Irin News Service

The resumption in violence in the Burundian capital Bujumbura is causing panic in the country. Outside the capital, residents spend their nights in the bush for fear of being attacked as the death toll rises. A bomb destroyed part of the Vatican embassy compound and a dining hall in the Kiriri University campus in the latter part of April.

As standards of living in Zimbabwe continue to deteriorate, the use of child labour on farms has risen sharply, with more than 10 000 children estimated to be working in the agricultural sector. Irin recently reported that new commercial farmers, the beneficiaries of the government’s controversial land redistribution programme, were struggling to pay labourers.

The ongoing arrests of members of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement in connection with a series of petrol bombings is having a chilling effect on pro-democracy groups in Swaziland. On Wednesday, outspoken political activist Maphadlana Shongwe became the 15th person to be arrested.

A recent spate of armed robberies by soldiers and security officers is an indication that all Zimbabweans are feeling the impact of the country’s shrinking economy.Two soldiers in Masvingo recently went on a robbery spree while in uniform, brandishing AK-47 rifles they had stolen from their battalion’s armoury.

Three hours of standing in a queue for maize meal looked like it was about to pay off when the line suddenly disintegrated amid despairing groans and some furious name calling. The supermarket had just run out of Zimbabwe’s staple food. Shoppers in Bulawayo are rationed to 10kg of maize meal per person, but finding it — and, indeed, most other basic essentials — on the shelves is no easy matter.

Residual mistrust between Mozambique’s major political parties continues to threaten the country’s hard-won democracy, according to political observers. Although the Frelimo government and the rebel movement, Renamo, signed a peace agreement in 1992 after 16 years of war, neither side has totally let its guard down.

The Zimbabwean government has agreed to allow aid groups to offer humanitarian assistance to people who have been displaced in its controversial urban clean-up drive. Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo announced that the government would allow donors to provide assistance, mainly in the capital, Harare, and Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo.

The United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution to create a mixed truth commission and a special court to prosecute war crimes and human-rights violations during decades of civil war in Burundi. The country’s Minister of Justice, welcomed the adoption of resolution 1606 at the United Nations headquarters in New York this week.

The United Nations mission in Burundi, known as Onub, has stepped up its military presence across the country ahead of communal elections set for next Friday. This comes after 17 Forces for National Liberation (FNL) fighters were killed. The FNL is the only rebel group that has yet to be integrated into the transitional government.

It is best known for the audacity of its campaigns: protest messages stamped on condom packets and bank notes, and pithy postcards to President Robert Mugabe — but who it is, is less apparent. An underground group of anti-government activists, Zvankwana-Sokwanele — "Enough!" in Zimbabwe’s two main languages, Shona and Ndebele — do not operate out of offices with a nameplate on the door.

The International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) has urged the Congolese government to prosecute former militia leaders instead of reappointing them to high-ranking positions in the newly integrated national army. "If the Democratic Republic of the Congo is to achieve a lasting peace, it must not appoint individuals to the army when there is evidence that they may be responsible for serious abuses," said the president of the ICTJ.

The tsunami triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean that struck the Horn of Africa coastline on December 26 has affected about 18 000 households of varying sizes in Somalia, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. Many of those affected were living in small villages along the Somali coastline, particularly in the north-eastern regions. Their lives were devastated by the waves.

Ghana’s President John Kufuor of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) is on course to win a second term. The country’s opposition candidate, John Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is struggling to emerge from the shadow of former NDC leader Jerry Rawlings ahead of elections on December 7. Rawlings’s high profile is making Atta Mills look weak, reducing his support among undecided voters.