| MALI: Pastoralism – between resilience and survival |
 | MOPTI/BAMAKO، 3/8/2012 (IRIN) - Hundreds of pastoralists in the Mopti Region of central Mali are stuck between floodplains to the south and armed Islamists and rebels to the north. They are used to the hardship of successive droughts across the Sahel, but with little or no aid for their animals and severely limited access to pasture, many are becoming desperate as their livelihood and way of life becomes increasingly untenable. full report |
| MALI: Not a fragile state, yet |
 | BAMAKO/MOPTI، 8/8/2012 (IRIN) - Drissa Keita, 42, fled south to Bamako, the capital of Mail, with 18 family members when Islamist extremists overran Gao in the northeast in early April. Once a civil servant, he now lives eight to a room in his brother’s house, without electricity. “Conditions are very difficult… I want to return - all of my children were born in Gao - but we can’t go back [while it is] under the current regime.” full report |
| MALI: Some parties open to negotiations |
 | OUAGADOUGOU، 8/8/2012 (IRIN) - Iyad Ag Ghali, Secretary-General of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Ansar Dine, one of the Islamist groups in control of northern Mali, met with Burkina Faso’s foreign affairs minister, Djibril Bassole, in Kidal on 7 August and said he is open to engaging in mediation efforts to reunite the country. full report |
| Analysis: Chad IDPs face homecoming hurdles |
 | GOZ-BEIDA/N’DJAMENA، 9/8/2012 (IRIN) - Efforts to find “durable solutions” for many of the tens of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) in eastern Chad by the end of 2012 are being frustrated by poor conditions in IDPs’ home villages as well as by heavy rains. full report |
| COTE D'IVOIRE: Desperation after last IDP refuge razed |
 | DUEKOUE، 9/8/2012 (IRIN) - On the morning of 20 July, after an attack that killed four people around Duékoué, a town in Côte d'Ivoire's turbulent west, a huge crowd surrounded the nearby Nahibly camp hosting 5,000 internally displaced people (IDPs). full report |
| SENEGAL: Texting for birth certificates |
 | KOLDA، 9/8/2012 (IRIN) - Only a handful of births are registered in the remote Kolda region of southern Senegal, but a new mobile phone application that allows parents to text the details of a newborn to obtain a birth certificate could cut down school drop-outs when the children are older. full report |
| MALI: Malnutrition - Worrying in north, rising in south |
 | BAMAKO/MOPTI، 10/8/2012 (IRIN) - At Koutiala reference hospital in the Sikasso region of southeastern Mali, 300 children are crammed into one room, most of them attached to drips while they receive blood transfusions to treat severe malnutrition with complications, usually malaria. “Even after several years here, I’m taken aback when I see them,” said Johanne Sekkenes, head of NGO Médecins sans Frontières in the capital, Bamako. full report |
| CHAD: Darfur’s forgotten refugees |
 | GOZ-BEIDA، 10/8/2012 (IRIN) - Ten years after fleeing violence in the Sudanese region of Darfur, Abdulla Juma Abubakr has no intention of returning home. full report |
| COTE D'IVOIRE: Gunfire and fear in Abidjan |
 | ABIDJAN، 10/8/2012 (IRIN) - A recent wave of armed attacks in Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital, Abidjan, is lowering hopes of a steady return to security in a city that suffered some of the worst fighting during the 2010-11 election violence. full report |