Police in Zanzibar have begun investigations into the possible link between protestors who clashed with them recently and the main opposition party, the Civic United Front (CUF), a senior police official told IRIN on Monday. "Many protesters were CUF members," Juma Mtumwa Abdallah, the assistant regional police commander, said on Monday. He added that the police were also looking into the protestors' possible links with other anti-Western political parties and terrorist groups.

A total breakdown of law and order is reported in Darfur, western Sudan, as militias roam the region in gangs of hundreds, attacking one village after another. The entire Jabal Si area, previously home to about 70,000 people living in over 119 villages, had been cleared of civilians, the UN said following an assessment. Many of the displaced, over 90 percent of whom are women and children, have fled to Kabkabiyah town in Northern Darfur.

A senior UN official urged the government of the Central African Republic on Tuesday to reconsider its objection to a cost-sharing proposal in health care, so as to take into account the public's low purchasing power. The official, Ramiro Lopes Da Silva, is the special humanitarian adviser on the CAR for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA).