agreed to allow citizens of the other state to live, work and own property on either side of the border, and travel between the two nations. Analysts say deals have been broken in the past, and the two sides have left space to wriggle out of this accord.

Thousands of Rwandan refugees living in Uganda remain unwilling to return home, citing a fear of persecution, despite the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) invocation of a clause ending their refugee status. '[Since May 2009], no Rwandan refugee of any profile, either urban or rural, has expressed [a] willingness to return back home,' Manzi Mutuyimana, one of the refugees, told IRIN. 'Conditions which could make [a] safe return with dignity [do not exist] in Rwanda.' The refugees and asylum-seekers fled to Uganda between 1959 and 1998.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has found the Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga, guilty of recruiting and using child soldiers. It is the court's first verdict since it was set up 10 years ago. He will be sentenced at a later hearing. The charges relate to a conflict in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between 2002 and 2003.

Israel is to begin construction soon on a vast detention facility in the Negev desert to house the thousands of immigrants that cross illegally into Israel from Egypt every year. Human rights groups fear that the detention centre, the largest of its kind in the world, with a capacity to hold 8,000 migrants, will turn into a festering refugee camp, and deprive those escaping persecution at home of their rights to seek asylum in Israel.

In a small courtyard outside the National Council for the Care of Martyrs and Injured, people swarm around two barred windows with outstretched arms, thrusting paper work toward the front of the crowd. Over a year after the 25 January uprising, Egyptians injured in the course of the street action that toppled president Hosni Mubarak say they are still seeking funding for medical treatment and rehabilitation. Many of them come to the national council hoping for one of the 3,200 promised job opportunities. Others come to complain about invalid compensation checks or untreated injuries.

A cholera outbreak in Uganda that has claimed eight lives among 280 cases since 14 February could escalate as predicted heavy rains are likely to lead to flooding, the Health Minister warned. In an alert issued in the capital, Kampala, on 7 March, Denis Lwamafa, commissioner for non-communicable diseases, said 280 cases had been recorded in the western Ugandan districts of Kasese, Buliisa, and eastern districts of Mbale, Bududa and Sironko. Others affected are Pallisa, Butaleja and Manafa districts.

A total of 120 Nigerians who have been deported from Britain for various immigration offences arrived in Nigeria on Friday (9 March). The 120 deportees, comprising mainly young men and women, narrated their unsavoury experiences, saying that they were brought back home unprepared by the British authorities, the source added.

More than 200 have been killed and several others are missing in fresh fighting between two rival ethnic groups in the troubled Jonglei state of South Sudan officials said, raising stakes ahead of a disarmament exercise set for mid this month. The fighting erupted Friday (9 March) morning in cattle camps in Akobo County when armed men from Pibor in the same state crossed in from the Ethiopia borders and attacked the area, Jonglei state Local Government minister Duop Lam said.

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has in an astonishing broadside at perceived opponents including the country’s media warned them to desist from insulting him or they would be 'properly dealt with by the law'. A press release signed by State House press officer Albert Mungomo said that Malawi law provides for the 'total respect and protection' of the country's leader and that the authorities would no longer stand by and watch as the President of the Republic of Malawi was ridiculed.

A series of explosions at a bus station in the Kenyan capital Nairobi have killed at least four people and wounded 40 others, the Kenyan Red Cross has said. The Red Cross reported on its official Twitter account that eight out of the 40 injured people admitted to hospital on Saturday are in a critical condition. Kenyan police immediately blamed al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist armed group, that Kenyan troops are currently fighting in neighbouring Somalia.

Continued fighting in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has forced more than 3,000 civilians into Uganda since the beginning of this year, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says. In a statement, the UNHCR said that an average of 50 people were passing over into Uganda every day this year, after a series of attacks on farms and villages in the volatile northeastern region.

Scores of people have been killed after the Somali armed Islamist group al-Shabab attacked Ethiopian troops in a town close to the border of both countries. There were differing accounts of which side bore the brunt of the fighting in Yurkud on Saturday, the worst involving Ethiopian troops since they returned in force to Somalia last year after withdrawing in early 2009. The fighting came the day after the African Union (AU) said Ethiopia planned to pull its troops out of the Horn of Africa nation by the end of April with soldiers from Djibouti, Uganda and Burundi taking their positions.

A suicide car bomber attacked a Catholic church in Nigeria on Sunday, killing at least 10 people in the blast, and the retaliatory violence that followed, officials said. The bomb detonated as worshippers attended the final Mass of the day at St. Finbar's Catholic Church in Jos, a city where thousands have died in the last decade in religious and ethnic violence.

Newmont Gold has allocated around 20 per cent of its 'core assets' to two projects in Ghana - both of which have now come under fire from local communities. Human rights abuses have been reported from the Ahafo mine. And, in February, the people of Yayaaso, Adausina, Ntronan and surrounding communities in the Birim North District, eastern Ghana, carried out a peaceful demonstration against Newmont' proposed Akyem project.

'How can profitable diamond mining, in a peaceful country with such a fast-growing economy, become the source of so much violence?'

Twenty-five South Africans who suffered at the hands of the apartheid security police have claimed a small victory after a United States court ratified a settlement between the claimants and General Motors. Khulumani Support Group attorney, Charles Abrahams, has been quoted as saying that, 'The settlement is a small amount. It was a show of good faith on the part of General Motors, considering that they are bankrupt.' The claimants and the Khulumani Support Group, a lobby group for financial reparations for victims of apartheid, will share an amount of $1.5-million.

The world’s nuclear weapons industry is being funded - and kept alive - by more than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers in 30 countries, according to a new study. And these institutions have substantial investments in nuclear arms producers. Released by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the 180-page study says that nuclear-armed nations spend over 100 billion dollars each year assembling new warheads, modernising old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines to launch them.