While the quality of education available in refugee camps varies, the difficulties of accessing education in urban settings are generally greater. In addition to legal and policy barriers and the often prohibitive costs of sending a child to a local school, a UNHCR report has noted that: 'Refugee children often have less support than in a camp-based school in adjusting to a new curriculum, learning a new language, accessing psychosocial support, and addressing discrimination, harassment, and bullying from teachers and peers. They may also encounter a lack of familiarity by local school authorities for the processes of admitting refugee children and recognizing prior learning.' A year-long, yet-to-be published study by the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg into the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants to education in South Africa found that schools often demanded documents to enrol a child which are not legally required.

A gun battle between rival groups has raged near office buildings and five-star hotels in central Tripoli, in the latest sign of unrest in Libya following the overthrow and killing of Muammar Gaddafi. Witnesses said gunfire could be heard on Wednesday 1 February coming from near the beach house of Gaddafi's son, Saadi, on the Mediterranean Sea at Tripoli. Thick smoke spewed out from near the house, and ambulance sirens could be has heard as rival groups, using heavy machine guns, clashed in the mostly business district of Tripoli.

Human-rights groups in Senegal, including the local branch of the UK-based Amnesty International, have condemned police violence during an opposition rally in which one person was killed. Officers used tear gas and water cannons to break up the protest in the capital, Dakar, on Tuesday night, attended by an estimated 10,000 people in what until now had been one of Africa's most stable countries.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party has attributed the typhoid outbreak that has affected 1,500 people in the capital Harare to biological warfare and Western sanctions. The claim was made by a Zanu-PF spokesperson in Harare Mr Claudious Mutero as Health and Child Welfare Minister Dr Henry Madzorera warned the outbreak would spread to other towns because of collapsing water and sewer infrastructure.

Cases of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), as well as domestic violence, are increasing in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Hargeisa, capital of the self-declared independent Republic of Somaliland, with social workers attributing the trend to hard economic times made worse by recent drought in the region.

The Democratic Alliance Students Organisation (DASO) recently released a controversial poster as part of their anti-racism campaign. The 'In OUR future, you wouldn't look twice' poster shows a naked mixed-race couple embracing. The poster has caused a huge stir on Facebook, Twitter and blogs and even generated viral spoof posters. Global Voices Online has summed up the online reactions and posted some of the spoofs.

Somali government forces backed by Kenyan troops have reportedly captured a strategic town in southern Somalia after al-Shabab fighters vacated the town without any resistance, Press TV reported. 'Several pro-government forces, including Kenyan soldiers and Ahlu-Sunna fighters are now based in Howsingow town,' said Mohamed Khalif, a Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) military official.

‘I have been accused by some of being a mouthpiece for the [former] Libyan government but now the truth is coming out. We know that the essence of the former Libyan government's analysis has been proved correct.’

New studies released in London 1 February suggest that the frenzied sell-off of forests and other prime lands to buyers hungry for the developing world's natural resources risk sparking widespread civil unrest - unless national leaders and investors recognize the customary rights of millions of poor people who have lived on and worked these lands for centuries. 'Controversial land acquisitions were a key factor triggering the civil wars in Sudan, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and there is every reason to be concerned that conditions are ripe for new conflicts to occur in many other places,' said Jeffrey Hatcher, director of global programs for the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), which sponsored an expert panel today at the Royal Society on the trends shaping rural lands and rights worldwide.

A wave of fresh attacks by suspected gunmen of the Boko Haram sect has claimed the lives of a soldier, two policemen and two civilians. Two other policemen and a soldier have also been injured. The sect attacked the Gambouru/Ngala Police Station, Joint Task Force (JTF) checkpoint and the Nigeria Air Force Barracks, Maiduguri on Monday 30 January.

The Kenyan government plans to move hundreds of thousands of refugees to Somalia, a plan condemned by the The Refugee Consortium of Kenya.

Prominent Senegalese opposition activist Alioune Tine has been released after spending two days in detention. Tine is a member of the opposition June 23 Movement (M23), formed after countrywide protests last year against incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade's plans to run for a third term. Tine told the AFP agency he had been freed without charge.

The man accused of masterminding two deadly bombings at Nigeria's 50th independence celebrations will face trial in October after a South African court delayed his case by nine months. Nigerian national Henry Okah is facing trial in South Africa, where he has permanent residence, on charges that he orchestrated the twin car bombings - which killed 12 people in Abuja on 1 October 2010 - from his home in Johannesburg. Okah has denied involvement in the attacks, which were claimed by the militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

South Sudan has accused the government of neighbouring Sudan of arming gunmen alleged to have killed dozens of people in a cattle raid, as the UN warned that tensions between the two sides risked regional peace. 'A militia group from Unity state penetrated into Warrap state... and attacked people in a cattle camp, killing over 40,' Alison Manani Magaya, South Sudan's interior minister, said on Monday following the latest violence in the world's newest nation, which ceded from Sudan last year.

There are about one million Ugandans living in South Sudan, according to the Kampala City Traders’ Association (KCTA). But life is not easy for the Ugandan traders who supply South Sudan with many essential goods. On a side road at the market, a Southern Sudanese policeman wearing orange fatigues strikes a passing Ugandan with his rubber whip a few times, seemingly without any provocation. The Ugandan winces and then continues on his way. Ugandan migrants say such incidents - and much worse - are not uncommon. They say they have been beaten, arrested without cause and faced a plethora of other forms of harassment by Southern Sudanese security forces.

About 40 people have died and more than 100,000 are affected by twin storms that struck Mozambique 18-26 January, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Tropical Cyclone Funso struck northern Mozambique, 'affecting about 64,663 people and causing floods and damage of houses, schools and health centres. In southern Mozambique, high river flows from upstream countries… combined with heavy rainfall due to tropical storm Dando, affected about 51,670 people,' it said on 27 January.

A close aide to former Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha has been sentenced to hang for killing the wife of politician Moshood Abiola in 1996. Major Hamza al-Mustapha has been in detention since 1999 over the killing. Abiola is widely believed to have won the 1993 election, which was annulled by Nigeria's junta. His wife Kudirat was shot dead in 1996.

The trial of murdered rightwing leader Eugene Terre'Blanche resumed in the Ventersdorp Magistrate's Court on 30 January. Just before lunch there was a standoff between AWB supporters attending the trial and black residents over the singing of Bobbejaan klim die berg by the AWB to which the residents responded with Awuleth' Umshini wami. Chris Mahlangu and a minor are accused of beating and hacking 69-year-old Terre'Blanche to death with a panga and metal pipe in his farmhouse on April 3 2010. Both have pleaded not guilty to murder, housebreaking and robbery with aggravating circumstances. Mahlangu claims he acted in self defence. The teenager has denied involvement in the crime.

The South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) continues to be alarmed at the growing number of violent attacks on foreign nationals, of which recent events in Thokozo in Ekurhuleni is an example. The burning down of small businesses in our townships, and the physical and verbal attacks visited upon their proprietors is a shocking indictment of the state of our poorer communities, and the actions of a minority of clearly desperate but misguided people.

President of the Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS), Maxwell Dlamini, has been nominated for the 2012 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk. The award is presented by Front Line, an Irish-based human rights organisation founded by former director of the Irish Section of Amnesty International, Mary Lawlor. Maxwell Dlamini was detained, tortured and forced to sign a confession by members of Swaziland’s police and security forces during the so-called April 12 Swazi Uprising, a peaceful protest inspired by the Arab Spring that was brutally clamped down upon by Swazi police and security forces.