The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Burundi is doubting that promises of reform made by Burundi’s newly-elected president will result in hoped-for improvements in the country’s human rights situation. The commission has submitted its report on prevailing conditions in the country to the U.N. Human Rights Council. The three-member panel welcomes promises of political reconciliation, […]

The ex-chief of Timbuktu’s Islamic police went on trial Tuesday in The Hague for a number of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanities charges including rape, sexual slavery and destroying irreplaceable shrines in the ancient Malian city. Wearing a flowing blue gown and white headdress — and a face mask pushed below his nose […]

Ousmann Umar knows only too well how tough it is for migrants from Africa to reach Europe. Dumped in the Sahara by trafficking gangs when he was only 13, he believed he would share the fate of other migrants whose bodies lay strewn on the route northwards. Unlike the others, he survived, not just the desert but every […]

A group of armed men killed 10 people and injured 17 others in the Fataborno village of Sudan’s Northern Darfur state on Monday, according to local residents. Witnesses told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus program that a group of militia loyal to ousted President Omar al Bashir opened fire on hundreds of people who had gathered at a sit-in to call for increased security. Resident Suwar Adam Ali, 27,  said he saw gunmen attack three locations, including […]