Hostages have been taken and three bodies found in the Wulgo forest, close to the border with Cameroon
Boko Haram jihadists have seized about 40 loggers and killed three others in north-east Nigeria near the border with Cameroon, militia sources and residents have said.
The hostages were rounded up by the insurgents on Thursday in Wulgo forest near the town of Gamboru, where they went to collect firewood, the sources said.
Continue reading...Some of 344 children recount their ordeal as they meet with Muhammdu Buhari in Katsina
Nigeria’s president, Muhammdu Buhari, has met with more than 300 schoolboys kidnapped a week ago in the country’s restive north-west as authorities celebrated their freedom amid widespread anger in the country at deepening insecurity.
The 344 boys arrived in the city of Katsina on Friday morning, relieved to be free but exhausted from a week spent in captivity following their abduction by local bandit groups in a raid claimed by the Islamist militants Boko Haram. They were rescued on Thursday night from a forest enclave, according to the governor of Katsina state, Aminu Masari.
Continue reading...Katsina state governor reveals rescue in televised interview, after abduction claimed by Boko Haram
More than 300 schoolboys kidnapped in northern Nigeria have been rescued, the Katsina state governor has said.
The 344 boys, whose abduction was claimed by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, were on their way back to Katsina, Aminu Masari told the state broadcaster on Thursday.
Continue reading...Doubts over Islamist extremists’ involvement in abduction of more than 300 students last week
The leader of Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group that abducted hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria six years ago, has claimed responsibility for the mass abduction of students in north-western Katsina state last week.
In an audio tape released on Tuesday, Abubakar Shekau said: “Our brothers were behind the abduction in Katsina.”
Continue reading...Mines laid by the jihadist group and and other militant organisations in the north-east are a lethal threat to internally displaced people
Mines laid by Boko Haram and other groups leave millions at risk, particularly in Borno state where insurgency most acute
More than 100 people were killed or injured by landmines across north-east Nigeria in the first three months of this year, according to a new report.
Mines laid during the conflict between Boko Haram, other armed groups and the Nigerian army left 408 people dead and 644 injured between January 2016 and August this year, says the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a landmine clearance charity. Since March 2018, the country has recorded an average of five landmine casualties a week. Actual numbers are thought to be higher due to underreporting. The first 15 weeks of this year saw one casualty a day.
Continue reading...Some students ran for safety as police exchanged fire with bandits ‘armed with AK-47 rifles’
Hundreds of Nigerian students are missing after gunmen attacked a secondary school in the country’s north-western Katsina state, police have confirmed.
The Government Science secondary school in Kankara was attacked on Friday night by a large group of bandits who shot “with AK-47 rifles”, a state police spokesman said.
Continue reading...About 400 pupils thought missing or kidnapped after gunmen stormed secondary school in Kankara
Bandits armed with assault rifles attacked a secondary school in Nigeria’s north-western Katsina state late on Friday, police said, and two local people told Reuters hundreds of students were missing.
The gunmen stormed the Government Science secondary school in Kankara district at about 9.40pm, and police at the scene returned fire, allowing some students to run for safety, police spokesman Gambo Isah said in a statement.
Continue reading...Annual global terror index highlights attacks in Mozambique and DRC and says human rights abuses are driving violence
Militant violence and abuses by security forces have made sub-Saharan Africa the riskiest region in the world for business and investors, a new report says.
Seven of the world’s 10 highest-risk countries for militant violence are in the region with significant deteriorations in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to the annual Terrorism Intensity Index released on Friday by risk consultants Verisk Maplecroft.
Continue reading...The singer was taking a good-time sound to the world – but after his song Fem became the anthem of the EndSars protesters, he joined them on the streets
The buoyant, trumpeting chords of Fem, the opening track on Davido’s fourth album, A Better Time, suggest an artist who is vivacious, free of self-doubt, revelling in the limelight. David Adedeji Adeleke, 28, is part of a generation of Afrobeats artists who have blown the African dance-pop genre on to the global stage over the last decade; his songs have become the feelgood soundtrack of Nigeria’s nightlife, and made him one of his continent’s biggest pop stars.
Yet “Fem”, meaning “shut up” in pidgin, has taken on a different meaning. Last month, Lagos governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu pleaded with EndSars protesters, who had taken a stand against police brutality. The largest protest movement in Nigeria for decades had erupted, incensed at the abuses by the infamous and since disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars). As the protesters outside the government secretariat in Lagos grew impatient, a DJ at the demonstration suddenly played Fem, already a hit across the country. Scores began belting out his lyrics, drowning out the governor’s futile pleas. In a culture where reverence for authority figures can be brutally enforced, protesters recast the song into a defiant statement.
