More than 30,000 people have fled DR Congo after a group of Ugandan rebels attacked a border town, says the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR.

The Allied Democratic Forces raided the town of Kamango on Thursday, according to the Ugandan army spokesman.

The Congolese national army has now retaken Kamango.

The ADF is based in mineral-rich eastern DR Congo, where numerous armed groups have caused havoc over the past two decades.

The huge number of refugees came in so quickly that the government and aid workers are still working out what to do, says the BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga in Bundibudgyo, on the Ugandan border with the DRC.

Long wait

No food or adequate shelter has been distributed to the refugees. Many had to sleep out in the open in school compounds, or on the verandas of shops, she says.

The ADF was formed in 1996 by a puritanical Muslim sect in the Ruwenzori mountains of western Uganda.

In 1998 it increased its activities and a number of bomb blasts in markets and restaurants in Kampala were blamed on the group.

After years of sporadic raids, the Ugandan army almost destroyed the ADF's capacity in 2004 and it moved into DR Congo.

However, a United Nations report last year said the rebels had expanded their military capacity and established links with Somalia's al-Shabab militants.

Mali has lifted a nationwide state of emergency that has been in place since a French-led military offensive was launched to combat Islamist insurgents in the country. The lift comes weeks ahead of elections.

The state of emergency, put in place on January 12, followed a French-led military offensive aimed at driving out Islamist militant groups that had taken control of the country's north.

"The state of emergency has de facto been lifted since midnight yesterday," Captain Modibo Naman Traore said.

"The military situation has now stabilized, lifting the state of emergency will allow the candidates in the presidential election to campaign," Traore said.

On the coattails of a January 2012 revolt by ethnic Tuareg rebels in Mali's north, extremists linked to al Qaeda set to work creating an Islamic state and imposing Shariah rule. In January of this year, as the militants moved south toward the capital Bamako, France intervened at the Malian government's request.

The state of emergency had given the army sweeping powers and banned gatherings of more than 50 people. The announcement marks a gradual return to normality in the west African country, a once stable democracy.

Now, at least 26 candidates, including four former prime ministers, are vying for the presidency.

With about 500,000 people still displaced after the conflict, many have raised concerns whether the country is ready for July 28 elections. Elections in Mali will be observed by the European Union.

hc/kms (Reuters, AFP, AP)

US President Barack Obama has visited Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island prison cell during the Cape Town leg of a three-day trip to South Africa. Obama’s visit has been overshadowed by the health of the anti-apartheid hero.

Obama paid tribute to South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, by taking his family on a tour of the island prison where the ailing anti-apartheid leader spent 18 of his 27 years imprisoned.  

The Obama family visited Mandela's Robben Island prison cell as well as the lime quarry where Mandela was forced to work during his incarceration and where the lung problems afflicting him today first developed. 

The Obamas' tour guide, 83-year-old politician Ahmed Kathrada, who had been detained in the prison for two decades, told the family of his experiences of being forced to work every day.

Prior to the visit, Obama had said he was paying tribute to a man who inspired his political activism.

"The struggle here against apartheid, for freedom, Madiba's moral courage, his country's historic transition to a free and democratic nation, has been a personal inspiration to me," said Obama using Mandela's clan name.

It was a privilege, he added, to be able to show his children the place where Mandela spent many years as a political prisoner. "For me to be able to bring my daughters there and teach them the history of that place and this country…that's a great privilege and a great honor," Obama added.

Mandela, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, is critically ill with a recurrent lung disease in a Pretoria hospital, where he was admitted three weeks ago.

Obama and First Lady Michelle met privately late Saturday with Mandela's relatives. A White House statement said Obama would not be meeting the critically ill anti-apartheid leader in hospital.

"Out of deference to Nelson Mandela's peace and comfort and the family's wishes, they will not be visiting the hospital," the unnamed official told the news agency AFP.

Signature speech

Later on Sunday, Obama is set to deliver what the White House called the signature speech of his weeklong trip to the continent at the University of Cape Town.

During the speech, Obama will announce plans to unveil a 7-billion-euro ($9.1 billion) initiative to upgrade African electricity networks, in an attempt to end power outages that deter business investment.

Meanwhile, Obama is set to host a landmark meeting of sub-Saharan Africa leaders next year, the White House announced on Sunday.

