US Team Deploys to Nigeria as Additional Girls are Kidnapped
May 7, 2014 in Nigeria
As a team of US experts deploys to Nigeria in a bid to locate more than 200 schoolgirls abducted last month by Boko Haram militants, news has spread that an additional eleven girls have been kidnapped in the northern region of the country. News of these latest kidnappings comes just one day after Boko Haram’s leader confirmed the militant group’s involvement and threatened to sell the girls.
On Monday, the leader of Boko Haram confirmed that the militant group was behind the abduction of over 200 girls who were kidnapped three weeks ago in northeaster Nigeria. In the new 57-minute video released Monday, Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau added “I will sell them in the market, by Allah….Allah has instructed me to sell them. They are his property and I will carry out his instructions.” In the video, Shekau also notes that the girls should not have been in school in the first place, but rather should get married.
On the night of 14 April, Boko Haram militants stormed an all-girls secondary school in the village of Chibok, in Borno State. The girls, aged 16 to 18, were forced onto trucks and taken into the remote areas along the border with Cameroon. Although fifty-three of the girls managed to escape from the militants, according to police officials 223 are still being held. Unconfirmed sources in Nigeria have indicated that the girls have been taken across the border and into neighbouring countries, including Chad and Cameroon, with some reports indicating that some of the girls had been forced to marry their abductors, who paid a nominal bride price of US $12 (£7).
On Tuesday, residents reported that suspected Boko Haram militants have kidnapped eleven more girls from Nigeria’s embattled north eastern region. According to one eyewitness, the militants arrived in two trucks and “…moved door to door looking for girls,” adding that “they forcefully took away eight girls between the ages of 12 and 15.” Another eyewitness reported that the militants also seized animals and food from the village. According to a local government official, “after leaving Warabe the gunmen stormed the Wala village which is five kilometres away and abducted three more girls.” The latest kidnappings occurred late Sunday in the villages of Warabe and Wala, which are located in the Gwoza area of Borno State. Due to poor communication in the area, details of the latest kidnappings did not emerge until Tuesday. The area around the two villages is known to be a stronghold of the militant group.
While Boko Haram’s five-year insurgency in northern Nigeria has over the past year intensified, the attack and kidnapping of the girls has shocked Nigerians and has resulted in an international outcry for their safe return. Since the launch of military operations in three northern states last May, Boko Haram, which continues to be the main security threat in the country and regionally, has grown bolder in its attacks and has extended its reach. The April 14 kidnapping occurred on the day a bomb blast, also blamed on Boko Haram, killed seventy-five people near Abuja, the first attack to be carried out in the capital city in two years. More than two weeks later, the militants, who say they are fighting to create an Islamic state, carried out a second bomb attack, killing 19 people and wounding 34 in the suburb of Nyanya.
The girl’s abduction has been a huge embarrassment for the government, which has failed to locate them, while Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan has been under increasing pressure to act against the militant group. The latest incidents will likely overshadow the country’s first hosting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) for Africa, which is set to take place on May 7 – 9 in Abuja.
US Deployment
In the wake of increasing frustration over the Nigerian government’s failure to locate the 223 missing schoolgirls, the United States has accepted an offer to aid in the search.
On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama confirmed the deployment of a team of US experts, stating that the group is comprised of personnel from the military, law enforcement and other agencies, adding that he hopes the kidnapping may galvanise the international community to take action against Boko Haram. US Secretary of State John Kerry also indicated Tuesday that Washington will set up a co-ordination cell at its embassy in Abuja which will include US military personnel, law enforcement officials and experts in hostage situations.
While US officials have stated that the first group of abducted girls, who are aged between 16 and 18, may have already been smuggled over Nigeria’s porous borders into countries such as Chad and Cameroon, officials from the two neighbouring states have indicated that at this time they do not believe the girls are in their countries.
The United Kingdom has also offered to help Nigerian authorities in their search. On Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that the UK would assist the Nigerian government if they received such a request however what form the assistance would take was not specified by Hague.
Twin Blasts Rock Nigerian Capital
April 14, 2014 in NigeriaTwin blasts at a packed bus station in Nigeria’s capital on Monday have killed more than seventy people.
Officials reported Monday that more than seventy people have been killed in two blasts that were carried out in crowded bus station on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. Abbas Idris, head of the Abuja Emergency Relief Agency, has stated that so far officials have confirmed 71 people dead and 124 injured, however these numbers are likely to rise in the coming days. The cause of the explosions, which occurred at the Nyanya Bus Park roughly 5 kilometres (three miles) south of Abuja, was not immediately clear however security officials at the scene are currently working to determine the cause of the explosions. For now, they are suspecting that the explosion occurred inside a vehicle. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, officials in Abuja believe Boko Haram militants are likely behind it.
