Over 55,000 Congolese refugees flee to Uganda as clashes intensify

Uganda is gradually being extremely flooded by refugees from Democratic Republic of Congo with the incessant rise and intensification of communal clashes. About 3,000 were earliest recorded to have fled but the number represented a drop in the ocean with the latest reports. From 3,000, it soared to about 30,000.

The number of Congolese refugees to Uganda was recorded to have exceeded 55,000 late Saturday and increased by nearly 20,000 compared with the day before. Thousands of newcomers temporarily settle at schools in Bundibugyo, about 20km (12 miles) from the border with Congo.

Mass exodus began as the town of Kamango in the northernmost part of DR Congo's North Kivu province was attacked Thursday by a Ugandan-led rebel group, the Allied Democratic Forces, which was formed in the mid-1990s. Congo is really battling with heavy insurgencies and high cases of militants attacks with that of and from the M23 rebels being the most prominent and the highest national headache.

Iran and Syria blast the United States for Declaring Support for Syrian Rebels

 The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, left, and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, in Tehran. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Iran and Syria are blasted the United States for providing funds, food and medical supplies to rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Secretary of State John Kerry had announced in the week that, for the first time, the United States would provide non-lethal aid directly to anti-Assad forces. The linkage between non-lethal aid and sophisticated weapons transfer in such scenario is very thin, hence the condemnation by Iran and Syria.

At a joint press conference in Tehran, the Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers called the policy a "double-standard."

"If you really feel sorry about the ongoing situation in Syria you should force the opposition to sit at the [negotiating] table with the Syrian government and put an end to bloodshed," said the Iranian official, Ali Akbar Salehi. "Why do you encourage the opposition to continue these acts of violence?"

"I do not understand how the United States can give support to groups that kill the Syrian people," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said. "This is nothing but a double-standard policy ... One who seeks a political solution does not punish the Syrian people."

The first US aid is designed to boost the rebels and pave the way for a peaceful political transition. It includes $60 million for opposition groups.

Bashar al Assad has been defiant since the uprising began and he is enjoying the support of Russia mostly and in a way China. Russia continues to call for diplomacy and negotiation to end the crisis. The war has also got to the Iraqi border in a province called Yaarabiya. The Syrian civil war has killed 70,000 since it began in 2011.

Another Nigeria and Libya: Mali Forces and undue Executions

Mali could be on the verge of creating a haven for a long-term insurgency-style of continuous attacks that could gradually consume West Africa with the constant human rights abuses the Malian army has been accused of committing.

Mali's army has sealed off a central town amid allegations that some of its soldiers had summarily executed dozens of people allegedly connected to rebel fighters. The experience of Nigeria in the Boko Haram menace ought to be a foundation structure for counter-activities on the rebels.

The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues said on Thursday that in the central town of Sevare at least 11 people were executed in a military camp near a bus station and the town's hospital, citing evidence gathered by local researchers.

Credible reports also pointed to around 20 other people having been executed in the same area and the bodies having been dumped in wells or otherwise disposed of, the organisation said. At Niono, two Malian Tuaregs were executed by Malian soldiers, according to the FIDH. All these executions and killings are properly documented.

The rights group, Human Rights Watch, said its investigators had spoken to witnesses who saw the executions of two Tuareg men in the village of Siribala, near Niono. The group also said witnesses had reported "credible information" of soldiers sexually abusing women in a village near Sevare, and called on the government to urgently investigate these incidents, AFP news agency reported.

The majority of the al-Qaeda-linked rebels being hunted by the armies are either Tuaregs or Arabs, reports say.

 But Mali's army has denied the claims. General Ibrahima Dahirou Dembele, the Malian army chief, promised that any soldier involved in abuses would be brought to book.

"One mustn't get confused. Every white skin is not a terrorist or a jihadist and among the enemy which attacked our different position were many black skins. We are among brothers, whether one is black or white."

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defence minister, urged extreme "vigilance" against any abuses, saying the "honour of the (Malian) troops is at stake".

Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, said: "We cannot accept any rights violations. The international community will face a very serious situation if (the intervention force) is identified with abuses." The rebels in Mali are the same people NATO and the West armed against Gaddafi in Libya a Russian official said.

A circulating news now is that the rebels have become factional and one group is ready for negotiation. How credible this group will be is yet to be known as it is almost a tradition for rebel groups to split under such intense firepower.

Mali could end up becoming another Libya in which weapons will be freely circulated among groups after being delivered by Western powers. The Kremlin confirms this as well as Hillary Clinton in her statement delivered to congress on Wednesday.