At least 30,000 people have been displaced by recent fighting in the mountain ranges of Jebel Marra in central Darfur, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has recently regained access to parts of the region following a spate of violence that led to its evacuation. "During a recent needs assessment, we found 64,000 people - about half of them recently displaced and living with the resident population - putting a strain on local resources," according to the ICRC communication coordinator in Sudan. "These represent only some of the victims of the armed clashes that have been occurring in the Jebel Marra since the start of the year."

This is the text of an interview with Jan Egeland, the UN under secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordination. He was in Nairobi recently to launch the $426 million drought appeal for the Horn of Africa. He spoke to the East African's special correspondent on a number of issues facing the region.

IRIN/AllAfrica.com on Friday examined the HIV/AIDS epidemic in overcrowded camps in the Acholiland region of northern Uganda, where the disease "can't always be given priority" despite the fact that AIDS-related illnesses are among the "top self-reported causes of death" in the roughly 200 camps, which are home to nearly two million internally displaced persons. The Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government have been fighting for almost 20 years in the region, leading to insecurity and underdevelopment in the country.

Migrant remittances are now widely recognised as a powerful tool affecting livelihoods across the globe. Counting only tracked and registered international transfers, migrants sent over $125 billion in 2004, and the figures are rising. Forced migrants generated by conflict and other causes gravitate to places where people known to them are already residing. Their political, cultural and economic relationship and loyalties, to each other and to their countries of origin, are complex.

It is true what Gerald Caplan has said (See . But unless we individualy wake up and put an end to these wars we will not win. It is up to us - the African race - to wake up and cultivate a sense of togetherness, a feeling of brotherhood and reconciliation with one another.

Like the war in Darfur which has displaced many, I strongly believe that Africans themselves will end it and not people from outside Darfur. We do not need so much the help of the international community but the African leaders and the people of that region. The resources of reconciliation lies within our reach.

If we cultivate an environment where we recognize that we are Africans fighting one another, we will see the common enemy and fight it with all our energies. We will therefore be in a position to fight such ills inflicted on our society such has poverty, disease and under-development. I would like therefore to say that the African leaders and we in general, will turn the tables only if we are part of the reconciliation and not sitting on the edge of the fence leaving everything to the international community.

The Burundian government has given civilians in possession of weapons three weeks to register the arms or risk being arrested for illegal ownership. "They have until 5 May to register the arms they are holding," President Pierre Nkurunziza said. He commended some 3,000 people who had already handed in their weapons, saying the law on illegal ownership of arms would apply to those who did not register.

More than 10,000 people have fled their villages in two districts in northern Kenya following a spate of violent raids by cattle rustlers in which several people were killed and thousands of livestock stolen, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) and the police. Police said seven people were killed by the armed assailants. Herder communities in northern and northeastern Kenya have a tradition of attacking each other's villages to steal livestock, but the raids have become increasingly violent as herdsmen illegally acquire firearms, which are readily available in the area.

A top court in Central African Republic has referred its former president, Ange Felix Patasse, and Congo's Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on war crimes charges. Patasse's security forces backed by fighters from Bemba's then-rebel movement in neighbouring Congo and mercenaries from Chad are accused of executing and raping civilians as they put down a coup attempt in the former French colony in October 2002.

Seven soldiers in the Congolese army have been sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity, including the mass rape of at least 119 women in the northwestern province of Equateur. This was the first sentence against the country's military personnel for crimes against humanity. However, the military garrison court in Songo Mboyo, 600 km northeast of the provincial capital Mbandaka, acquitted five other soldiers of similar charges. The convicted soldiers committed the crimes in December 2003 at Songo Mboyo.

A German man of Ethiopian origin is fighting for his life after being badly beaten, in what police described as a racist attack. The 37-year-old engineer suffered extensive skull and rib injuries in the attack by two men in Potsdam, eastern Germany, early on Sunday (April 15). About 100 foreigners have been killed in attacks by neo-Nazis since German reunification in 1990.

