04/29/2013 11:34 GMT

YANGON, April 29, 2013 (AFP) - Myanmar should urgently help tens of thousands of Muslims displaced by deadly religious unrest in western Rakhine State and flood the area with troops to stem further conflict, an official report said Monday.

A commission set up by the government in response to waves of fighting that left around 200 dead in Rakhine last year said the "temporary separation" of Buddhist and Muslim communities should continue in the state, where 140,000 people remain homeless.

03/28/2013 19:55 GMT

by Patrick FORT

BANGUI, Central African Republic, March 28, 2013 (AFP) - Hospitals in the coup-hit capital of the Central African Republic overflowed with injured people Thursday and tens of thousands faced hunger as the humanitarian situation in the country worsened just days after rebels seized power.

Drinking water and electrical power were still cut off in parts of Bangui as Michel Djotodia and his Seleka rebel coalition struggled to restore order to the capital they seized on Sunday, forcing president Francois Bozize to flee the country.

03/20/2013 04:10 GMT

by Gaelle Borgia

TOLIARA, Madagascar, March 20, 2013 (AFP) - With small, silent steps, 10-year-old Borikely carefully picks her way through the tall grass of a Madagascar field in search of her dinner. She's hunting for grasshoppers, which she'll catch with a stick.

Once speared, she places them carefully in a small round straw basket and within a few minutes, she has collected dozens of insects.

03/06/2013 03:38 GMT

by Rachel O'Brien

MUMBAI, March 6, 2013 (AFP) - Millions of people in western India are suffering their worst drought in more than four decades, with critics blaming official ineptitude and corruption for exacerbating the natural water shortage.

Central areas of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, are facing a water shortage worse than the severe drought in 1972, the state's chief minister Prithviraj Chavan told AFP.

02/19/2013 12:54 GMT

GENEVA, Feb 19, 2013 (AFP) - A rebel-held area of Syria has been hit by an outbreak of typhoid after power cuts hit water supplies and forced the population to turn to the Euphrates River, the UN's health agency warned Tuesday.

Tarik Jasarevic, spokesman for the World Health Organisation, told AFP that some 2,500 people had caught the disease in the country's northeast.

"They don't have access to clean water, or electricity to work their pumps, so they draw water from the river," he said.

02/10/2013 20:00 GMT

HONIARA, Feb 10, 2013 (AFP) - A third powerful aftershock rattled the Solomon Islands in the early hours of Monday as aid agencies struggled to get a clear picture of the devastation five days after a 8.0-magnitude quake triggered a deadly tsunami.

The confirmed death toll rose to 10 with the discovery of a child's body in a ditch in the remote Santa Cruz Islands Sunday, while more than 3,000 people are squatting in shelters after their homes were destroyed.

02/07/2013 03:44 GMT

YANGON, Feb 7, 2013 (AFP) - Medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders warned Thursday of a "humanitarian emergency" in strife-hit western Myanmar with tens of thousands of people unable to access urgently needed medical care.

Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) said its teams on the ground in Rakhine State faced threats, hostility and accusations of a bias towards the Rohingya Muslim minority group.

02/01/2013 16:00 GMT

GENEVA, Feb 01, 2013 (AFP) - The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross called on all sides of the Syrian conflict to help his organisation access more of the war-ravaged country with desperately needed aid.

Peter Maurer told AFP in an interview that his organisation had distributed food and other urgent aid items to more than 1.5 million people last year, and had helped 17 million Syrians access safe water.

02/01/2013 11:31 GMT

Par Marc BASTIAN

TOMBOUCTOU (Mali), 01 fév 2013 (AFP) - Réseaux d'eau et d'électricité sabotés, flambée des prix alimentaires et de l'essence, chômage: la vie à Tombouctou, la "perle du désert" malienne qui ne mérite plus guère son nom, est rude. Et avec les haines ethniques qui couvent, l'avenir s'annonce sombre.

Tombouctou avait été prise en avril 2012 par les Touareg indépendantistes du Mouvement national de libération de l'Azawad (MNLA), supplantés par les groupes armés liés à Al-Qaïda en juin.