MS Risk Blog

State of Emergency Returns to Sinai Peninsula

28 October- On Saturday, Egyptian President Abdul Fatah El Sisi declared a three month state of emergency in north and central Sinai Peninsula. The state of emergency which began on Saturday at 0300 GMT will last for three months. A curfew will be enforced from 1700 to 0500. In addition, the Egyptian government has closed the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip. Sisi’s presidential decree stated, “The army and police will take all necessary measures to tackle the dangers of terrorism and its financing, to preserve the security of the region… and protect the lives of citizens.”

The decision came after a militant fighter rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a security checkpoint northwest of El-Arish in North Sinai on Friday, killing at least 30 soldiers and leaving 29 others injured. One senior army official and five officers were among the wounded. Earlier on Friday, gunmen shot and killed an officer and wounded two soldiers at a checkpoint south of El-Arish. On Saturday, the body of a soldier who disappeared after Friday’s attack was found riddled with bullets. Immediately following the incidents, Sisi called for three days of national morning and called for a meeting of the National Defence Council.

The attacks are the worst the country has experienced against security forces since the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. In August 2013, 25 soldiers were killed in the Sinai when gunmen opened fire at two buses transporting troops. In July 2014, 22 border guards were killed in the western desert near the border with Libya. Later in July, militants conducted two bombings in the Sinai, killing 17 police officers. Each of these attacks has been claimed by Ansar Beit al Maqdis, a Sinai-based terror group that as targeted security forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Nile Valley Egypt since Morsi’s removal from office.

The latest bombings followed the sentencing of seven members of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis to death on Tuesday for conducting deadly attacks on the army. Sisi said Friday’s attack was carried out with “external support” in order to “break the will of the Egyptian people and army.” A spokesman for Ansar Beit al Maqdis has recently stated that they have been receiving assistance from ISIS in the form of advice and guidance, although he underscored that there was no transfer of weapons or personnel.

Sisi has stated that the militants posed an “existential threat” to Egypt, and has authorised a new law that expands military control over state facilities, including power plants, main roads and bridges for the next two years. The law calls for state infrastructure to be defined as “military facilities” and allows the army to work with police to protect these sites, and to arrest and present for trial anyone suspected of launching attacks on those sights. Trials would be held in a military court.

Critics caution that the law allows the army to return to the streets, and will result in the return of military trials for civilians, one of the major reasons for the Egyptian uprising in 2011. Activists believe the law is too broad, and may be reinterpreted to cover universities, where clashes between and protesters have become a regular occurrence. The increased capacity for military power has been perceived as an attempt to quell dissidents against the Sisi administration. A large number of anti-military activists have been arrested in October, and at least 17 newspapers across the nation have refrained from publishing criticism of the army or the state.

Yet Sisi’s presidential spokesman, Alaa Youssef, said the decree is a limited and proportional response aimed at tackling terrorism, not protesters. The Egyptian foreign ministry has also contacted ambassadors of several nations to ask for additional security support and to “and supply information for Egypt that meets its security needs.” Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry has called for the international community to provide support in order to “carry out a strong and decisive” operation. The EU, US and UK have condemned the two attacks and pledged to support Egypt.

The Egyptian government has taken extensive ground and air efforts to eradicate the terrorist threat in the Sinai Peninsula. Despite the number of targeted killings, arrests, tunnel closures, and confiscations of militant held homes and weapons the militant threat does not appear to be diminishing. The military launched fresh air strikes Saturday in northern Sinai, killing eight suspected militants.

New Kidnappings in Northeastern Nigeria

In a new report published Monday, a rights group has indicated that Boko Haram has used kidnapped women and girls on the front lines of its insurgency. The new report comes as news emerged that the militant group is suspected of kidnapping dozens of girls and boys.

Despite Nigerian government claims of a truce with the militant group, on Monday reports emerged that suspected Boko Haram militants have kidnapped about thirty adolescents in the northeastern region of the country. Local sources have reported that the suspected militants kidnapped boys aged 13 and over and several girls aged 11 and over. According to a local official, at least seventeen people were killed when the village of Mafa, in Borno State, came under attack on Thursday. Nigerian authorities however are blaming the attack on local bandits. The attack on Mafa, which is located 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the state capital Maiduguri, is the latest in a series of assaults carried out by suspected Boko Haram militants. Last week, at least 40 women and girls were seized in neighbouring Adamawa state.

Both kidnappings, along with continued violence in northeastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon, have caused doubts over government claims of a ceasefire agreement and deal for the release of 219 schoolgirls held captive since May. Boko Haram has yet to confirm that a ceasefire agreement has been reached.

According to a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released Monday, the militant group has kidnapped more than 500 women and girls since its insurgency began in 2009, adding that they use the girls and women on the front lines of combat.

The report came to the conclusion after officials outlined testimony from dozens of former hostages who documented the physical and psychological abuses they went through while being held captive. In total, 30 women and girls were interviewed between April 2013 and April 2014, including 12 of the 57 girls who fled shortly after militants raided a school in Chibok, Borno state. The women and girls, who were held from between two days and three months, were either kidnapped from their homes and villages or while working on the land, fetching water or at school. They all described being held in eight different camps believed to be located in the Sambisa Forest area of Borno state and in the Gwoza hills, which separate Nigeria from Cameroon. They described seeing other women and children in the camps, some of them infants while others as old as 65, however they were unable to indicate whether they had also been kidnapped.

While most of the women were made to cook, clean and perform household chores, with some forced to carry stolen goods seized by the insurgents after attacks, others were forced to fight alongside the militants. In one particular testimony, a 19-year-old woman indicated that she was forced to participate in Boko Haram attacks while being held hostage in militant camps for three months in 2013. According to the woman, she “…was told to hold the bullets and lie in the grass while they fought. They came to me for extra bullets as the fight continued during the day.” While a wave of attacks carried out by female suicide bombers across northeastern Nigeria earlier this year prompted speculation that Boko Haram may be changing tactics and using abducted women to carry out deadly attacks, there has been no evidence to prove whether the attackers were kidnap victims who were coerced or volunteers. The report further disclosed that while Boko Haram appears to pick victims arbitrarily, Christians and students were particularly targeted.

Additionally the newly released report discloses that there have been serious failings in the manner in which Nigerian authorities conducted their investigations in the wake of the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok six months ago. The report includes detailed testimonies of several girls who managed to escape captivity, with HRW adding that the police have shown minimal interest in documenting their evidence, and have treated the case as a “low level crime.” According to the HRW’s Africa Director, Daniel Bekele, little is available to help those girls and women who have survived long periods of captivity, adding that survivors have not received adequate support, including mental health and medical after-care upon their release. He further disclosed that while funds have been set up for the Chibok escapees, little support has been provided to other victims.

Ebola Spreads to Sixth Country as Mali Confirms First Case

Just a week after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it would deploy experts to the Ivory Coast and Mali to test their Ebola-preparedness measures, on Thursday, Mali’s Health Minister confirmed the country’s first Ebola case.

Speaking on state television late Thursday, Malian Health Minister Ousmane Kone confirmed that a two-year-old girl has tested positive for the deadly virus, disclosing that she was currently being treated at a hospital in the western town of Kayes, which is located 600 kilometres (375 miles) from the capital city Bamako. According to the Health Minister, the girl was brought to the Fousseyni Daou hospital on Wednesday, where she was immediately tested for the virus, which came back positive. Reports have indicated that the girl had recently returned from Kissidougou, in neighbouring Guinea, where the Ebola outbreak first emerged last December. Her mother died in Guinea several weeks ago, with the girl recently being brought to Bamako by relatives. She stayed in the Malian capital for ten days, in the Bagadadji neighbourhood, before leaving for Kayes. The child and 43 people who have come into contact with her have been put in quarantine, with the health minister urging anyone who may have had contact with the girl to come forward. A source within the health ministry has reported that the child’s condition is said to be improving.