A Rwandan ex-mayor has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for aiding and abetting killing in the 1994 genocide. Paul Bisengimina, who was mayor of Gikoro in 1994, was sentenced at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the Tanzanian town of Arusha. He was convicted on two charges to which he pleaded guilty in terms of a plea bargaining agreement. An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered during the 100-day genocide. Mr Bisengimina was involved in the slaughter of about 1,000 Tutsis who had sought refuge in a church.

Burundi has lifted a midnight to dawn curfew that has been in place for 34 years, saying the country is stable. A new government was elected last year following a civil war that killed an estimated 300,000 people. The curfew was used by the government in the 1970s - dominated by a Tutsi minority - to try to maintain control. But the country soon spiralled into chaos - as Hutu rebel groups took up arms against increasingly brutal repression by the military. The curfew remained in force for the next three decades - with Burundians prohibited from venturing on to the streets between midnight and dawn. Now the government says these restrictions are no longer necessary.

On any given day, hundreds of women in displaced persons camps throughout Darfur can be seen nervously waiting for African Union (AU) troops before venturing outside to collect firewood for cooking. In its struggle to prevent atrocities, the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) has had many small successes and has proven innovative in its methods. Despite serious handicaps, AMIS has saved lives and prevented even worse catastrophes for many internally displaced persons (IDPs). But the African Union faces crises of its own. With a weak mandate and near-empty coffers, AMIS is itself struggling to survive.

The government of Chad has backed down on threats to expel 200,000 Sudanese refugees after linking a series of rebel attacks to Khartoum, but has closed the border with Sudan, threatening aid distribution. The announcements came after a week of attacks on Chadian towns by rebels seeking to overthrow Chadian President Idriss Deby, culminating in a major assault on the capital N’djamena which killed and injured more than 200.

Two decades of hunger, fear and disease in crowded camps may be ending for nearly two million internally displaced persons in the war-torn northern Uganda. Hundreds have began returning to their villages. The Ugandan army announced that the IDPs mainly in the Lango and Teso sub-regions will walk home. According to the defence and army spokesman, the resettlement process will not, however, extend to the Acholi sub region because there are still a few rebel remnants there. Millions have been forced into camps by the insurgency that has left thousands dead and many abducted and forcefully conscripted into rebellion mainly from the Acholi sub-region.

Last week the world remembered the 12th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. Gerald Caplan argues that understanding about the real causes of the genocide remains limited, while the world’s superpowers continue to act in their own self-interest when it comes to other genocides.

Twelve years after perhaps a million defenseless Rwandans were slaughtered for the sin of being Tutsi, Rwanda's genocide has at last become widely known. As people around the world commemorate this week the 12th anniversary of the genocide, the phrase "Another Rwanda" joins the wildly ignored "Never Again!" to reflect the world's apparent abhorrence of genocide—the ultimate crime of crimes. Anyone who thinks this augurs well for the future of humankind is dead wrong.

There are three critical realities that both these neat little phrases obscure: Few really understand what actually happened in Rwanda in 1994. A pernicious campaign to deny that genocide continues to unfold. And it IS happening again before our eyes.

Thanks to a modest production of movies, documentaries and books since the 10th anniversary, the genocide is far better known now than it was even while it was at its bloodiest. Far and away the most important vehicle has been the mainstream film "Hotel Rwanda", seen by millions and widely available on CD. The problem is what these large audiences learned from "Hotel Rwanda." Yes, it made clear that the minority Tutsi people were attacked viciously by the majority Hutu and that the world at large failed to intervene.

Yet the lasting impression surely is that some Hutu Africans were sadistically massacring some Tutsi Africans for no good reason. No one viewing the film alone would have grasped that this was no mere barbaric tribal eruption based on primitive ancient hatreds. This was a carefully planned and executed conspiracy by a group of sophisticated, westernized, greedy men and women for the purpose of ensuring their continued power and privileges. That's not a savage African phenomenon - that's a universal human phenomenon.

