Heavily armed anti-Gaddafi fighters tightened their siege of the ousted Libyan leader's hometown of Sirte on Monday as hundreds of terrified civilians poured out of the Mediterranean coastal city. Fleeing residents spoke of dwindling supplies of food and water and said Gaddafi forces had attempted to stop people leaving, while doctors warned of a growing humanitarian crisis.

The Mau Mau uprising
Found you and left you
You fought with the white man
Like a man
And won
Wambui our warrior...

A new report by the British charity Oxfam suggests that over 22,000 Ugandans have been forced out of their homes since 2004. Oxfam claims many of them have been left homeless after being evicted in so-called land-grabs, to clear the way for timber plantations. One eviction case involves the British company New Forest Company, who have denied the accusations.

Fahamu Refugee Programme has mounted a campaign to oppose States and UNHCR withdrawing the protection of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees from tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees currently in exile. ‘These are not people escaping retribution from the 1994 genocide,’ said Director Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond OBE. ‘They are those who have been fleeing Rwanda since, some quite recently, including large numbers of genocide survivors, who were never refugees before, as well as government officials and army officers, because of instability, ethnic strife, arbitrary judicial procedures, indiscriminate retaliation, political violence, intolerance of dissent, impunity, and lack of accountability.’

The newly trained Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) seems to be gradually reverting to behavior and practices of the past. There are repeated reports of soldiers’ brutality here and there against civilians and sometimes paramilitary personnel in the country.

After culling through 20,000 depositions from alleged victims of politically motivated torture and human rights violations in Togo, a special commission has begun hearing testimony from a select group of some 250 of those alleged victims, whose stories cover nearly half a century of turmoil in this West African nation.

The food security threat posed by climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the African continent, says Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson. 'Climate change is a serious threat to the agricultural field in the African continent,' Joemat-Pettersson told BuaNews at a breakfast briefing with African ambassadors to solicit support for the planned meeting on climate-smart agriculture.

Nigerian authorities have in recent days deported 115 illegal immigrants from the northern city of Kano amid increased security after an attack on UN headquarters in the country, an official said.

The race to feed more than 12 million people facing severe food shortages in the Horn of Africa has seen humanitarian agencies make several funding appeals. Donor governments have contributed more than US$1.46 billion out of the required $2.48 billion. So far, so traditional. What has not been counted has been the response of ordinary people in the region to the disaster unfolding on their TV screens. Here is a round-up of some initiatives that have tapped into popular philanthropy.

Egypt's army will stop trying civilians in military courts when it scraps the country's decades-old emergency law, a top general said, as activists tried to build momentum for a mass protest against military trials. Rights groups say Egypt's army rulers have used military courts to imprison as many as 14,000 civilians as they try to deal with follow-up waves of street protests since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.

'Two bus operators have died after having been shot by police in Swaziland,' Morten Nielsen from Danish NGO Africa Contact reports from the small kingdom. The shootings come in the wake of widespread police violence throughout the country during recent weeks, as well as in April, where thousands of Swazis marched for democracy and socio-economic justice.

For those who think that anything good is going to come out of the NATO-led war in Libya, and feel that it is mainly a question of some wrongly supporting Gadaffi, Courtenay Barnett begs to differ and examines the choices.

UNHCR has opened a sixth camp for up to 27,000 refugees from Côte d'Ivoire who have been living with host communities in eastern Liberia since fleeing their homeland.

According to United Nations figures, since 2010 some 30 refugees from Africa who have requested asylum from the Brazilian government are living in Amazon jungle states. The asylum-seekers are from Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria and Sierra Leone in West Africa, Kenya in East Africa, Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, and the DRC.

'HRCSL expresses deep concern over the recent spate of violence in the country and regrets the resulting loss of life and injuries to individuals and destruction of property. We refer to reports of political violence recently in Kono followed by the affray at the national stadium during the Egypt/Sierra Leone match and most recently the Bo incident. The incident in Kono and Bo involved political violence resulting in the discharge of firearms allegedly by the police leading to injury to individuals and security personnel.'

Amnesty International has welcomed the release of Kenyan human rights activist, Al-Amin Kimathi by a Ugandan court. The charges against NGO director Al-Amin Kimathi and four other defendants were dropped by the Kampala High Court at the start of their trial.

The Egyptian military authorities’ expansion of the emergency law is the greatest erosion of human rights since the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year, Amnesty International said. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) broadened the application of the Mubarak-era emergency law following clashes between demonstrators and security forces at the Israeli embassy last Friday. The confrontation resulted in three reported deaths and some 130 arrests.

South Africa remains committed to resolving and stamping out the recurring problem of xenophobia in all its forms wherever it manifests itself within the Republic. This was the message from Minister for Public Service and Administration, Mr Richard Baloyi during his opening remarks of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) meeting of select Focal Points with African Peer Review (APR) Panel members.

The National Secretariat (SN) of the Polisario Front has denounced the colonial practices of the Moroccan government, through the campaigns of brutal repression, arrests, abductions and transferring civilians before military courts, particularly since the forced dismantling of the camp of Gdeim Izik, November 8, 2010.

Two prominent Ethiopian opposition politicians have been detained, at least one of them on terrorism-related charges. But opposition leaders are questioning the charges, saying the detentions appear politically motivated.