Showing posts with label Stephen Hoffman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen Hoffman. Show all posts
Thursday, October 30, 2014
More Abductions after supposed truce between Nigeria and Boko Haram
Dozens abducted in suspected Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria
Latest update : 2014-10-26
At least 17 people were killed in a series of suspected Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria's northeast Borno State Thursday while dozens of young people have been abducted from the region in recent days, the head of a local administration said Sunday.
"The insurgents... grabbed young people, boys and girls, from our region," said Alhaji Shettima Maina, who is in charge of the Mafa village around 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the city of Maiduguri."They took all boys aged 13 and over... and all girls aged 11 and more. According to our information, 30 young people were abducted in the last two days."
Maina said 17 people had been killed in Thursdays attacks, which targeted the nearby Ndongo village.
“We buried the remains of the victims in Mafa on Friday,” he added.
Another village elder, Mallam Ashiekh Mustapha, confirmed the account.
Boko Haram, which has been waging a bloody insurgency since 2009, has been responsible for waves of attacks and abductions.
In April, the Islamist rebel group snatched more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in northeast Nigeria, triggering an international outcry.
Kidnapping young women and girls – as well as forcibly conscripting young men and boys to fight for Boko Haram – is a well-established tactic by the militants.
Some estimates put the number of women held by the group in the high hundreds. Most are believed to be forced into marriages with rebels.
Maina said his village and areas around it were targeted in nearly daily raids by Boko Haram, prompting many residents to flee to the city of Maiduguri for safety and despite the announcement of a ceasefire by the Nigeria government.
He said he had pleaded for help from the Nigerian government but that so far none had been forthcoming.
Clashes in Cameroon
Meanwhile, Cameroon said Sunday that its troops had killed 39 Boko Haram fighters in clashes with the Islamists on Friday, who were carrying out three raids on Cameroon's territory.
The fighting in the far north of Cameroon close to the Nigerian border also claimed four civilian lives, Cameroon’s the defence ministry said in a statement sent to the AFP news agency.
Boko Haram rebels frequently cross into neighbouring Cameroon.
Their latest attack targeted the village of Glawi, "killing four Nigerian refugees and wounding one Cameroonian, before being pushed back by defence forces which pursued them until the borders," the ministry said, adding that a dozen militants were killed by troops.
Another two groups of Boko Haram Islamists entered Cameroon at around the same time, but were "immediately intercepted and neutralised by our defence forces who destroyed three 4x4 vehicles equipped with machine guns, killing 27 assailants," said the ministry statement.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)
Nigeria reports truce with Boko Haram
Nigeria claims Boko Haram truce, release of schoolgirls
Nigeria’s government claim to have reached a deal with Islamic militant group Boko Haram for a cease-fire, but there were conflicting reports as to the fate of 200 school girls kidnapped six months from a school in the northeast town of Chibok.
“I wish to inform this audience that a ceasefire agreement has been concluded,” Marshal Alex Badeh said in a statement after three days of talks with the militant group that has wreaked havoc in the northeast of Africa’s biggest oil producer.While a presidency source maintained that the agreement stretched to the abducted schoolgirls, but Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade said on Friday that the girls’ release was still being negotiated.
The girls have remained in captivity since April, although police and a parent of some of the missing students said last month one of the girls had been released.
Boko Haram negotiators, “assured that the schoolgirls and all other people in their captivity are all alive and well,” said the government’s spokesman on the insurgency, Mike Omeri, on Friday.
President Goodluck Jonathan has been pilloried at home and abroad for his slow response to the kidnapping and for his inability to quell the violence by the Islamist militants, seen as the biggest security threat to Africa’s biggest economy.
On Friday French President François Hollande welcomed the news and said the schoolgirls’ release was imminent.
“Boko Haram have said they will free these young girls and we have information that this will happen in the coming hours or days,” Hollande said during a meeting at the OECD in Paris.
Details of talks remain unclear
Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates as ‘Western education is sinful’, has killed thousands of people in a five-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic caliphate in the vast scrubland of Nigeria’s impoverished northeast.
A senior Nigerian security source confirmed the existence of talks, but said it remained unclear whether Abuja was negotiating with self-proclaimed movement leader Abubakar Shekau, or another faction within the group.
“Commitment among parts of Boko Haram and the military does appear to be genuine. It is worth taking seriously,” the security source told Reuters.
Several rounds of negotiations with Boko Haram have been attempted in recent years but they have never achieved a peace deal, partly because the group has several different factions.
“There are some talks but it depends on the buy-in of the whole group. I would be surprised if Shekau had suddenly changed his mind and is ready for a ceasefire,” the source added.
The government was negotiating with Danladi Ahmadu, a man calling himself the secretary-general of Boko Haram, the presidency source said. It was not clear if Ahmadu is part of the same faction as Shekau.
(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)
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