Mali is now the sixth country in West Africa to be affected by the worst-ever Ebola outbreak, however both Senegal and Nigeria have in the past week been declared Ebola-free by WHO officials. Health officials have long viewed Mali as one of the most vulnerable to Ebola’s spread as the West African country borders both Guinea, which has been one of the hardest-hit countries by the current outbreak, and Senegal. The WHO’s list of fifteen African countries that need to be prepared for a possible Ebola case identified both Mali and the Ivory Coast as top priorities. Last week, WHO officials announced that they will deploy experts to both countries in order to test their Ebola-preparedness measures as both countries are currently at the greatest risk of being the next to be affected by the outbreak. Speaking during a news conference in Geneva last week, Isabell Nuttal, the WHO’s health security response chief disclosed, “as the number of cases is increasing, it wouldn’t be a surprise to have a case in neighbouring countries. And its for this very reason that we are working with them so that they are able to detect and take immediate action,” adding, “border checkpoints and health points have been implemented on the major roads that are crossing between the countries, so it provides a level of reassurance in terms of travelling.” On Sunday, a team of ten experts was set to deploy to Mali, with another team set to deploy to the Ivory Coast in the coming days.

An outbreak of the Ebola virus in Mali would likely severely threaten the country’s already fragile security situation, as Mali is continuing to stabilize after a coup and Islamist militant takeover of its northern region. It could also result in a greater risk to healthcare workers deployed in the country. While several teams of health workers have been attacked in Guinea, with several workers killed in September by locals as they attempted to spread awareness about the deadly virus, terrorist groups operating in the northern regions could target health workers for kidnap-for-ransom or could carry out violent attacks similar to those that targeted polio vaccination workers in Nigeria and Pakistan.

New figures released by the WHO on Wednesday indicate that Ebola has now killed 4,877 people and infected 9,936 across West Africa, with most of the deaths and cases occurring in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The official number of cases and deaths however remains unknown as under-reporting continues to be a major issue in this outbreak, however the WHO indicated last week that the true death toll may be three times as high as the one currently being reported. A separate and unrelated outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa currently appears to have been contained.

Understanding Kobane

The battle in Kobane (also spelled ‘Kobani’) is being called “the most decisive battle” in the campaign against ISIS, yet help has been slow to arrive. For weeks the town’s residents have been under siege as ISIS has battles to take control of the region, causing thousands of Syrian refugees to flee into Turkey.

Despite the increasing humanitarian crisis and the consequence of letting Kobanefall into ISIS hands, the town has been omitted from US and coalition strategy. Fighting began in the town on 16 September, and while the US has conducted air-strikes around the town, US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Mid October that “Kobane does not define the strategy for the coalition in respect to [ISIL].” It was only on Sunday that the US began to air-drop weapons and supplies to Kurdish fighters.  Earlier today, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he had been informed that agreement was reached for 200 Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga reinforcements to pass through Turkey to help defend Kobane. It is expected that ISIS will take heavy losses numbering into several hundreds, yet they are prepared to do so.

Kobane’s Importance to ISIS

The fall of Kobane would result in a major strategic win for ISIS for a number of reasons. First, it is a heavily agricultural region. A large percentage of the residents are farmers, and there is significant grain and wheat production. Access to this agricultural resource would be a boon for ISIS, in terms of supporting the population within its own territory and providing another avenue of income.

Second, Kobane sits on the Turkish border with Syria. If ISIS were to capture the town, they would gain a significant and strategic expansion of their territory along the Turkish border. Capture of the region would give ISIS control over a main road that connects Raqqa, the city which headquarters ISIS operations, with Aleppo. Further, it would add an additional border crossing for weapons, supplies, and radicalised fighters to enter into ISIS controlled territory.

