SOMALIA: Armed Militia Grab the Famine Business

Armed groups are withholding aid and preventing Somali famine refugees from leaving camps to ensure the continued supply of food by aid agencies that they are presently selling on the open market.

SOMALIA: Food Aid Stolen From Famine Victims

Masses of food meant for famine victims in Somalia are being stolen, an investigation has revealed.

Watchdogs Blast Ethnic Cleansing in South Kordofan

On Jun. 19, Angelo al-Sir, a subsistence farmer from a small village east of Kadugli, capital of the oil-rich South Kordofan state in Northern Sudan, saw his pregnant wife, two of his 10 children, his nephew and another relative killed in an airstrike in broad daylight.

HAITI: Patchy Healthcare Adds to Miseries of Women and Girls

"I just gave birth on the ground...I had no drugs for pain during delivery," one Haitian mother tells Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a report released Tuesday that says a year and a half after the country's devastating earthquake, women and girls are still facing gaps in access to available healthcare services necessary to stop preventable maternal and infant deaths.

Haiti’s Earthquake Victims: ‘Abandoned Like Stray Dogs’

Eighty thousand tiny houses dot the countryside near this coastal city, located just west of the epicentre of the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake that killed some 200,000 and displaced over one million.

OP-ED: Expanding Deserts, Falling Water Tables and Toxins Driving People from Homes

People do not normally leave their homes, their families, and their communities unless they have no other option. Yet as environmental stresses mount, we can expect to see a growing number of environmental refugees. Rising seas and increasingly devastating storms grab headlines, but expanding deserts, falling water tables, and toxic waste and radiation are also forcing people from their homes.

LIBYA: No ‘Mission Accomplished’ Claimed in Washington Yet

While the apparent end of Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year reign over Libya was greeted with considerable satisfaction here Monday, no one was prepared to declare "mission accomplished", particularly given the looming questions around what happens next.

Evidence Mounts of War Crimes Unfolding in Sudan

Witnesses reported that attacks continue on civilian populations in Sudan, even as the United Nations calls for a thorough investigation into violations of international law carried out in South Kordofan state in June.

SOMALIA: Massive School Dropouts As Famine Continues

Jamaal Abdi, an eight-year-old boy at the Badbaado camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu, would like to have an education. He has his own dreams for the future.

SOMALIA: City in Need of More Aid

The shelling and gunshots, once a common sound in Mogadishu, no longer ring out in the city's streets. The surprise withdrawal on Aug. 6 of the Islamist extremist group Al Shabaab from their stronghold in Mogadishu has meant that people now move about the city, for the first time in two years, without fear of constant attack.

Q&A: Climate-Driven Migrants Raise Thorny Legal Issues

As the effects of accelerating climate change ripple outward, pushing millions from their land and homes, experts warn that international human rights and refugee law needs to catch up to the reality on the ground if migrants are to be given adequate protection and support.

ICRC Warns of Human Toll of Attacks on Medical Workers

A new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) describes a pattern of attacks on medical staff that the group says is undermining the safe delivery of medical assistance and health care across the globe.

CLIMATE CHANGE: “Last Straw” Pushes Millions from Their Homes

With political will to dramatically cut the world's greenhouse gas emissions failing to materialise, a multi-pronged approach is needed to protect the millions of people who are being displaced as a result of environmental factors driven largely by climate change, experts say.

SUDAN: Congressional Hearings Paint Picture of Crisis and Atrocities

Witnesses' chilling depictions of a new Sudanese genocide at an emergency congressional hearing Thursday quelled any remnants of doubt that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Nuba mountain region of South Kordofan.

SOMALIA: U.S. Greenlights Aid to Shabaab-Controlled Areas

The Barack Obama administration promised Tuesday that the U.S. would not prosecute relief agencies for delivering aid to parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamist insurgent group al- Shabaab, despite concerns that unrestricted aid in the failed state would be diverted to the wrong hands.

Famine Relief in Somalia Stymied by Access

While an estimated 12.4 million people linger on the brink of starvation in the Great Horn of Africa, U.S. officials and world relief agencies said Monday that even in a "best case scenario" the crisis will worsen as the areas in most desperate need remain cut off from access to relief.

SOMALIA: “I Carried Him a Whole Day While He Was Dead, Thinking He Was Alive”

As the first of food aid from the United Nations World Food Programme was airlifted into Mogadishu on Wednesday, it came too late for Qadija Ali's two- year-old son Farah.

EAST AFRICA: ‘It’s Not a Heartless Mother Leaving a Child Behind, Just One Who Wants to Survive’

On the road between the Kenyan and Somali border lie the dead bodies of children who have succumbed to the famine and the hardships of making the journey from their drought-stricken villages to Kenya.

Haiti’s Reconstruction Still an Uphill Battle

As Haiti struggles to recover from the deadly January 2010 earthquake that killed over 200,000 people and forced nearly 1.5 million into camps, international funding is failing to keep pace with the generous pledges made last year, and in- fighting in Haiti's new government is hindering the disbursement of aid.

EAST AFRICA: Massive Aid Needed to Stave off Disaster

International donors have given more than one billion dollars to ease the famine in Somalia and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, but U.N. officials say another billion will be needed to prevent the situation from deteriorating in other areas.

HORN OF AFRICA: Poor Attention to Forecasts to Blame for Famine in Somalia

The world had an opportunity to save thousands of lives that are being lost in parts of Somalia due to the famine, if only the donor community had paid attention to the early warning systems that predicted it eight months ago.