Three female lawyers working on women's issues in Sudan have been brought in for questioning by the National Security service over the past two days. The lawyers had participated in a local Human Rights Workshop, composed of local lawyers and NGO groups, in Dar al-Katah, Port Sudan, Eastern Sudan. The workshop concluded by issuing recommendations that the Sudanese Government sign an agreement prohibiting female genital mutilation and discrimination against women. According to participants, Nijalla Mohamed Ali, Sana Hassan Babiker, and Halima Hussein Mohamed were particularly active advocates of this issue, likely making them targets.

The type of police a nation gets may not be totally disconnected from the nature and attitude of its government or the political leadership in that country. A transparent, accountable, open and inclusive government that is popular and people focused would almost certainly among other things translate into an efficient, accountable, upright and people-friendly police service, says the introduction of a report on police brutality by Nigeria's Civil Liberties Organisation. "Most killings occur in police custody. Robbery suspects are summarily executed or shot in the limbs and left to bleed to death. They are later dumped in mortuaries or buried in shallow graves to cover their traces."

People are still fleeing Togo more than three months after disputed presidential polls and the refugees, who now number 40,000, are showing no sign of wanting to go home, the UN refugee agency said as it repeated an appeal to donors for money. "The story we hear relentlessly repeated is that while by day the situation is calm, it is at night that things happen," said one aid worker in Benin, who asked not to be named.

Ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has underscored the difficulties of bringing lasting peace to this vast Central African country. Nearly 3.5 million people have died, mostly from malnutrition and preventable diseases such as diarrhea and malaria, since civil war first began in the DRC in 1996. While an accord to end conflict was signed in South Africa at the end of 2002, lives are still being claimed.

Burundi must honor the right of asylum seekers to a fair hearing of their claims for protection, Human Rights Watch said. An estimated 2,000 to 2,500 Rwandans have fled to Burundi in recent weeks, many of them arriving for the second time after previously being coerced by Burundian authorities to return home.

What seemed like a student exchange programme over three days was really the result of coordinated efforts to make sure that Togolese children who recently fled into Benin can continue their education even in exile. The prompt action taken by the Beninese government, various aid agencies and refugee teachers is a textbook example of ensuring access to education in refugee emergencies.

Uganda has launched mobile 'plant clinics' to travel around the country diagnosing and treating outbreaks of crop pests and diseases. The clinics comprise teams of crop specialists who visit rural areas looking out for signs of pests and diseases, and report information on them and the crops affected to the country's Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries.

As the first shipments of emergency aid reached feeding centres in Niger, accusations are mounting that economic policies imposed on the country from outside contributed to the food shortages affecting up to three million people. Some aid specialists blamed the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. Their economic programmes have contributed to sharp rises in the prices of staples such as sorghum and millet. Others said the Niamey government had downplayed the emergency to protect local food traders who are resistant to free aid because it undermines markets.

The recent killing of 70 people in northern Kenya's Marsabit district demonstrates a frequent pattern of conflict between communities living in arid areas over scarce resources and inter-communal animosity exacerbated by political rivalry, an analyst said. On 12 July, hundreds of armed raiders believed to have been members of the Borana ethnic group attacked villages inhabited by the Gabra community in the Turbi area of Marsabit, near the Kenya-Ethiopia border. Some 70 people were killed, including 22 children.

An emergency phone hotline, set up as part of an effort to tackle violence against children, has attracted 25,000 phone calls within its first four weeks of operation, according to child safety workers in Cairo. The service was established in the wake of a Regional Consultation on Violence Against Children in the Middle East and North Africa, hosted by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), which was held in Cairo from 27-29 June.

Crucial reforms implemented by President Laurent Gbagbo fall short of what he promised in a South African-brokered deal that is due to pave the way for presidential elections in October, the opposition and rebels occupying the north of Cote d'Ivoire said on Wednesday. The G7 alliance, which groups the New Forces rebel movement and the four main opposition parties in parliament, said three key reforms implemented by Gbagbo by decree on 15 July fell short of what was required.

Six years after a return to civilian rule, Nigeria's police still routinely torture detainees, a new report says. The study, carried out by the Human Rights Watch group, is entitled "Rest in Pieces - Police Torture and Deaths in Custody in Nigeria". It is the first comprehensive documentation of alleged torture in the West African country.

On the face of things, the conflict in Northern Uganda provided an ideal first test for the new International Criminal Court (ICC). Analysts say it expected local applause for launching an investigation last July into atrocities by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and its elusive leader Joseph Kony. But one year on - with arrest warrants for the self-styled mystic and five of his commanders expected to be issued next month - the probe remains controversial, and Ugandans are divided over what impact it will have on the war.

Some 320,000 refugees have returned to Angola since the 2002 peace accord was signed, and the focus of aid agencies is shifting from repatriation to reintegration. But significant challenges remain: the country is still plagued by landmines, there have been reports of crop failures in some provinces, and access to basic social services remains poor for the majority of people.

How do you start life again in your hometown when the house you worked so hard to build over the years and all your hard-earned belongings have been destroyed? This is a dilemma facing Liberian refugees as they head back home to war-torn areas like Lofa county. Lofa, one of the 15 counties in Liberia, shares borders with Guinea and Sierra Leone and was the most devastated county during Liberia's 14-year conflict.

Dozens of people were feared dead and many more injured in clashes that broke out on Friday and continued over the weekend in the town of Boru-Hache, also known as El-Waaq, in southwestern Somalia's Gedo region, sources said. "Violations of human rights and international law occurred particularly with regard to the protection of civilians in time of war," Abdullahi Alas Jimale, chief investigator of the Mogadishu-based Isma'il Jim'ale Human Rights Centre (IJHRC), said. Boru-Hache is situated on Somalia's border with Kenya.

The recent outbreak of violence in the western Sudanese region of Darfur could threaten ongoing efforts to bring lasting peace to the strife-torn region, the UN warned on Tuesday. Reports gave conflicting accounts of the clashes that occured on Friday and Saturday. The official Sudanese news agency said a group of Darfur rebels had attacked a convoy of civilian vehicles guarded by the armed forces on the road between Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, and El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.

Leading human rights organisations in Egypt have denounced Saturday’s terrorist attacks on the Sinai holiday resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, also known as the ‘City of Peace’, and called on the government to avoid any excessive security crackdown. Eight human rights groups, including the al-Nadim Centre, the Egyptian Association for the Elimination of Torture and the Arab Human Rights Information Network, issued a joint statement condemning the attacks.

Most of the people living in the village of Kigalama, in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) South Kivu Province, have fled after Rwandan rebels launched an attack there last week, the provincial governor said on Monday. "Thirteen villagers and seven Rwandan rebels were killed," Didace Kaningini Kyoto, the governor, said. He said almost 5,000 people normally lived in Kigalama, about 130km southwest of the provincial capital, Bukavu. Most of them have now fled.

On Tuesday night, 19 July 2005, three uniformed Zimbabwe Republic Police details forced their way into ZimRights premises in Harare. The three details knocked on the main gate and demanded that they be allowed inside. The guard did not open the gate but questioned their mission and who they were looking for. The details replied that it was rudeness to question the motive of the police and that failure to cooperate with the police is punishable. With these intimidating remarks, the guard was forced to open the gate.