News stories by Issa Sikiti da Silva, page 3

BAMAKO, Mar 22 (IPS) - One of Amina Diallo's sons, 14-year-old Salif, has been missing since August last year. She thinks Islamists kidnapped him while he was on his way to the market in their hometown of Gao, in northern Mali, and recruited him as a child soldier.

DAKAR, Feb 25 (IPS) - When Abdoulaye Ba heard his local Imam in Dakar, Senegal, speaking out against child marriage, he found that the idea was not very palatable to him. As head of his family, he had intended to marry off his three teenage daughters.

DAKAR, Jan 21 (IPS) - A 25-year-old mother of five hailing from Senegal's eastern Tambacounda province believes that contraceptives damage the womb and cause health problems in the long term, such as a rise in blood pressure and chronic headaches.

DAKAR, Oct 02 (IPS) - In the midst of the building frenzy in Senegal, the construction of buildings that cost less than 60,000 dollars, and thus do not require a building permit, is going unchecked by authorities, resulting in the haphazard and unsafe construction of a majority of homes.