Finally, the predominant strategic value of Kobane is that is a majority Kurdish town. An ISIS win at Kobane would weaken the Kurdish resistance. Kobane is one of three administrative cantons of the Syrian Kurds. If it Kobane falls, it will weaken the other cantons which secure Syria’s 1,200 kilometre border with Syria. Effectively, a win in Kobane could potentially allow ISIS to capture full control of the Turkish Border.

Kobane’s Importance to the Kurds

Kobane has become a symbol of Kurdish aspirations for an autonomous state. One analyst states, “Kobane symbolises the Kurdish resistance, not only in Syria but in other parts of the Middle East. Its loss would translate into a defeat for the entire Kurdish nation.”

The Turkish and Syrian Kurdish community remains close in culture, language and proximity. In the early 1900s, Kobane stretched across both Turkey and Syria. In 1921, a border was put in place by Mustafa Kemal, dividing the Kurdish village in two. The demarcation is a railroad that has served as the border between the two nations. Since the siege on the town, over 100,000 refugees from Kobane and other nearby towns have fled to the Turkish side, now called Mursitpinar.

This closeness of Syrian and Turkish Kurds has remained in place. The current crisis has gelled efforts to keep Kobane standing. Over several weeks of fighting, Kobane has resisted falling to ISIS occupation, creating a symbol of resilience against ISIS and hope in the face of others who have denied Kurdish autonomy. Mostafa Minawi, director of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative at Cornell University.”Kobane [now] lies at the heart of a Kurdish dream. It is less connected with history and more connected with future ambitions. Kobane was phase one of the implementation of a wider local-rule model [for both Syria’s and Turkey’s Kurds].”

Kobane’s Importance to Turkey

Despite the threat of an ISIS capture of Kobane and the imminent threat on his border, President Erdogan has appeared slow and reluctant to provide aid to Kurdish fighters. “For Turkey,” one analyst says, “Kobane is essentially a PKK issue.” Erdogan has long opposed the establishment of a Greater Kurdistan, and Ankara has deemed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a terrorist organization.

Earlier this week, the US delivered air-dropped weapons and medical supplies in Kobane, which were provided by Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government. Erdogan criticized the move. In a statement today, Erdogan criticised the move. In a phone call between Erdogan and US President Barack Obama, Erdogan said, “America did this in spite of Turkey, and I told him Kobani is not currently a strategic place for you. If anything it is strategic for us.”

Several analysts, as well as the Kurdish population have become critical of Erdogan’s intentions. They believe that the Turkish government has purposefully delayed the allowance assistance to Kurdish fighters, allowing ISIS to ‘do the dirty work’ of reducing the gains that Syrian Kurds have made in the power vacuum of the Syrian war. Critics use as evidence Erdogan’s call for the establishment of a buffer zone in Syria, citing it as an attempt to occupy the region.

In fact, Erdogan has used Kobane as a negotiating chip with the PKK. In order for Iraqi Kurds to supply Syrian Kurds with weapons or fighters, their options are to cross through ISIS controlled territory, or go through Turkey. The former is unrealistic; the latter requires permission from the Turkish government, which has been slow coming as Turkey has sought to bolster their position against a Kurdish nation. To this end, peace talks between Kurdish leaders and Turkey have been jeopardised as Kurdish leaders interpret Erdogan’s stance as tacit support for ISIS. Leaders in Ankara deny supporting ISIS but it has become apparent to some analysts that they are using the situation as an opportunity to gain an upper hand with the Kurds.

As a result, Turkey finds itself pressured by the coalition and forced to work in tandem with a group that it opposes. The outcome in Kobane will not only be significant to ISIS, but will have longstanding ramifications for the Kurds in the diaspora and their relationship with Turkey.

WHO Declares Nigeria and Senegal Ebola-Free

With six weeks of no new Ebola cases, on Monday officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Nigeria officially free of Ebola, just three days after officials declared Senegal Ebola-free. While it is a containment victory in an outbreak that continues to rage in three West African countries, both states are not immune from another outbreak however their methods of containment may be used in future outbreaks.

