UN News Centre - Africa

Clashes between Mozambique Government forces and the opposition Mozambican National Resistance, or RENAMO, have forced an increasing number of people to flee Mozambique and seek asylum in Malawi over the last few weeks, the United Nations refugee agency cautioned today.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the terrorist attack perpetrated by Al Shabaab this morning against an African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) base in the town of El Adde, Gedo region in Somalia.

A new case of Ebola has been confirmed in Sierra Leone, reflecting the ongoing risk of new flare-ups of the virus in affected countries, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) announced today, just hours after declaring that all known chains of transmission had been stopped in West Africa.

Following a briefing on Monday on the situation in Mali by UN peacekeeping chief Hervé Ladsous, the Security Council has stressed that all parties signatory to June’s peace agreement bear the primary responsibility for achieving lasting peace in the country.

Strongly condemning the recent attacks against a major power plant in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi, the top United Nations humanitarian official in the country said today he is “deeply shocked by these actions that directly affect civilian life,” and warned that such “ignoble” attacks may amount to war crimes.

The African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) expressed concern over continued tension in El Geneina town and around Mouli village, 15 kilometres south of El Geneina, West Darfur, after an armed attack on Mouli village.

Despite considerable progress in Mali, the United Nations peacekeeping chief today warned that the peace process in the country remains fragile, and stressed the need to urgently defeat political, security and humanitarian challenges.

Strongly condemning yesterday’s terrorist attack on a security training centre in Zliten, Libya, and in the wake of that deadly incident and the recent attacks on the country’s oil infrastructure, the United Nations Security Council has urged all Libyan parties to joint together to combat terrorist threats by implementing the recent agreement on a unity government.

With nearly 200,000 people in Chad in need of urgent aid – 50,000 of them uprooted by Boko Haram terrorists from Nigeria – the United Nations emergency fund today announced a $7 million grant, the second in five months, and called on international donors to provide much more.

Fighting between armed groups and Government soldiers and an apparent breakdown in law and order in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state, with hundreds of houses burned down or looted, has uprooted 15,000 people over the past five weeks, and 500 a day are now pouring into Uganda, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.

A joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping patrol was ambushed in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region today by an unidentified armed group, who greatly outnumbered it and seized a machine gun, four rifles and rounds of ammunition.

Welcoming today’s announcement of the results of the first round of the presidential elections in the Central African Republic (CAR), the United Nations envoy for the country has invited the two candidates that will participate in an upcoming run-off poll, “to maintain the spirit of peace and restraint that has prevailed” throughout the process thus far.

Condemning the “reprehensible” deadly terrorist attack on a security training centre today in Libya’s coastal city of Zliten, the top United Nations official in the country said the incident again shows the urgent need for all stakeholders to press ahead with forming a recently-agreed unity government.

Voicing deep concern at the continuing escalation of violence in Burundi, the United Nations Security Council today called for urgent acceleration of mediation efforts by East African States and urged all Burundian stakeholders to fully cooperate with a proposed African Union (AU) peace-keeping mission.

Ninety per cent of voters in the Central African Republic (CAR) are in favour of the new Constitution, according to partial election results, while campaigning is now under way for the presidential elections and the final list of parliamentary candidates has been published, the United Nations mission in the country reported today.

Despite the immense needs in conflict-affected areas of northern Mali, the United Nations Children&#39s Fund (UNICEF) is hampered by constrained access and limited funding, and is thus calling for &#8220action now&#8221 to help the more than 380,000 children who remain out of school in the region.

Senior United Nations officials today called on Liberia to root out sometimes deadly human rights violations masquerading as cultural practices, citing female genital mutilation, forced initiation into secret societies, witchcraft accusations, trials by ordeal and ritualistic killings.

Representatives from a broad range of Libyan society today signed a United Nations-brokered agreement on forming a national unity government, a move welcomed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his top envoy for the country as among the “essential building blocks towards a peaceful, secure and prosperous Libya,” but also as “the beginning of a difficult journey” along that path.

The top United Nations human rights official today urged the international community to take “robust, decisive” action instead of “fiddling around the edges” to avert a civil war in Burundi that could have serious ethnic overtones and alarming regional consequences.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today pledged to urgently review the recommendations made by an independent panel that found that the United Nations did not act with the “speed, care or sensitivity required,” when it uncovered information about crimes committed against children by soldiers – not under UN command – sent to the Central African Republic (CAR) to protect civilians.