Continue reading...Attack took place in village near Maiduguri, with assailants targeting farmers in rice fields
At least 110 people have been killed in an attack on a village in north-east Nigeria blamed on the Boko Haram jihadist group, according to the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country.
“At least 110 civilians were ruthlessly killed and many others were wounded in this attack,” Edward Kallon said in a statement after initial tolls indicated 43 and then at least 70 dead from the massacre on Saturday by suspected Boko Haram fighters.
Continue reading...Up to 43 slaughtered and a further six seriously injured, say anti-jihadist militia
Boko Haram fighters killed at least 43 farm workers and wounded six in rice fields near the north-east Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Saturday, anti-jihadist militia told AFP.
The assailants tied up the agricultural workers and slit their throats in the village of Koshobe, the militia said.
Continue reading...Organisation says money pledged is ‘not enough’ and warns of potential for huge number of child deaths
The UN has earmarked $100m (£75m) in emergency funding for seven countries deemed at risk of famine, warning that without immediate action the world could see “huge numbers of children dying on TV screens”.
The climate crisis, Covid-19, conflict and economic decline have created an “acute and grave crisis” in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, where millions of people are facing emergency levels of food insecurity, UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Artefacts held by British Museum and other western institutions were looted by British forces in 1897
A new museum designed by Sir David Adjaye is to be built following the most extensive archaeological excavation ever undertaken in Benin City, Nigeria, raising hopes of a resolution to one of the world’s most controversial debates over looted museum artefacts.
The kingdom of Benin, in what is now southern Nigeria and not to be confused with the modern-day country of Benin, was one of the most important and powerful pre-colonial states of west Africa.
Continue reading...In recent years, Africans on the continent and in the diaspora have become leading voices in black culture – in music, film, fashion, social media, comedy and even our memes. When Grace Shutti was growing up, black culture usually referred to African Americans. But from Beyoncé's visual album, Black is King, to Marvel's Black Panther and musician Diddy executive producing the Nigerian pop star Burna Boy's album, the shift to embrace African art has been seismic. Grace investigates how this came about
Continue reading...Resurgence of disease linked to factors including climate crisis and focus of health resources on Covid response
More than 70 people are feared to have died of yellow fever in Nigeria since September, as health authorities warn of a resurgence of the disease.
The country recorded 47 deaths from yellow fever throughout the whole of 2019.
Continue reading...From helping photographers capture the Nigerian protests to exhibiting during a pandemic, the director of LagosPhoto festival has had his work cut out. Now he wants to fight ‘afro-pessimism’ and the posturing around Black Lives Matter
When I first spoke to Azu Nwagbogu, the recent protests against police brutality in his native Nigeria had just entered their second week. The curator was upbeat, describing them as “an incredible awakening”. A week later, when we made contact again, he sounded more sombre, but no less defiant, following the fatal police shootings of at least 12 protesters at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos, the main gathering point for the daily demonstrations.
“This protest is not about ‘the poor masses’,” he tells me. “My sister, who is a medical doctor and a consultant anaesthetist, was active in the protests. Everyone who isn’t in government has had enough. The genie has been let out of the bottle and it won’t go back in without the wishes of the people being fulfilled.”
Continue reading...Animals have ventured back into areas largely emptied of people by Boko Haram insurgency
A herd of hundreds of elephants that have returned to north-east Nigeria are under threat from jihadist groups and increasingly in conflict with thousands of refugees whose crops they have trampled weeks before harvest.
More than 250 elephants ventured last month from Chad and Cameroon into Kala-Balge, a district in Nigeria’s Borno state.
Continue reading...There is a huge mental health treatment gap across Africa, but in one Nigerian hospital, music therapy is having a positive impact
The music comes on – a soft blend of guitar, saxophone, piano – and people sit still at first, then heads start to sway to the sound. Some hum along; mostly they sing, or laugh and dance. At the end, when quiet returns, their mood is assessed – as it was when the session started.
Once or twice a month, Bola Otegbayo brings a team of singers and instrumentalists into this psychiatric unit at University College hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, Nigeria. Otegbayo realised a few years ago that some of her patients were lonely even though their loved ones visited and caregivers provided succour. So she began to share music. Now she is a musicologist alongside her main job as a renal technologist.
Gender equality, postnatal depression and transatlantic migration are all tackled in quest for international audiences
Once Nollywood might have meant films that were low budget and high drama and aimed mostly at a west African audience. But Nigerian cinema has evolved and this year a slew of new film-makers are tackling grittier subjects – and winning international acclaim.
A roster of screenings at autumn’s Film Africa festival in London reveal directors unafraid to look at issues such as gender equality, postnatal depression and transatlantic migration.
Continue reading...