Mali has one of the highest rates of female circumcision in Africa, but organisations working to stop the practice say they are slowly making headway to change attitudes. About 92 per cent of all Malian girls between the ages of 15 and 49 have already undergone the harmful procedure, according to the government.

To support the sustainable reintegration of returnees, UNHCR has since the 1990s been rebuilding infrastructure and helping returnees – mostly women – find sources of income. The UN refugee agency helped build a school, police station and water well as more and more people started returning here.

The Somali community in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, has warned of more deaths as increasing numbers of Somali migrants make the perilous journey to Yemen to escape the civil war. The warning followed reports that 140 migrants, mostly Somalis, were missing and 17 had died after their vessels capsized off the Yemeni coast last month.

Kenyan authorities have deported hundreds of Somali refugees who tried to seek refuge in the neighbouring country to escape fighting back home. Police in Kenya escorted the refugees across the border into Somalia from a registration centre in Liboi on Wednesday (3 January 2006).