The incident occurred as commuters were about to board buses and taxis to go to work in central Abuja. The blast ripped a hole four feet deep (1.2 metres) in the ground of Nyanya Motor Park and destroyed more than thirty vehicles, causing secondary explosions as their fuel tanks ignited and burned.
The capital city been previously attacked by Boko Haram insurgents. In 2011, it carried out a suicide bombing at a United Nations building in Abuja, killing at least 26 six peoples. The incident has been one of the group’s most prominent attacks. More recently however, the group’s violence has been concentrated in the remote north eastern region of the country. If Monday’s attack is confirmed by Boko Haram, the attack on the outskirts of Abuja would cast further doubt on the military’s claims that the insurgents have been weakened and lack the capacity to strike prominent targets.
This year, Boko Haram militants have killed more than 1,500 civilians in three states in north eastern Nigeria. Although the Nigerian government launched a military operation in May last year, aimed at ending the near four year insurgency, since then, the militants have been pushed out of the major city centres in the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa and have relocated into the villages and surrounding areas where they have continued to carry out violent attacks. They have also been suspected of crossing the porous borders between Nigeria and Cameroon, where they have taken shelter from the on going military operations and where they have carried out attacks.
3 Kidnapped in Northern Cameroon
April 7, 2014 in CameroonOfficials in Cameroon and Italy have confirmed the kidnapping of two Italian priests and a Canadian nun who were taken during the early morning hours on Saturday.
Italy’s foreign ministry on Saturday confirmed that unidentified gunmen in Cameroon had ransacked the building where the hostages were staying in the north-western region of the country. The latest incident took place in the district of Maroua in the early hours of Saturday morning. Sources have indicated that gunmen were reported to have arrived by car before entering the building where the priests and the nun were staying at around 02:00 local time (01:00 GMT). The area is located close to a stronghold of militant Nigerian group Boko Haram.
On Sunday, Cameroonian security forces indicated that they were combing the area but have since stated that they fear the three hostages have been taken across the border and into neighbouring Nigeria. So far no one has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings, however Cameroonian security sources have indicated that they believe Boko Haram orchestrated the recent kidnappings.
The Italian foreign ministry has reported that the two priests, Giampaolo Marta and Gianantonio Allegri, are from the Diocese of Vicenza in northern Italy. One of the priests had been in Cameroon for more than six years, while the other had arrived about a year ago. The ministry has also reported that a crisis unit to work on the release of the hostages has been set up. Canadian officials reported over the weekend that Gilberte Bussieres, 74, a nun from Quebec, had been kidnapped over night Friday. She is from Asbestos, Quebec and belongs to the Montreal-based Congregation de Notre0Dame. According to the congregation, Bussieres has worked in Africa since 1979 and ran a school in Douvangar, Cameroon. Those close to the nun have reported that they fear she is still week after having received cancer treatment in Canada two years ago.
Kidnappings of Westerners have become common in the remote, insurgency-wracked corner of West Africa, where borders are difficult to control. In November 2013, French Catholic Priest Georges Vandenbeusch was seized by heavily armed men who burst into his parish at night. They later reportedly took him to neighbouring Nigeria in an attack that was claimed by the Islamist group. Earlier in the year, a Frenchman employed by gas group Suez was kidnaped in the same area together with his wife, their children and his brother, while they were visiting a national park. Despite Abuja sealing a portion of its border with Cameroon, in a bid to block the movement of insurgents and other criminal groups, it is clear that Boko Haram militants continue to move across the border areas fairly easily.
Nigeria’s Launches Second Cellphone Blackout Amidst an Increase of Boko Haram Attacks
March 13, 2014 in NigeriaOn Wednesday, officials in Nigeria re-imposed a telephone blackout on a number of areas within the country’s north-eastern Borno state, the base of Boko Haram militants who have over the past few months intensified their attacks, which have claimed scores of lives.
According to army spokesman Colonel Muhammad Dole, “GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) services have been seized in Borno again and this is one of the sacrifices that people have to make,” adding that “there is an on going operation and we want to get it right. We are hopeful GSM services would be restored.” Although no further details were provided, Col. Dole noted “in the on going operation we have reached a stage whereby the cooperation of everybody is necessary in order to subdue the common enemy.” Residents confirmed the cell phone black out, with most people waking up on Wednesday and finding that they could not longer make calls on their mobiles. Some residents in Maiduguri, Borno’s state capital, indicated Wednesday that if the phone blackout would restore law and order, then they backed the move, however some are doubting whether or not the military would achieve this desire goal. One local resident stated “when they seized the GSM network last year, the terrorists were not perturbed, they kept killing people. GSM services were only restored when the terrorists attacked military bases in December.”
Phone services were initially frozen last May until December in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe after the government imposed a state of emergency.
While speaking to reporters, Col. Dole also thanked the youth vigilantes, also known as civilian JTF (Joint Task Force) for their “unprecedented support to the military” in the on-going offensive against Islamists.
