NAIROBI, 18 October 2011 (IRIN) - Civil society sources in Mogadishu estimate there are between 1,000 and 2,000 children in the ranks of Somalia’s Al-Shabab insurgency, some as young as nine. IRIN spoke to relatives and child protection advocates about the group’s recruitment methods.

Yes, hang down your head in shame, Africa! Only four heads of state were seen at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa to discuss assistance to the starving Africans in the Horn of Africa. Twelve million people are in great danger of starving to death. A famine is raging, wasting a whole region.

In the August 1^st-8^th edition of the Nation Jeremy Scahill wrote a piece that has been met with silence from some of the people one would assume would have something to say about it.

BLANTYRE—Malawi has donated food to famine-hit and war-torn Somalia where at least 3.7 million people, over a third of the country's population, are in dire need of food.