JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN — It was early evening in South Sudan, and my colleagues and I had made our way to the compound of a Member of Parliament in the country’s troubled Jonglei state. We were there to meet with several people who had sought refuge from violence in the town of Pibor. People like Mary, who had arrived with five members of her family in tow. The stories that Mary told us were disturbing. She spoke of government forces shooting civilians, burning houses, and looting homes and the local market.

Sadly, Mary’s story echoed other reports that have been coming out of Pibor over the last days and weeks. And they all speak to the growing humanitarian crisis in this war-torn part of the world.

For several weeks, residents of Pibor have been terrorized by the government forces known as the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army). We’ve heard reports of shops and homes being looted, civilians being killed, and dwellings being burned (sometimes with people still inside of them). Thousands of people sought shelter in the bush, making forays into town to get whatever food was still available in the local market.

The breaking point for many came a couple of weeks ago, when a woman was killed along with her teenage daughter and infant child, while a toddler was left barely alive after being stabbed multiple times. After this, the idea of even short trips into Pibor became untenable for some. We heard of two separate incidents of people who had stepped on landmines but chose to stay in the bush rather than seek medical help for fear of being attacked.

Compounding the problem has been the activities of a local rebel leader named David Yau Yau, who launched an uprising in Jonglei after failing to win a local election in 2010. He recently captured the town of Boma, not far from Pibor. As he threatened to march on Pibor, the last of the civilians fled the town, along with the few remaining humanitarian agencies. The SPLA took advantage of the departures by looting those agencies’ compounds.

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Dara McLeod is the Director of Communications for Refugees International, a non-profit organization that seeks to end displacement and statelessness crises worldwide and accepts no government or UN funding.

The Somali famine of 2011 was a massive, monstrous failure on the part of the international community at almost all levels. A new report released on Thursday indicates that the crisis took the lives of a far greater number than many experts predicted: Up to 260,000 Somalis died that year, over half of them children, largely due to the world’s slow response.

While it can’t be known for certain, a set of proposals from the Obama administration to completely revamp food aid might be able to prevent future tragedies of this scale from happening. Currently, U.S. law says that 85 percent of all international food aid must be purchased from the United States, then shipped from our shores to the country in need. Under the new format, introduced in President Obama’s FY 2014 proposed budget, the amount of food required to be produced in the United States would drop to 55 percent, with the rest of it being purchased from local sources through donated cash.

As Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, having the ability to buy more food locally could make all the difference in a humanitarian crisis — such as in Somalia — in getting food to those in need faster, while saving the United States money:

KERRY: By giving us the ability to modernize, including the flexibility to also procure food aid in developing countries closer to the crisis areas, not only do we feed more people, but we get food to malnourished people 11 to 14 weeks faster. So here’s the bottom line: This change allows us to do more, to help more people lift themselves out of hunger at a rapid pace without spending more money. I think that’s a great deal for the American taxpayer.

USAID Director Ravij Shah explained during his own appearance before Congress last week that under the new proposals as many as 4 million extra people would be reached per year without an increase in the foreign aid budget. Without the new system, Shah warned, about 150,000 children in Somalia would cease to receive food aid from the U.S. as other hotspots around the world consume the fifteen percent of food aid able to purchased locally. Such a decrease would prove devastating in the event of another massive crisis on the same scale as Somalia’s.

While a 2006 proposal to increase food aid flexibility to 25 percent failed, the odds are looking better for the new attempt. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) — the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee respectively — put out a letter supporting the initiative following the release of President Obama’s budget. Despite that, pressure is growing from agricultural interests such as the American Farm Bureau Federation and lawmakers from states with large farming populations to water down — or outright kill — the proposal.

CAP experts in a 2012 report called for the restructuring of the U.S.’ food aid program in a similar fashion to the method the administration is advancing. “At a minimum, we recommend that nonemergency food aid be exempt from both cargo preference and “buy American” requirements,” the report suggests, adding that “cost savings from these reforms would vary from year to year depending on fluctuations in food assistance. We estimate, however, that efficiency gains would range from $488 million to $628 million annually.”