Despite an enhanced military presence in the northern region of Nigeria, since last May, more than 1,000 people have been killed. Violence by Boko Haram militants have been raging in Nigeria since 2009, and has claimed thousands of lives however in recent weeks, the militant group’s campaign has been particularly ferocious, with some 500 people killed in suspected Islamist attacks since the start of the year. Worst hit by the attacks are villages in remote and rural areas near Borno’s border with Cameroon.
Meanwhile officials and eyewitnesses in Katsina have reported that at least sixty-nine people have been killed in attacks on villages located in the northwestern state. Reports have indicated that the attacks occurred Wednesday.
Witnesses reported Thursday that attackers rode motorcycles into villages in broad daylight and killed whomever they found. While this attacks is just the latest incident to hit northern Nigeria, police officials in the state have indicated that the attack is not linked to Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which is mainly active further east in Borno, but instead appears to have been carried out by ethnic Fulani cattle herders who have a history of tension with local farmers. According to state police chief Hurdi Mohammed, “the victims include men, women and children. Rescue teams are still combing nearby bushes to search for more bodies. Local MP Abdullahi Abbas Machika indicated that forty-seven people were buried in one village alone in Katsina state after Wednesday’s attack.
The attack in Katsina state comes as President Goodluck Jonathan visits the state to commission some government projects.
The United Nations Launches Human Rights Probe in CAR Atrocities
March 10, 2014 in Central Africa RepublicThe United Nations has launched a human rights investigation into the on-going violence that is taking place in the Central African Republic (CAR). The launch of the investigation comes after the UN Security Council ordered an inquiry in December to identify suspects who could be prosecuted for the violence. On Monday, inquiry head Bernard Acho Muna indicated that he hoped the presence of investigators in the CAR would help prevent genocide. The Cameroonian judge added that “we have to put an end to the impunity,” noting that the “hate propaganda” in the CAR was similar to that in Rwanda before the 1994 genocide that killed about 800,000 people. Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, before heading for the CAR, Mr Muna stated “we don’t wait until genocide is committed and then we call for prosecution….I think it is in our mandate to see how one can stop any advances toward genocide.” The inquiry will “…present to the Security Council a complete file so that the appropriate action can be taken.” A team of UN investigators will arrive in Bangui on Tuesday to begin interviewing Christian and Muslim victims of attacks, as well as senior political and military officials and activist groups. The commission, which includes former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda and Fatimata M’Baye, a lawyer from Mauritania, will spend two weeks in the CAR and will also look into Chad’s role in the violence. They will then draw up a confidential list of suspects for eventual prosecution, which will be submitted to world powers later this year. They will also be in touch with a preliminary inquiry, which will be carried out by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Since the beginning of the conflict last year, thousands of people have been killed while the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says that about 1.3 million people, a quarter of the population, are in need of aid. Tens of thousand of Muslims have also fled the country as Christian militias have stepped up their attacks since the forced resignation of the CAR’s first Muslim ruler, Michel Djotodia, in January 2014. Many Muslims have crossed the borders into neighbouring Cameroon and Chad, while thousands more are living in camps inside the CAR. Although interim President Catherine Samba Panza has appealed for an end to the bloodshed, this appeal has gone with little success.
On Friday, UN aid chief Valerie Amos announced that fewer than 1,000, of the more than 100,000 Muslims who once lived in the capital city, remain in Bangui.
Somali Forces Launch Operations to Retake al-Shabaab Controlled Regions
Officials indicated Monday that African peacekeepers, operating alongside government forces, have recaptured several strategic towns in the south-western region of Somalia. The recapture comes just days after the African Union’s AMISOM force announced that it had launched a wide scale offensive against al-Shabaab militants in areas located near the Ethiopian border. The operation to remove the militant group from its last remaining strongholds in central and southern Somalia also comes in the wake of a sure of attacks in the country’s capital, Mogadishu, where al-Shabaab continues its bid to oust the internationally-backed government.
Speaking to reports, regional government official Abdulahi Yarisow confirmed the operations, stating “AMISOM and the Somali troops kicked al-Shabaab out of several key towns including Wajid and regional capital Hudur,” adding that “our military advancement will continue until we eliminate the enemy from the rest of the country.” A statement released by AMISOM indicated that troops had secured the towns of Ted, Rabdhure and Buudhubow, effectively driving out al-Shabaab militants from the area. The statement added that “the SNA (Somali National Army) and AMISOM joint operations signal the beginning of the renewed efforts by the Somali government forces working more closely with AMISOM forces to dislodge al-Shabaab from many of its strongholds across the country.”
Although Hudur had been captured from al-Shabaab by Ethiopian troops in March 2012, their withdrawal from the region resulted in the town falling back into the control of al-Shabaab.
