Opinion: When Schools Become Barracks, Children Suffer

Surprise turned to confusion, then to horror, when the children at Kiata primary school realized that the soldiers they had spotted at the bottom of the hill were heading for their school and its occupants.

Migrants Waiting Their Moment in the Moroccan Mountains

In the middle of the mountains behind the border fence of Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in Morocco, and eight kilometres from the nearest Moroccan village of Fnideq, an uncertain number of migrants live in the woods. No one knows exactly how many they are but charity workers in Melilla, Spain’s other enclave in Morocco, say they could be in their thousands.

Urban Farming Mushrooms in Africa Amid Food Deficits

There is a scramble for unoccupied land in Africa, but this time it is not British, Portuguese, French or other colonialists racing to occupy the continent’s vacant land – it is the continent’s urban dwellers fast turning to urban farming amid the rampant food shortages that have not spared them.

Poverty and Slavery Often Go Hand-in-Hand for Africa’s Children

“Poverty has become part of me,” says 13-year-old Aminata Kabangele from the Democratic Republic of Congo. “I have learned to live with the reality that nobody cares for me.”

Opinion: Burundi – Fragile Peace at Risk Ahead of Elections

Pierre Claver Mbonimpa is not permitted to get close to an airport, train station or port without authorisation from a judge.  He cannot travel outside of the capital of his native Burundi, Bujumbura. Whenever called upon, he must present himself before judicial authorities.

Congolese Citizens Forced to Pay for Police, Protection Services

Parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo are as dangerous and lawless as ever, with police and the state offering citizens little or no protection from armed groups.

OPINION: The Affinity Between Iraqi Sunni Extremists and the Rulers of Saudi Arabia

Which story line sounds the more credible – that linking the rebel movement ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) to policies pursued by Iran or that linking the Sunni extremist force to Iran’s adversary Saudi Arabia?

Conflict on DRC, Zambia Border Threatens Regional Trade

Truck driver Alfred Ndlovu transports cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) mineral rich Katanga Province to South Africa twice a month. He has been doing this for the last five years but now he is considering giving it up because he fears for his life every time he crosses the border.

U.S. Urged to Change Policy on Support to Victims of Sexual Violence

The U.S. government is being urged to roll back a longstanding policy that has banned foreign aid funding from being used for health care services for victims of sexual violence in conflict situations.

Q&A: You Are One Percent Away from Being a Bonobo

When author Deni Béchard discovered bonobos shared almost 99 percent of human DNA, and based their relationships on cooperation and collaboration, he knew he had to write about them.

From Africa to Brazil in the Hold of a Ship

Ornela Mbenga Sebo, a young Congolese woman, escaped in 2011 from a rebel camp in an unidentified location in Africa where she was being held as a slave and stowed away in the garbage bay of a merchant ship, with no idea where it was headed.