(Photo Credit: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

In a move that shocked many observers, a alleged international war-criminal walked into the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda and requested he be transferred to The Hague to answer for his alleged crimes.

Confusion swirled following Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo announcing via Twitter that Gen. Bosco Ntaganda had surrendered willingly to the United States. The International Criminal Court first indicted Ntaganda for recruiting children in 2003 as part of a rebellion against the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but he has until now avoided capture.

The U.S. Embassy in Kigali was unable to confirm or deny Mushikiwabo’s statements for the next two hours, before State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland affirmed during her daily press briefing that Ntaganda was inside the Embassy. Complicating matters, neither the United States nor Rwanda are members of the Court, thus are not obliged to hand Ntaganda over. Instead, the U.S. is currently working with other countries to facilitate Ntaganda’s transfer to The Hague.

In the time since charges were filed against Ntaganda, he was first integrated into the Congolese armed forces as part of a peace deal, before defecting to lead yet another rebellion against the Congolese government — the M23 movement. A United Nations Group of Experts claimed in a report that the Rwandan government has been controlling the M23 as a proxy against the Congo. The United States has, in turn, been accused of running defense for Rwanda, protecting it from potential international condemnation. Rwanda’s ties to Ntaganda, however, became tenuous over time, as factions emerged within the M23:

“I’m sure he was much more scared of us than the [US] embassy because he has caused some friction,” a senior Rwandan military official told the FT, adding that he believed Gen Ntaganda feared for his life. “The information we had consistently coming from his people was that he was heading deeper and deeper into the forest but that was a deception to our intelligence.”

Ntaganda standing trial at the Hague is a much needed boost for the ten year-old ICC. Credibility is at a premium for the body, as its warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been frequently undermined by African leaders, and its indictment of Kenya’s President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta failed to keep him from winning his country’s recent election.

South African Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius was released on bail this morning following the shooting death of his girlfriend, and the cable news networks devoted the vast majority of their coverage to the hearing. CNN alone spent 192 minutes in total on the story between 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM, broadcasting for three hours without a single commercial break. The network maintained a constant box on the side of its screen alerting viewers to the imminent bail hearing.

And while the Pistorius case has scandalous appeal, there are other real important news stories in Africa that the networks routinely ignore. Here are just five things happening on the African continent that have nothing to do with the Olympian’s trial:

1. U.S. sending troops to Niger.

President Obama announced in a letter to Congress that he will be deploying 100 troops to Niger, to help aid in the ongoing operations against Islamists in Mali. According to the Associated Press report on the letter, the troops will be armed “for the purpose of providing their own force protection and security,” and focus on “intelligence sharing.” This is the second such deployment that Obama has made in recent years; 100 military advisers were sent to Uganda in 2011 to aid in the hunt for wanted war-criminal Joseph Kony.

Transference of military resources to the African continent has become a hallmark of Obama’s foreign and counter-terrorism policies, as groups like Boko Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army, al-Shabaab, and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have taken on more threatening postures towards U.S. interests. The United States and Niger recently signed an agreement that would allow for the opening of a base for unmanned aircraft — or drones — to be piloted for surveillance purposes.

2. There’s a war in Mali.

The fighting in Mali continues apace, despite French claims that they will begin withdrawing troops in the coming weeks. France intervened in the fight between the Malian government and several rebel groups in January, sending U.S. and European allies scrambling to provide support for the operations. While almost all towns in Mali’s north have been retaken by the government, low-levels of fighting flare up periodically.

