Top stories from DAWNS Digest
One Year On, the CAR Crisis is Getting Very Bad, Very Quickly…This week marks the one year anniversary of a rebellion that ousted the longtime leader of the Central African Republic and plunged the country into chaos. Things have gotten precipitously worse in recent days, particularly in the capital city of Bangui. Many neighborhoods of the capital city are now controlled by militias who are murdering their Muslim neighbors, causing Muslims to leave en masse and attacking peacekeepers. Is this ethnic cleansing? Yes. Also, several thousand people have been killed and about a quarter of the population displaced. What about those peacekeepers? There are 6,000 African Union peacekeepers and about 2,000 French. This is far too few to keep order. To make matters worse, an EU-promised peacekeeping contingent has been delayed and the UN Security Council hasn’t yet voted to approve a large UN Peacekeeping mission that Ban Ki Moon is suggesting. What’s Next? The AU Force commander yesterday declared “war” on those militias. We’ll see how that pans out. Deeper Dive: Think Africa Press → http://bit.ly/1hrmRKg
A milestone of note…From the talented reporter Jina Moore: “Brazil became the first country in the world to acknowledge and act on its responsibility for safeguarding maternal health as a human right when it paid reparations this week to the mother of an Afro-Brazilian woman who died in childbirth.” (BuzzFeed http://bzfd.it/1g1SyZH)
Aid workers are warning of a humanitarian crisis in north-west Kenya, where drought and a late rainy season have left more than 300,000 people in need. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1dvd7DB)
Myanmar is about to carry out a census that experts say is crucial for national planning and development, but also likely to inflame already soaring ethnic and religious tensions. (AP http://yhoo.it/1dvdQo6)
A UN report on how Syria’s neediest civilians are often not accessible to humanitarian relief workers makes it clear that Assad’s government shoulders most of the blame. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1dvdBJN)