The United Nations says the number of people forced to flee their homes because of war or persecution now exceeds 65 million people.

Releasing its annual report, external on forced displacement, the UN refugee agency said that by by the end of 2016, the numbers were the highest ever recorded.

Twelve million Syrians, two thirds of the entire population, are displaced.

More than four million Iraqis and three million South Sudanese have also fled their homes.

The UN says the staggeringly high figures point towards a global inability to solve conflicts.

Filippo Grandi, the UN's high commissioner for refugees, said:

Image source, Reuters

Uganda received the largest number of new refugees last year - more than 900,000 - because of the conflict in neighbouring South Sudan Amnesty International, external reports.

Meanwhile, UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi, on a visit to Bentiu town in the north of South Sudan, called on the authorities to take more responsibility for displaced people, Reuters news agency reports.

He said:

Read: Uganda - one of the best places to be a refugee

Four 14-year-old school boys are expected to appear in a children's court in South Africa over the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl, public broadcaster SABC reports, external.

One of the suspects apparently filmed the incident - at a school in Bloemfontein, the judicial capital of South Africa, last week - and posted it on social media, it adds.

The footage showed two boys fondling the girl, who appeared to be intoxicated while two other boys were seen capturing the events on a mobile phone, SABC reports.

Image source, AFP

Read: Will I be next? South Africa women ask

Tributes are pouring in for prominent Zimbabwean musician Dickson Chingaira following his death at the age of 61 after a battle with leukaemia.

Fellow musician Thomas Mapfumo said that Zimbabwe had lost a giant, a true patriot and revolutionary whose music had inspired the black majority, the privately owned New Zimbabwe news site reports. .

"We do hope he will get the honour he deserves as a true national hero of our time," he added.

Ruling Zanu-PF party spokesman Simo Khaya Moyo said that Chingaira - popularly known as Cde Chinx - was a talented musician whose songs were a tonic for cadres during the liberation struggle and after independence, the state-run Herald newspaper reports, external.

Tributes are also pouring in on Twitter:

Mary Harper
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Officials in Nigeria say half of government food aid sent to people displaced by an Islamist insurgency never reached them. Nearly three-million people have been displaced during the eight-year uprising by Boko Haram militants.

The spokesman for Acting President Yemi Osinbajo said a new system, launched earlier this month, had drastically reduced the diversion of aid - a polite word for theft.

Now, hundreds of police and soldiers escort the vehicles delivering the food, right to the point where it is given to the hungry.

More than 1,000 trucks filled with grain are on their way to the north-east. One-and-a-half million people are said to be on the brink of famine. And Boko Haram fighters continue to attack, despite a more robust offensive by the military.

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