Complicating matters are claims of atrocities — mostly in the form of “reprisal killings — committed by the Malian Army against minorities. The International Criminal Court in the Hague has already launched an investigation into potential war-crimes committed during the course of the last year’s fighting,

3. Sales of elephant ivory are fueling terrorism.

The poaching of elephants and rhinos for their ivory is a real security threat to the United States according to a State Department official. Robert Hormats — who serves as Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Enviroment — gave an interview with AllAfrica.com, in which he agreed that ivory counts as a ‘conflict resource.’ Organized groups, like al-Shabaab and the janjaweed militia in Sudan, kill large numbers of animals, sell off the ivory illegally, and use the purchases to buy more weapons for themselves.

The majority of that ivory is being sold to China, as much as 70 percent as reported by the New York Times.

4. Africa’s economic boom.

“Seven of the ten fastest growing countries are on the African continent,” Secretary of State John Kerry declared Wednesday, in his first major speech since taking on the role. Each of those seven countries — Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Congo, Ghana, Zambia, and Nigeria — had projected growth rates of 8 percent or more in 2011 according to the International Monetary Fund. In comparison, last year the U.S. economy grew by around 2 percent. By 2030, the continent is set to boast a middle-class majority for the first time, as poverty drops. All of that growth may not correspond to happiness though — as The Economist points out, not many of the fastest growing economies currently rank among the best places to live.

5. Elections looming in Kenya.

2007’s Presidential elections in Kenya led to the death of thousands as neighbors clashed over the outcome of a disputed vote. Only the diplomatic intervention of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan helped stanch the flow of blood at the time, prompting serious concerns over the pending March 4 elections. This year’s coming elections – in which one of those running have been indicted by the ICC for helping promote violence in 2007 – have the potential to launch another violent struggle between ethnic groups in the East African country. President Obama has already issued a video statement to the people of Kenya ahead of the first round of voting, urging calm and faith in the democratic process. Meanwhile, the State Department’s Conflict and Stabilization Operations Bureau has been working for months with the local government to prevent another outpouring of violence.

France has responded to a request for help from Mali by sending military forces to aid in the Malian government’s push back on an offensive launched by rebel forces in the north of the country.

The initial forces on the ground are there to take part in a United Nations-authorized mission to boost training of the Malian Army, ahead of an international force due to be deployed in the fall of this year. Several other European countries have also pledged to send trainers to Mali, but France surprised many with the swiftness of its action. President Francois Hollande laid out the thinking behind France’s decision in a speech on Friday:

“France, like its African partners, cannot accept this. I have decided that France will respond, alongside our African partners, to the request from the Malian authorities.

“We will do it strictly within the framework of the United Nations Security Council resolution. We will be ready to stop the terrorists’ offensive if it continues.”

France — which has a history of intervening in the region, such as in Cote d’Ivoire in 2011 — had previously indicated publicly that it would wait for a further clarification of U.N. resolutions before taking action. While these forces are not necessarily mandated to engage in combat with the coalition of rebels and Islamists in control of Northern Mali, French diplomats are now arguing behind closed doors that previously passed U.N. resolutions give them the authority to do so, should France choose. Given the ease in which the rebels, whose make-up include groups thought to be affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), took a key town on Thursday, Hollande may make that call relatively soon.

France’s speedy response may help make U.S. decision-makers coming to a conclusion regarding the region far easier. After the Sept. 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, reports floated the possibility that the U.S. was considering launching drone strikes against AQIM. Those strikes never came to fruition, but remain a distinct possibility, as J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, sees U.S. counter-terrorism officials being increasingly open to air strikes. “Drone strikes or airstrikes will not restore Mali’s territorial integrity or defeat the Islamists, but they may be the least bad option,” said Mr. Pham, a senior strategy adviser to the U.S. military’s Africa Command.

Plans for intervention in Mali, already contentious within the international community, now have potentially been set back by the second coup within the county in less than twelve months.

Soldiers in the Malian Army arrested Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra last night at his home, prompting him to later appear on national television to announce the resignation of his government. According to reports from the capital, the soldiers acted on the order of Capt. Amadou Sanogo, a low-level officer who engineered the short-lived coup in March that set off the current chain of events within the West African state. While forced to abdicate power officially in May, the coup orchestrators have continued to wield significant influence in Mali, as indicated by last nights’ incidents. President Diouncounda Traore has appointed Django Cissoko as prime minister in Diarra’s stead.