The announcements comes as Obama dismisses talk of a tussle with China for influence on the continent.

On Saturday, Obama met with South African President Jacob Zuma in Pretoria. The two leaders held talks focusing on trade, boosting economic ties and regional security in Africa.

Obama's three-country tour concludes next week in Tanzania.

jlw/kms (AFP, dpa, AP)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Inspired by Nelson Mandela's struggles in South Africa, a young Barack Obama joined campus protests in the U.S. against the racist rule that kept Mandela locked away in prison for nearly three decades.

Now a historic, barrier-breaking figure himself, President Obama arrived in South Africa Friday to find a country drastically transformed by Mandela's influence — and grappling with the beloved 94-year-old's mortality.

It was unclear whether Mandela's deteriorating health would allow Obama to make a hospital visit. The former South African leader is battling a recurring lung infection and is said to be in critical condition at a hospital in the South African capital of Pretoria.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he made his way to Johannesburg, Obama said he would gauge the situation after he arrived.

"I don't need a photo-op," he said. "And the last thing I want to do is to be in any way obtrusive at a time when the family is concerned about Nelson Mandela's condition."

Obama's visit to South Africa is seen as something of a tribute to the man who helped inspire his own political activism. The president will pay homage to Mandela at Robben Island, the prison where he spent 18 of his 27 years in prison. And with South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress, facing questions about its effectiveness, Obama will urge the government and the South African people to live up to the democratic example set by their first black president.

"He's a personal hero, but I don't think I'm unique in that regard," Obama said during a news conference Thursday in Senegal, the first stop on his weeklong Africa trip. "I think he's a hero for the world. And if and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages."

Obama and Mandela have met just once, a hastily arranged meeting in a Washington hotel room in 2005 when Obama was a U.S. senator. A photo of the meeting hangs in Obama's personal office at the White House, showing a smiling Mandela sitting on a chair, his legs outstretched, as the young senator reaches down to shake his hand. A copy of the photo also hangs in Mandela's office in Johannesburg.

Since then, the two have spoken occasionally by telephone, including after the 2008 election, when Mandela called Obama to congratulate him on his victory. The U.S. president called Mandela in 2010 after the South African leader's young granddaughter was killed in a car accident. Obama also wrote the introduction to Mandela's memoir, "Conversations With Myself."

Despite the two men's infrequent contact, people close to Obama say his one-on-one meeting with Mandela left a lasting impression.

"He is one of the few people who the president has respected and admired from afar who, when he met him, exceeded his expectations," said Valerie Jarrett, Obama's senior adviser and close friend.

Obama's own political rise has drawn inevitable comparisons to the South African leader. Both are Nobel Peace Prize winners and the first black men elected to lead their countries.

But their paths to power have been vastly different. While Mandela fought to end an oppressive government from the confines of a prison cell, Obama attended elite schools and rose through the U.S. political system before running for president.

"President Obama would believe that the challenges he has faced pale in comparison to those faced by President Mandela," Jarrett said.

Mandela had already shaped Obama's political beliefs well before their first encounter. As a student at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Obama joined protests against the school's investments during South Africa's apartheid era. In 1981, Obama focused his first public political speech on the topic.

"It's happening an ocean away," Obama said, according to a retelling of the story in his memoir "Dreams From My Father." ''But it's a struggle that touches each and every one of us. Whether we know it or not. Whether we want it or not."

More than 30 years later, as he traveled through the African continent, Obama recalled the influence Mandela had had on him during that period of his life.

"I think at that time I didn't necessarily imagine that Nelson Mandela might be released," Obama said Thursday. But the president said he had read Mandela's writings and speeches and understood him to be a man who believed in "treating people equally and was willing to sacrifice his life for that belief."

Following his release from prison, Mandela was elected president in 1994 during South Africa's first all-races elections. He served just one term, focusing in large part on racial reconciliation in the post-apartheid era, and retreated from public life several years ago.

The most recent images of him depict a frail man apparently approaching the end of his life. While South Africans have long been loath to talk about Mandela's inevitable death, there is now a growing sense in the country that the time is near. Well-wishers have delivered flowers and messages of support to the Pretoria hospital where he is being treated, and prayer sessions have been held around the country.