Nor is the critical, destructive role of outside forces evident in "Hotel Rwanda". No viewer would learn that the hatred between the two groups had largely been invented and inculcated over a century ago by the powerful Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda. They'd know nothing of the responsibility of the Belgian government for the deep, ultimately deadly, division between Hutu and Tutsi. They'd be blissfully unaware that the government of France was complicit in the genocide and has never to this day accepted any responsibility. Indeed, without a century of western interference, there'd have been no genocide as we know it. And had western governments cared one iota, they could easily have prevented the entire genocidal conspiracy from being executed. The world knows everything about Rwanda except what really matters.

What's even worse are the insidious forces at work that brazenly deny that there ever was a genocide launched by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi. Another unwelcome lesson in human nature: There are always deniers. There are always David Irvings and Ernst Zundels, who for their own sordid or pathological motives deny what can't be doubted. In Rwanda's case, it's an unholy coalition of Hutu genocidaires who want to complete the extermination of the Tutsi, whites in Belgian and France who had privileged access to the pre-genocide Hutu government, conservative Christian politicians in Europe, and a motley cast of characters around the world (including Canadians) with diverse, perverse, sometimes inexplicable motives.

For the survivors of 1994, and for the families of the victims, denial creates a second unbearable hurt, making an already difficult healing process far more painful and prolonged. And it's all based on lies and distortions. The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable: To deny the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda is the equivalent of denying the Holocaust, and all who do so should be treated accordingly.

Finally, despite Rwanda, there remains Darfur. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the world to assure that Darfur, the besieged western area of Sudan, doesn't become "another Rwanda". Unlike Rwanda, all the world knows what's happening in Darfur, so the excuse of ignorance, as in Rwanda, doesn't hold. Unlike Rwanda, Darfur has been formally labeled a genocide by the Bush administration and both Houses of the American Congress.

Yet three years since the Darfur crisis erupted, the world's reaction has been pitiful. The all-powerful permanent members of the Security Council - China, Russia, the US, France - have perfectly good reasons of crass self-interest to allow hundreds of thousands of Darfurians to die, countless women raped, millions forced to flee to squalid camps. Three years after it exploded, the situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate drastically. "Another Rwanda", indeed.

What are the real lessons of Rwanda and Darfur? They are surely inescapable. Those of us who demand interventions on humanitarian grounds - in Rwanda, Darfur, northern Uganda - will continue to be ignored. When western powers do intervene, we can be sure that dubious geopolitical and hegemonic interests are the driving force. We'll have many more Rwandas; we can count on it.

* Gerald Caplan has written frequently about the Rwandan genocide and genocide prevention.

* Please send comments to

A panel of judges has given the government a green light to deport Zimbabwean refugees despite fears of torture under Robert Mugabe’s regime. Home Secretary Charles Clarke said he was ‘pleased’ at the Court of Appeal ruling which overturned a previous decision of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT). Refugee groups expressed dismay at today’s ruling claiming Zimbabwe remained a ‘very dangerous place.’

Zara Ali Muki lost her leg in 2004, when freelance militia fired on a vehicle she was riding in in Mogadishu, Somalia. Her life was in danger once again at the end of March, when she was forced to flee the latest factional fighting in the capital city. The clashes between the Islamic court militia and militia loyal to an alliance of Mogadishu-based warlords killed more than 100 people and displaced hundreds of families from the capital. IRIN news interviewed Zara.

The onset of rains, especially after a prolonged drought, is not always a blessing in Kenya's semi-arid north. Here, the rains come with increased incidents of cattle rustling as many communities seek to restock after losing animals to drought. Cattle rustling creates tensions amongst these pastoralist communities. In neighbouring Samburu, pastoralists say once the grass starts sprouting and the land becomes green once again, they are likely to witness increased and sustained raids by neighbouring communities who want to restock thousands of livestock they lost during drought.

After high-level peace talks Ivorian and regional officials have called for a single programme to tackle disarmament and national identification – up to now major stumbling blocks to peace – but fell short of hammering out a schedule for the process. Previous talks aimed at facilitating presidential elections in October have faltered over rebel demands that a process of identification must be completed before they would give up a single weapon.