Africa 24 Media Photography

As the world celebrated International Human Rights Day (December 10), civil right organizations and activists in Zimbabwe held a peaceful procession in various streets of the nation’s Capital, Harare, to express their discontent with the country’s wanting state of leadership, human rights violations and limited freedom of expression. The first, organized by ZimRights included up to 5,000 marchers, while the second, organized by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), was smaller but aimed at passing an identical message.

Picha Mtaani, Swahili for “Street Exhibition”, is a youth led peace initiative supported by UNDP that primarily seeks to create space for young people to reconcile through peace building, violence prevention and promoting peaceful co-existence among young people in conflict affected towns. Through an exhibition set of images taken during Kenya’s 2007/2008 post election violence, the initiative steers to instill individual reflections on the horror that was inflicted to different people during the period.

Anarchy has become the word by which Somalia has come to be identified with. Years of civil war threw the country into a state of lawlessness. Today the government is still struggling to regain its control over the state from rebel forces. The countries population is witness to thousands of refugees as a result of the political unrest. The paucity under which the nation has come under is immense.

The ground is hard as a rock, the rivers are drying up, livestock and wildlife are feeble, emaciated, and are dying in numbers as worthless bags of bones everyday. This is the bitter and miserable situation that most Kenyans, their livestock and wildlife are facing. Where there was grass – green grass, is now a barren earth dusting off with every dry wind that breezes above the ground.

Even after the formation of a unitary government orchestrated and executed by President Robert Mugabe and his archenemy, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, most Zimbabweans continue to flee over the border illegally into neighbouring South Africa. This perhaps suggests that either the power sharing deal, albeit still intact, has had little or no impact at all on the daily lives of the average Zimbabweans, or it’s too obvious that faith in the coalition government is waning.

Poverty continues to be one of Africa’s dark horses, hindering any progress in GDP growth. Despite being gifted with wealthy resources, Africa remains the poorest continent in the world. From the poor neighborhoods in El Masr, Egypt to the tree-lined streets in Bamako, Mali through to the most expensive city in Africa in the name of Douala, Cameroon, the incidence of extreme poverty never seems to go down.

About 70,000 construction workers in South Africa went on strike at stadiums that are being built for the 2010 World Cup. The workers demanded a 13% raise in their wages, failure to which they threatened to wreck the tournament to be held in June next year. The National Union of Mineworkers, which represents construction workers, is reported to have rejected the employers' offer of a 10.4% increase. The strike could delay completion of flagship projects such as the Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg and stadiums in Cape Town and Durban.

On June 20th every year, hundreds of countries come together in thought and compassion to honour the strength, resilience courage and will to survive of thousands of refugees across the globe. The day is a United Nations designated Day, and Africa, which has the largest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world unite together with the developed world to celebrate this day. Everyday in Africa, people become statistics being included in the already swollen list of refugees.

The Horn of Africa nation of Somalia continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons. As the pirates combat and hijack marine ships daily to keep their pockets buoyant with ransom money off the coast of Somali waters, militant groups are up in arms battling the government and African union peacekeepers with sophisticated ammunition in the capital, Mogadishu. A coalition of violent groups has seized strategic installations in the capital, and is threatening to march - through fighting into the presidential palace.

A 600-strong military guard of honour comprising the South African Army, Air Force, Navy and the Military Health Services flocked the streets from Adderley Street all the way up to Parliament’s entrance to mark the opening of South African parliament in Cape Town. The occasion gave an opportunity for new legislatures, VIPs, entertainers and the country’s jubilant men and women folk the chance to usher in and celebrate a new dawn of leadership fronted by President Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma.