BRAZZAVILLE, 25 June 2008 (IRIN) - Virtually every working day, before going to work at the primary education inspectorate in Kinkala, 75km south of the capital, Brazzaville, Alphonse Dianzinga, 52, fetches water from a source half-an-hour’s walk away.

KHARTOUM, 24 June 2008 (IRIN) - On a UN map of Darfur released this month, a patchwork of yellow and orange denotes locations with little or no humanitarian access. Compared with maps of previous years, vast new regions are labelled off-limits. Humanitarian workers say that in terms of security and attacks on staff, the situation has never been as bad as in the past 18 months.

ACCRA, 23 June 2008 (IRIN) - A militia group wielding knives, clubs, machetes and rocks known as the “Arakan Barracks Boys” has gained notoriety in the Ghanaian capital Accra, not as a threat to the peace, but as a defender of it.

FREETOWN, 20 June 2008 (IRIN) - Eight years after a civil war in Sierra Leone that became notorious for the extent of rape and violence committed against civilians, social workers fear that rape is more of a problem in post-conflict, democratic society than it was during the war.

BUNIA, 19 June 2008 (IRIN) - The suspension of the landmark war crimes case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of Thomas Lubanga, who may walk free as a result, could hamper crucial efforts to end impunity in the powder keg Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to humanitarian and human rights officials.