Africa: Faces in Words

Salem-News.com's weekly update from the African nations.

Faces of Libya. Courtesy: flickriver.com

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - Unseen, unheard; no one should be the bearer of these two words. Unfortunately, Africa is often in the forefront of this association.

Our common humanity should change this; we should never look away because it is too distant. Our commitment to one another, to human rights, and the ability to learn should always keep us connected no matter the severity and complexity of problems.

Important insights from last week, not to be missed

Somalis need their women for economic development - Al-Shabaab loyalists are shooting themselves liberally in the foot with all their strange rules, the most recent being that women should not be permitted to sell khat, the popular stimulant. It is a redundant clause, if the Somali fundamentalists are seriously considering becoming the rulers of a nation. http://www.medeshivalley.com/2011/05/somalis-need-their-women-for-economic.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+medeshivalley%2FJLIj+%28Medeshivalley.com%29

How many Internally Displaced Persons are there in Darfur? - The simple answer to the question, “How many internally displaced persons are there in Darfur?” is easy: we don’t know, and we don’t know the margin of error for various figures that have been promulgated by the UN in the past. But we are not without data, and the data raise troubling questions about the integrity of the current UN estimate of 1.9 million IDPs, very quietly first published in July 2010. When precisely this consequential revision—down from a previous UN figure of 2.7 million IDPs—took place is unclear, as is the decision-making process itself. As recently as May 2010, a report from the UN General Assembly’s Economic and Social Council, presumably using UN data, declared that “more than 2 million people remain displaced.” http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=438

Zambia: First Lady warns Against Gender Violence - FIRST lady Thandiwe Banda has said violence against women in sport and society is a human rights violation that is not acceptable, thus the need to come up with practical solutions to stamp out its occurrences and support the recovery of victims.

Prosecutors request 10-year jail sentence for exiled Newspaper Editor - Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the Rwandan government’s determination to keep hounding one of its media bugbears, Jean Bosco Gasasira, editor of the bimonthly newspaper Umuvugizi and one of the country’s most outspoken journalists. http://en.rsf.org/rwanda-prosecutors-request-10-year-jail-29-04-2011,40180.htm

Number of Somali Refugees grows sharply in 2011 - UNHCR is alarmed by the continuing deterioration of the situation in Somalia, forcing an increasing number of Somalis into displacement. The number of Somali refugees arriving to neighboring countries during the first quarter of this year has more than doubled in comparison to the same period in 2010. http://www.unhcr.org/4dba949d9.htm

Zimbabwe: US and Crisis Group say Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF Abuses Security Forces - The International Crisis Group, in a report issued this week, concluded that the worsening climate of fear and violence means Zimbabwean security sector reform is more urgently needed than ever.

Kenya’s rising food prices hurt both buyers and sellers - Staple foods are twice the price they were at the start of 2011. Mike Pflanz hears how this is hurting traders and customers alike. It is not yet dawn but Wakulima Market is chaos. Bystanders duck as men carrying 150 pound bags on their shoulders hiss past. Handcart pullers jostle for business in the fluorescent half-light. Vegetable trucks reverse blindly. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Africa-Monitor/2011/0428/Kenya-s-rising-food-prices-hurt-both-buyers-and-sellers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fworld+%28Christian+Science+Monitor+|+World%29

Congo’s Murhabazi Namebabe awarded children’s rights Prize - Children around the world recently had the opportunity to vote for their favorite child hero for 2011. After a “Global Vote” of 3.2 million children, Murhabazi Namegabe of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was announced as the winner of the 2011 World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child “for his dangerous struggle to free children forced to be child soldiers or sex slaves.” http://enoughproject.org/blogs/congo-murhabazi-namegabe-awarded-children-rights-prize?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+enoughblog+%28Enough+Said%29

Surviving war in Misrata: A Libyan family tell of their ordeal - The first time I met Akram* in Tobruk he was clearly longing to talk to someone about the ordeal he and his family had just been through. The 40-year-old academic, his wife and three young children had just escaped by sea from the western Libyan port city of Misrata, which has been under fierce government siege for weeks. http://www.unhcr.org/4db977e79.html

Sudan: abducted daughter returns home - In 2008 subsistence farmer Lucas Takido Kuma arrived home to find his youngest daughter, Jacqueline, had been seized by an armed group operating on the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan. Today Jacqueline is back with him after the ICRC traced her in DRC and organized her return. http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/feature/2011/sudan-feature-2011-04-27.htm

Burundi: Displaced women in Bujumbura risk HIV rather than hunger - Desperate and displaced, some Burundian women will do anything, including have unprotected sex for money, to escape the dreadful living conditions in the Bujumbura suburb of Sabe, where more than 480 families of internally displaced persons (IDPs) have lived for several years. http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=92572