Tag Archives: Nigeria

Twin Blasts Rock Nigerian Capital

Twin 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

Officials 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

On 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.

Attack on School in Northern Nigeria

In Nigeria, suspected Boko Haram militants carried out an attack on a school in northern Nigeria.

At least twenty-nine students have been killed in Nigeria after suspected Boko Haram militants attacked a boarding school in the north-eastern region of the country.  According to on the ground sources, the remote school, which is located in the state of Yobe, was attacked overnight when students were in their dormitories.  All the twenty-nine victims were teenage boys while another eleven were seriously injured.  Most of the school was also burned to the ground.  Although no further information has been released, Nigeria’s military announced on Tuesday that it was pursuing the attackers.  A statement released by the military stated “we assure all law-abiding citizens that we will continue to do what is necessary to protect lives and property.”  President Goodluck Jonathan has since condemned the killings, calling them “heinous, brutal and mindless.”

Over the past year, Islamist militants have attacked dozens of schools in north-eastern Nigeria.  Last September, forty students were killed at an agricultural college during a similar raid which was also carried out at night.   Although the Nigerian government launched military operations in May last year to end Boko Haram’s four year insurgency, Nigeria’s armed forces are currently facing increasing criticism for their failure to protect civilians and to respond to the raids carried out by militants.

Meanwhile a court in Kenya dropped charges on Wednesday against forty-one men and released on bail twenty-nine others who were arrested earlier this month during a raid on a mosque, which has been accused of supporting Islamist extremists.

On 2 February, police raided Mombasa’s Musa mosque, detaining seventy men whom officials accused of attending radicalisation meeting.  The raid on the mosque sparked deadly rights in the port city.  The seventy men were all initially charged with being members of Somalia’s al-Shabaab along with a number of other charges, which included possession of firearms and inciting violence.  However on Wednesday, Magistrate Richard Oden-yo ordered forty-one of those charged to be set free due to a lack of evidence.  The remaining 29 suspects were released on bail, which was set at 500,000 Kenyan shillings (5,800 dollars; 4,200 euros each.  The releases came just one day after Kenya’s top security chiefs warned of an “increased threat of radicalization” from home-grown Islamists, singling out the Musa mosque as a specific centre encouraging extremism, along with two others.

Car Bombing in Maiduguri, Nigeria

A car bomb has exploded in the north eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, with fears that the latest attack to target the region has left many casualties.

At least seventeen people were killed on Tuesday when an explosion targeted a busy market on the public holiday that marks the birth of the Prophet Mohammed.  Police officials have indicated that the explosion occurred at about 1:30 PM (1230 GMT) around the post office area of Maiduguri, which has been hit previously by Boko Haram militants.  According to Lawan Tanko, police chief for Borno state, “from our preliminary reports, we have 17 dead and at least five injured from the blast in the post office area,” however he warned that the toll could rise as casualties were taken from the bustling market to medical centres for treatment, adding that “these figures are likely to change by the time we get full reports from our men in the field.

Initial reports at the scene suggest that the blast was caused by either a car bomb or suicide bomber, however there has not yet been any confirmations from the authorities.  Police Chief Tanko has noted that “the bomb was detonated in the midst of a large crowd of traders while a truck carrying firewood was passing by.”  A witness to the bombing stated that “an explosive device concealed in a sack was abandoned near a butcher’s stall by unknown persons around Kasuwar Jagwal.”

The explosion caused panic in the city, where residents were in the midst of celebrating Eid Milad un Nabi.  While the market has since been closed, with police officers carrying out investigations, the rest of the city remains on high alert as possible attacks and suicide bombings may be carried out in the coming days.

Over the past several weeks, Maiduguri has witnessed a number of attacks.  On 2 December 2013, the northern spiritual home city of Boko Haram was raided by Boko Haram insurgents who burnt aircraft, seized weapons and razed buildings at military bases throughout the city.  On Sunday, suspected Boko Haram gunmen killed five at a village market located 22 kilometres from Maiduguri.  During the attack, the militants burnt cars, shops and tents storing grain.