Least developed countries

Myanmar and Bangladesh have agreed to repatriate hundreds of thousands of displaced Rohingya within a two-year period, Dhaka said on Jan. 16, the first concrete timeline given for the refugees’ return despite many refusing to go back to their homeland.

Hamid Hussain, a 71-year-old Rohingya Muslim farmer, first fled Myanmar for Bangladesh in 1992. He went home the next year under a repatriation deal between the two neighbors, only to repeat the journey last September when violence flared once more.

Four lion cubs, given as a gift to Turkey's president from his Sudanese counterpart during a recent visit to Africa, went on public display on Jan. 13. 

Sudan is to devalue the Sudanese pound to 18 per dollar in January from the current 6.7, the finance minister said on Dec. 26, after the IMF called for it to let the currency float freely to encourage foreign investment in the country.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said he was temporarily suspending the return of migrants to Sudan. This decision is made because of the doubts that the returnees were beaten, tortured and deprived of their liberty.

14 soldiers from the UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been killed and about 40 were injured in an assault allegedly committed by an Islamic militant group from neighboring Uganda, the French National Radio reported. The attack was carried out near the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. The dead and wounded blue helmets are from Tanzania.

Myanmar and Bangladesh have signed an agreement that will in principle allow the return of rohingya refugees to their country, said official representatives quoted by AFP.

The deal has been negotiated, the agency notes but just after pressure from the international community for the recent refugee crisis.

The U.N. and the South Sudan government say that 1.25 million people in South Sudan are facing starvation, double the number from the same time last year.

A rescue ship with hundreds of migrant children from more than 15 countries arrived in Italy, the BBC reported.

Aquarius, run by non-governmental organizations SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, arrived with a total of 606 people aboard, including 241 children rescued Tuesday and Wednesday. Nearly 180 of the children were unaccompanied, non-governmental organizations said.

At least 12 Muslim ruhingya refugees drowned in a shipwreck as they sailed to Bangladesh, local police reported. They fled the conflict in neighboring Myanmar, Reuters reported.

Last night, their vessel turned over and sunk off the southern shores of Bangladesh, the authorities said. A police spokesman told Reuters that 12 bodies were seized - 10 children, a woman and a man.