DR Congo: Students, Schools at Risk in Conflict Zones

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo should increase protection for students and schools in areas of the country affected by armed conflict, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
https://www.hrw.org/node/282419
The government should endorse and carry out the international Safe Schools Declaration.

The 58-page report, “‘Our School Became the Battlefield’: Using Schools for Child Recruitment and Military Purposes in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” documents how armed groups have attacked schools and recruited children at school or while on their way to school. Armed groups and the Congolese army have also taken over schools for military purposes. Many children and parents told Human Rights Watch that fear of being abducted or raped kept students from attending school.

'War' on Ebola could take six more months says UN envoy

FREETOWN: The UN's Ebola envoy said on Monday (Aug 25) the fight against the epidemic was a "war" which could take six more months, as its global health body claimed the disease was affecting an "unprecedented" number of medical staff.
David Nabarro, a British physician appointed by the United Nations to coordinate the global response to the crisis, was in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown for the fifth day of a tour of the region.

"The effort to defeat Ebola is not a battle but a war which requires everybody working together, hard and effectively," he told a news conference. "I hope it will be done in six months but we have to do it until it is completed."

Scandal: ​UN-marked strike helicopter ‘used by Kiev against militias

The UN has voiced concerns over the apparent use of UN-marked helicopters by Kiev troops in their military operation against Donetsk regional militia.

A video of a white-painted Mil Mi-24 strike helicopter with UN logo has emerged. When inquired about the United Nations’ stance on the use of peacekeeper-marked military hardware in non-peacekeeper operations, the office for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson said such use would violate UN rules.

Boko Haram Kidnapping children for battle, from Uganda to Nigeria

By Mick Krever, CNN

They come in the night.

Armed militants take young children from their beds, as they sleep: Young recruits for extremist causes.

It happened this (last) week in Nigeria, when heavily armed Boko Haram Islamists kidnapped 200 girls from their boarding school.

And it has been happening in northern Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and other neighbouring countries for decades – the work of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour covered Kony’s sick work 16 years ago, for 60 Minutes, when she reported on the abduction of 139 girls from their school.