Somali refugees across the world have passed the one million person mark, said the United Nations refugee agency, highlighting the growing need for an end to conflict in the Horn of Africa. The vast majority of those refugees are living in regional neighbours, such as Kenya, Yemen, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Tanzania and Uganda, the UNHCR said.

The UN Security Council has approved a resolution that presses West African nations to speed up preparations for an international military intervention aimed at reconquering northern Mali. The text unanimously approved by the council also urges authorities in Bamako and representatives of 'Malian rebel groups' controlling the north to 'engage, as soon as possible, in a credible negotiation process'.

Teachers, the Ministry of Education and aid agencies are scrambling to provide catch-up classes to thousands of displaced children who fled northern Mali for southern towns to help them graduate this year, while those teachers and families who stayed in the north are doing the same - determined to keep their children learning despite the closure of dozens of public schools and severe changes to the curricula.

The Islamist ‘terrorist’ groups that have taken over control of northern Mali are not only the creations of Algeria’s secret police, the Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS), but they are being supplied, supported and orchestrated by the DRS.