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Congo doctor Denis Mukwege named among TIME 100 most influential people

By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Nobel-prize nominated Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, who treats war rape victims, was named by TIME magazine on Thursday as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. The 61-year-old doctor founded the Panzi Hospital in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 1999 to help women and girls who had been raped during the conflict then raging in the country. “The people on the list, each in their own way, have lessons to teach,” TIME editor Nancy Gibbs said in a statement accompanying the release of the 2016 TIME 100.

U.N. plans aid for 154,000 besieged Syrians in next five days

The United Nations and partner aid organizations plan to deliver life-saving aid to 154,000 Syrians in besieged areas in the next five days, the U.N. Resident Coordinator in Damascus Yacoub El Hillo said in a statement on Sunday. Pending approval from parties to the conflict, the U.N. is ready to deliver aid to about 1.7 million people in hard-to-reach areas in the first quarter of 2016, he said. The U.N. estimates there are almost 500,000 people living under siege, out of a total 4.6 million who are hard to reach with aid, but it hopes that a cessation of hostilities that began on Friday night will bring an end to the 15 sieges.

More than one million children need urgent aid in the conflict-torn Central African Republic: U.N.

More than a million children in the Central African Republic are in urgent need of humanitarian aid while almost half of those under five are malnourished, the United Nations said on Friday ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to the conflict-torn country. Sectarian violence has plagued the country since and fresh fighting broke out in Bangui two months ago, the worst violence in the capital this year, when the murder of a Muslim man triggered reprisal attacks on a largely Christian neighborhood. Some two million children have been affected by violence which first broke out in December 2012, and 1.2 million now need urgent aid, said the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF.