The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers November 7 released a 195-page “black-list” of armed groups and governments using children in conflicts, in advance of the United Nations Security Council’s debate on children and armed conflict scheduled for November 14.
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Millions are at risk of hunger and starvation in East and Southern Africa, but the United Nations and private humanitarian organizations have been unable to raise sufficient humanitarian aid. Dire needs in two regions splits available aid resources. Now, those affected by food shortages in southern Africa are pit against those facing the same problem in the Horn of Africa for meager emergency aid allotments. Read more...

Continued fighting between two ethnic groups in Ituri province in the eastern Congo has sent some 40,000 people fleeing into nearby forests for safety. Militias from the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups have engaged in vicious fighting in recent months, burning homes and killing civilians. Interethnic and international battles have raged in the Congo for more than six years, leaving more than 2.5 million Congolese civilians dead. Read more...

Officially, peace arrived in Angola in April. Yet seven months later, that peace is tenuous. Among the challenges for this southern African country that has known little but war for three decades is the reintegration of thousands of former rebel soldiers, many of whom were abducted as children and forced to fight. At the same time, millions displaced by the fighting are trying to rebuild their communities in spite of the region’s worst food shortage in half a century. Read more...