Wajir: 'It's because of the drought'

Whether you ask about the carcasses of livestock baked white in the sun, the gaggle of people crowding around the district commissioner's door, or the wards of malnourished children lying listlessly in hospital beds, the explanation given is always the same.

"It's because of the drought", they say.

The failure of rains across arid parts of East Africa has brought misery to millions of people, affecting almost every aspect of life.

In this dry, dusty part of the world, every drop that falls helps people scrape a living from the land. If the rains don't come for a season people go hungry. If they fail twice in a row, as they have in Kenya's impoverished north eastern province, they begin to starve.

At the hospital in Wajir town, the paediatric ward is full of young mothers clutching the tiny, wasted forms of their children.

Doctors estimate admissions for severe malnutrition in children have risen by at least 25 per cent in recent months, and fear that the dozens of referrals they have seen could be the tip of a large and deadly iceberg.

"Some parents are reluctant to bring their children to the hospital because it is such a long journey, or they don't recognise the symptoms of malnutrition. Some think they can cure the problem by praying - they don't realise the children need treatment. Children could be dying because of this and we wouldn't know about it," says Dr Moses Menza, the chief medical officer at the hospital. Read more

writes Andrew Wander Save the Children's emergency media manager and a former  Al Jazeera Journalist 

Somalia: The worst places in the world for women

Fatima Osman Bulle lives in an internally displaced ppeople's camp in Mogadishu. Her makeshift house consists of cloths and sticks and has no running water, electricity or toilet. She and her husband, seven children and three relatives are crammed into one room.

Fatima Osman Bulle with her family. Photo/ Guardian

"I feel that I am a low-class member of the family," Bulle says. "I am the most disrespected person in the home."

The 35-year-old has been sexually harassed, tortured and abducted by people she worked for in the past . She now earns $40 (£24) a month as a housemaid and cook.

"I started working as housemaid when I was eight, I was married by force when I was 13 and I am a victim of domestic violence since then," she says.

"The abuses start from early childhood. I was circumcised when I was five. It is a lifetime wound that I live with all the time. I experienced child labour and forced marriage and I never went into a class."
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ANALYSIS-Seizing Mogadishu will not end Somali conflict

African Union troops in Somalia are slowly tightening the noose around the nerve-centre of rebel operations in the capital, but seizing control of Mogadishu will not bring peace to the Horn of Africa nation.

A two-week offensive has seen the peacekeepers advance close to the southern and western edges of Bakara market, the capital's economic hub that has served as a human shield for the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist insurgents.

Controlling Bakara is a crucial step towards expelling al Shabaab militants from Mogadishu, depriving them of a key source of funding and a base from which they can strike key government positions with mortars.Read More

By Richard Lough, Reuters

There is absolutely nothing Islamic about al Shabaab

The 7/11 bombings in Kampala have generated a huge debate in the media and social networking sites, with reference to Islam and terrorism. People are asking whether Islam teaches terrorism or not. Of course, Islam does not teach terrorism nor does it support the killing of innocent people.

I believe it’s healthy to have debates of this nature, because they will help educate both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, about Islam as a religion and its stand on terrorism. Unfortunately, some people engaging in these debates are largely informed by prejudice which is not good for learning, or even co-existence.

I have also sadly learnt that our local media, think tanks, and government have continuously used the word “Islamists” whenever they refer to the Harakat al Shabaab Mujahedeen fighters. It’s wrong to continue referring to al Shabaab as “Islamist” fighters because what they are doing is unacceptable by the teachings of the Islamic faith. Read more

By Hassan Isilow