Full Coverage: North Africa

31.01.2006 The Sudanese refugees remaining in detention in Cairo will not be deported, an Egyptian official has said. They were detained shortly before the New Year after police violently evicted them from the protest camp they had erected in a Cairo neighborhood to support their demands for resettlement to a third country.

31.01.2006 Marokon viranomaiset estivät jälleen Suomen, Ruotsin ja Norjan diplomaattien matkan Länsi-Saharaan, kertoo Suomen Rauhanpuolustajat. Vierailun tarkoituksena olisi ollut tutustua Länsi-Saharan tilanteeseen ja oloihin. Länsi-Saharassa puhkesi toukokuussa 2005 laajat mielenosoitukset, eikä tilanne ole vieläkään rauhoittunut.

31.01.2006 The U.S. has the perfect opportunity to stop the genocide in Darfur when it takes over the presidency of the U.N Security Council this February. A massive call-in campaign will target the U.S. mission to the U.N. Wednesday and a rally for Darfur will take place at the White House Thursday.

26.01.2006 Sudanese refugees are again fleeing Darfur for camps in neighbouring Chad, and the UN refugee chief, António Guterres, has warned the UN Security Council of a "much greater calamity" in the region unless bold measures are taken soon.

25.01.2006 Citing concerns that senior Sudanese officials have been implicated in war crimes over the continuing conflict in Darfur, a committee of African Union nations has instead elected Congo-Brazzaville's leader to head the continent's organizing body for the next year. To the great chagrin of rights campaigners, Sudan's president will take over the post in 2007, the committee agreed.

25.01.2006 African leaders rightly rejected Sudan’s bid for the African Union’s presidency this year, but should not reward Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with Africa’s leadership next year as long as the human rights disaster continues in Darfur, a leading rights group said.

25.01.2006 WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan 24 (OneWorld) - New fighting has broken out in Sudan's Darfur region in apparent protest against the Khartoum regime's candidacy to head the African Union (AU). The move comes as the Bush administration prepares to preside over the U.N. Security Council amid calls for it to end the bloody conflict.

24.01.2006 Recent remarks by senior U.S. and U.N. officials, as well as by African Union representatives indicate a growing consensus on the need for a U.N. intervention to stop the violence in Darfur, says Africa Action. The group has called on the U.S. to use its chairmanship of the U.N. Security Council in February to push the issue.

23.01.2006 Five heads of state reportedly today told Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to withdraw Sudan's bid for the presidency of the African Union, only days after a leading rights organisation made the same plea.

19.01.2006 Drawing on past experiences in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Africa Action explains how the international community should intervene in Darfur: from a more robust mandate for the African Union to U.N. deployment and, most importantly, the role the U.S. should play in stopping the genocide.

17.01.2006 The Khartoum government continues to get away with murder in Darfur and people urging intervention on strictly humanitarian grounds have no influence. The result is virtually pre-ordained: the death, rape and suffering will continue, says Gerald Caplan.

13.01.2006 Just days before Sudanese leaders host the African Union summit in Khartoum, a new report from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reveals, in unprecedented detail, the underreported catastrophic elimination of traditional livelihoods in Darfur, Sudan.

13.01.2006 With funds running out for the African Union force in Darfur, its replacement by UN peacekeepers is one of the possibilities under consideration by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Security Council members.

12.01.2006 "The Tunisian authorities continue to show intolerance of independent opinion and free expression," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. "But they are seriously mistaken if they think this will discourage journalists from expressing their solidarity with colleagues in Tunisia." In a letter to President Ben Ali, IFJ says that all obstacles on the use of Internet technology and access to information should be lifted, except where they are in line with international standards which may limit access to anti-social sites, covering, for instance, child pornography or incitement to violence.

12.01.2006 United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed Lieutenant General Jasbir Singh Lidder of India the new force commander of the peacekeeping UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).

10.01.2006 A squabble over who controls the internet had threatened to overshadow the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia. But a “compromise” deal was reached just before the meeting opened, under which America will retain its hegemony for the time being. This leaves delegates free to discuss bridging the digital divide between rich and poor countries.

09.01.2006 The International Federation of Journalists today protested to the Tunisian government over the banning of the Federation?s web site. In recent weeks, following the World Summit on the Information Society in November when the IFJ sharply criticised restrictions on Internet use and harassment of human rights activists, the IFJ web site has been unobtainable.

06.01.2006 According to a U.N. spokesperson, there has been no official confirmation that Egyptian authorities intend to deport Sudanese refugees in the wake of the violent dispersion of their Cairo encampment last week. Some 600 refugees still remain in prison and civil society organizations have called for access to the detainees and the launch of an independent investigation.

06.01.2006 The simmering conflict in eastern Sudan could become a major new war unless the parties agree to a provisional ceasefire and internationally-backed negotiations begin this month, warns a new International Crisis Group report.

03.01.2006 Some 3,000 Sudanese refugees, who disagree with Egyptian and U.N. officials who say their home country is now safe enough to return to, have been camped out for several months in an area the size of a basketball court in a Cairo neighborhood. Thousands of police broke up the encampment late Friday night, using violent force that left more than 25 Sudanese dead.