Nigeria

On Monday, officials at the WHO declared Nigeria Ebola-free after six weeks of no new reported cases. For officials to declare the country Ebola-free, Nigeria had to make it 42 days with no new cases, effectively double the incubation period, verify that it actively sought out all possible contacts, and show negative test results for any remaining suspected cases.

Nigeria had a total of twenty cases after a Liberian-American man, Patrick Sawyer, flew into Lagos international airport on July 20 and collapsed shortly afterwards. As Nigeria had no previous screening procedures in place, the deadly virus ultimately killed eight people, a low number in comparison to the thousands of cases and deaths in other countries, with the disease spreading from Lagos to Port Harcourt before it was contained. Amongst those who died was Dr Ameyo Stella Adadevo, who diagnosed Mr Sawyer and who is credited with helping to contain the outbreak at its source. The last reported case in Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country, was discovered on 5 September.

Speaking to reporters shortly after the declaration, Nigerian Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu disclosed “its possible to control Ebola. Its possible to defeat Ebola. We’ve seen it here in Nigeria,” adding “if any cases emerge in the future, it will be considered – by international standards – a separate outbreak. If that happens, Nigeria will be ready and able to confront it exactly as we have done with this outbreak.”

Nigeria has won praise for its swift response to the outbreak. With the epidemic raging in Western Africa since March, officials knew that there was a likelihood that a case of Ebola could surface within its borders. This prompted officials to train health care workers on how to manage the disease and to disseminate information across the country about the disease and how it spreads. Shortly after Mr Sawyer’s death, the Nigerian government declared a national public health emergency. This effectively enabled the Ministry of Health to set up its Ebola Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), which is an assembly of public health experts within Nigeria, and which includes officials from the WHO, Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and medical aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders. The EOC was tasked with contact tracing, implementing strict procedures for handling and treating patients, screening all individuals arriving or departing the country by land, air and sea and communicating with the community. Some EOC workers were involved in going door-to-door to offer Ebola-related education while others worked with religious and professional leaders to spread information about the disease. While in the beginning, there had been some misinformation about available cures and rumours circulating across the country, Nigerian officials used social media in order to increase awareness efforts and publicized those patients who had been successfully treated and discharged from hospital. While other regional countries opted to close their borders with those affected countries, Nigeria chose to keep its borders open with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, indicating that such a move would have been counterproductive. According to Dr Faisal Shuaib of the EOC, “closing borders tends to reinforce panic and the notion of helplessness….When you close the legal points of entry, then you potentially drive people to use illegal passages, thus compounding the problem,” adding that if “public health strategies are implemented, outbreaks can be controlled, and that closing borders would only stifle commercial activities in the countries where economies are already struggling due to Ebola.”

Despite being declared Ebola-free, Nigerian authorities are preparing for any additional outbreaks as the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa is far from over and a spread to additional countries, including Nigeria and Senegal, remains possible. Nigeria has not slowed down its training and preparations for the possibility of more cases, with Dr Shuaib disclosing “outbreak response preparedness is a continuous process that requires constant review of the level of the response mechanisms in place to ensure that the health system is ready to jump into action at all levels.” 

Senegal

On Friday, the WHO declared Senegal, which borders with Guinea, clear of the disease. The agency made the assessment after the West African country went forty-two days, without reporting any new cases. The WHO has commended the Senegalese government’s efforts at preventing the spread of the virus. In late August, Senegal had one confirmed case of Ebola, an imported one from Guinea, which prompted officials to monitor seventy-four contacts of the patient and increase surveillance at the country’s entry points.

In new figures released by the UN health Agency Friday, 4,555 people have died of confirmed, suspected or probable cases of Ebola, with almost all of the deaths occurring in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. A total of 9,216 cases have been reported. An estimated 70% of those infected with the deadly disease have died in those countries. The situation in all three West African countries has continued to worsen, with deaths attributed to the disease on the rise in all three.