Flooding in South Sudan has displaced more than 379,000 people, according to a United Nations update that warned about a surge in malaria. Aid agencies have said the world’s youngest country, highly vulnerable to climate change, is in the grip of its worst flooding in decades, mainly in the north…The floods have affected about 1.4 million people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday, across 43 counties and the disputed Abyei region, which is claimed by both South Sudan and Sudan. It added in a statement that more than 379,000 people were displaced in 22 counties and in Abyei. (Al Jazeera)

A senior Somali official insisted Saturday that Ethiopia will not participate in a new African Union peacekeeping mission starting in January. The two nations remain deadlocked over a Memorandum of Understanding that Ethiopia signed with the breakaway region, Somaliland, earlier this year…African Union troops from several countries have been operating in Somalia since 2007…Under the current AU mission, at least 3,000 Ethiopian soldiers officially operate as part of an African Union peacekeeping mission fighting al-Shabab. Another 5,000 to 7,000 Ethiopian soldiers are stationed in several regions under a bilateral agreement. (VOA)

A Swedish Eritrean journalist held incommunicado without charge in Eritrea for more than 23 years won a Swedish rights prize on Monday for his fight for freedom of expression, the jury said. Dawit Isaak was among a group of around two dozen people, including senior cabinet ministers, members of parliament and independent journalists, who were seized in a purge in September 2001. He was awarded the Edelstam Prize “for his outstanding contribution and exceptional courage in standing up for freedom of expression, one’s beliefs, and in the defense of human rights,” the Edelstam Foundation said in a statement….Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says he and his colleagues detained at the same time are the longest-held journalists in the world…Eritrea has provided no news about him, and there are fears he may no longer even be alive. He would be 60 years old. (AFP)

[The United Nations Security Council’s] sanctions committee added Maj. Gen. Osman Mohamed Hamid Mohamed, head of the Rapid Support Forces’ operations department, and Maj. Gen. Abdel Rahman Juma Barkalla, the RSF commander in West Darfur, to the sanctions blacklist…The U.N. sanctions order all countries to freeze the asses and impose a travel ban on the generals. The United States Treasury imposed sanctions on both generals earlier in the year, freezing any assets in the U.S. and banning all financial transactions with them. (AP)