Diarra’s resignation portends an increased level of difficulty in winning approval at the United Nations for an African Union-backed plan for military intervention. In particular, the plan revolves around a relatively small number of international forces providing support to a bolstered and retrained Malian army in a push to reclaim territory in the north of the country from Islamist and ethnic Tuareg rebels. Sanogo had disagreed with Diarra’s desire to see the plan come to fruition, believing that the Malian military was able to handle the situation on its own.

The plan had already hit a road block in the U.N. Security Council as U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has expressed considerable concern with the plan and a French initiative to transform the A.U. request into a U.N. mandate. Rice believes that France’s desire — which syncs up with that of the African Union — to approve intervention as soon as possible is premature, according to reports from a closed-door meeting of the Council. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has also voiced reservations about the plan’s viability, noting in a report to the Council that many details remain unresolved.

Reservations come in contrast to declarations that the situation grows increasingly dire due to the presence of terrorist organization Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) within areas of the North. The Washington Post on Monday ran an editorial calling for an immediate commencing of military strikes within Mali, to prevent AQIM from gaining further footholds.

Despite the sudden nature of the coup, and the deleterious effect it may have on Mali’s ability to reclaim territory, the reassertion of the army into Malian politics is not entirely surprising according to political scientist Jay Ulfelder. A forecaster of political turmoil, Ulfelder earlier this year listed Mali as number eleven among the top twenty most likely states to suffer a coup in 2012. In a blog post following the most recent events, Ulfelder noted that coups tend to be recursive, with attempts both successful and unsuccessful begetting further attempts.

Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera criticized a claim made by Republicans that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is partly responsible for the attacks that killed four Americans at a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11 this year because of her experience with the terror bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania 14 years ago.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) lobbed the criticism on Wednesday saying that the Benghazi attack “echoes the attacks on those embassies in 1998,” and that Rice “was head of the African region for our State Department. In both cases the ambassadors begged for additional security.”

But Rivera, who said he covered the attack in Kenya at the time, said that assessment is off the mark:

RIVERA: I think though to blame Susan Rice is kind of like blaming FEMA for 9/11. There is an undersecretary of state who is in charge of facilities and that is the group that deemed the terrorist threat there to be medium: it really wasn’t Susan Rice. It’s like scapegoating Susan is the affliction that’s sweeping Washington right now.

Watch Geraldo’s remarks here:

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) joined in the new attack shortly after Collins’ statement, telling MSNBC that Rice needed to answer “questions” about her role in protecting the embassies. But two officials from a board that Huffington Post says investigated the 1998 terrorist bombings said that Rice had nothing to do with embassy security at the time. One official said, “I don’t remember any inference or allegation that Susan Rice had been negligent.” Yesterday, Mother Jones tracked down the State Department Accountability Review Board’s reports of both bombings and came to a similar conclusion:

“The reports noted numerous security failures and oversights that preceded the bombings. But they don’t back up Collins’ characterization. Neither mentions Rice, who was a policy person who would not be in charge of embassy or security operations. The report on the Tanzania attack says nothing about the US ambassador there begging for additional security. It notes that “the security systems and security procedures” at the embassy “were in accord with, and in some ways exceeded, Department of State standards for overseas posts assessed as having a ‘low’ threat rating for political violence and terrorism.”

Republicans, led by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), have been trying to deligitimize Rice in anticipation of her Secretary of State nomination and the attempt to link the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings to Benghazi and Rice is just the latest baseless salvo.

Collins said she asked about the 1998 embassy bombings in her meeting with Rice this week but was disappointed that Rice said “she wasn’t expecting a question on that and that she would have to refresh her memory and go back and think about it.” Of course, it’s perfectly reasonable that Rice wasn’t prepared for the question, as the topic has nothing to do with her role in disseminating the intelligence community’s talking points on Benghazi.