April brought the end of the rainy season in western Tanzania, where approximately 500,000 refugees from Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) live in refugee camps. It also brought a slight reprieve from the malaria that accompanied the rains and badly affected the refugees. Thanks to effective drugs, health workers said case fatalities were relatively low, but at the peak of the rains, malaria filled paediatric wards, drained precious health resources and affected pregnant women. Poverty and a lack of awareness in the camps led to preventative methods failing.

Many of the most important challenges in the world today can be found in Africa and those challenges do not include the threat of terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. The US, and other rich countries in the so-called “Coalition of the Willing”, instead of spending tens of billions on an unjust war, should invest their energy in combating the AIDS epidemic that threatens entire countries, beating back a famine that threatens millions, cancelling debt which prevents countries from providing healthcare and education to their people, restructuring an exploitative trade system, and working without self-interest to promote peace, democracy and human rights.