Prolonged unrest in east and central Africa is leading to worse human rights abuses with governments and the international community doing too little to address the situation, the head of Amnesty International says.
Two-thirds of global conflict continues in AfricaÂ?s Great Lakes region with three major wars that have killed hundreds of thousands of people and left millions homeless.
"We have a situation where the international community is doing too little to address wars in this region and it is the common man who continues to suffer serious human rights abuses," Irene Khan Secretary-General of Amnesty International told AlertNet in an interview.
In Somalia, where about 80,000 people have died in the last two years alone, a million are refugees in their own land and 3 million are in need urgent food aid - Khan calls Somalia a human rights failure.
"Refugees in Somalia are threatened with insecurity and when they arrive in Kenya they are caught in a prison-like situation where they are exposed to violence against women," Khan said during her Kenya visit, aimed at drumming up support for a housing crisis for 2 million slum-dwellers.
Renewed fighting involving foreign jihadist fighters in SomaliaÂ?s capital, Mogadishu, has displaced 122,000 in one month. She urged the international community to crack down on arms trafficking into Somalia - a factor, she said, is worsening the long-running conflict.
"The Kenya government should also provide land, as promised, to the thousands of refugees who are crossing the border," she said.
In Congo, where the United Nations has set up a peacekeeping force called MONUC - Khan accused the mission of failing to hand over a war crimes suspect wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
"There are people who have been indicted by the ICC but are not being handed over to the ICC and as long as issues of justice and security are not handled seriously, MONUC will remain in a very difficult situation," Khan added.
The U.N. mission in Congo has come under criticism for carrying out joint military offensives with a former Tutsi rebel leader, Jean Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the ICC and is now a government ally. The fighting aimed at dislodging Hutu rebels blamed for RwandaÂ?s 1994 genocide has instead displaced hundreds of thousands of Congolese civilians.
Khan said the global financial meltdown has aggravated abuses of basic human rights in many parts of Africa by turning the attention of the international community away from serious human rights issues.
"We are saying that itÂ?s not too late. This situation can be changed if governments and the major global players focus on the major causes of these conflicts," she said.
Khan is headed to Zimbabwe to put what Amnesty describes as a appalling human rights record in the spotlight at a time when western countries are refusing to give the country financial aid.
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