Boko Haram
- Details
- Boko Haram
The Nigerian army, backed by the country's air force, on Monday repelled an attack an attack by Boko Haram fighters near the border with Niger in the jihadists' northeast heartland, the military said.
The group allied to Islamic State had been fighting for at least seven years to carve out an Islamist caliphate in the region in a conflict which has displaced more than 2 million people and killed thousands.
The militants struck as the troops were on their way to the border town of Damasak where they wanted to set up a permanent base, a military source said. The army took the area back from Boko Haram last year, but has struggled to hold it.
"The Nigerian troops have successfully repelled an attack by Boko Haram terrorists who attempted an incursion into (the) 113 Battalion," army spokesman Sani Usman said in a statement carried by PR Nigeria, which releases government statements.
Kareto is the army's next base in the area.
"So far our troops had two officers and 22 soldiers wounded in action," he said without giving further details.
No further information was immediately available from the remote area which is largely disconnected from mobile phone networks.
Boko Haram controlled a swath of land in northeast Nigeria around the size of Belgium at the start of last year, but was pushed out by Nigerian troops, aided by soldiers from neighboring countries.
Reuters
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 2789
- Details
- Boko Haram
At least CFA 2.5 billion has been made available to Cameroon’s military from donations by citizens and the government in the campaign against the militant Islamist sect Boko Haram in the Far North region,
Rene Emmanuel Sadi the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization (MINATD) revealed. He was speaking at the end of a meeting held in Yaounde on Saturday by the ad hoc inter-ministerial committee for the management of donations made to the people and defence forces.
According to Mr. Sadi, who also doubles as Chairman of the committee, out of the monies collected, which includes a special contribution by President Paul Biya amounting to CFA 160 million, CFA 1.5 billion will go to the defense and security forces.
The remainder will go to the victims of abuse by the jihadist movement.
In addition to the contributions in cash, other Cameroonians have made tons of in-kind donations to the army and civilians living in that part of the country.
However, according to MINATD, the delivery of these contributions has been marred by serious logistical problems.
The ad hoc management committee for donations to the people and defense forces was set up by President Paul Biya in April 2015 to monitor, collect and centralize assistances from within Cameroon, abroad and from various humanitarian organizations working elsewhere in the country.
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 2311
- Details
- Boko Haram
FAR NORTH REGION, Cameroon, April 14 (UNHCR) – Paul and his younger brother Adam resisted with all their strength when several armed men from the Boko Haram sect burst into their house in their village, located in Nigeria's Borno State, and dragged them outside.
"They ended up lifting us up and threw us in a car. They handcuffed us, and we remained like that for a day," remembers Paul from the Minawao camp, in Cameroon's Far North region, where he is now a refugee with his brother and mother. "Our abduction happened almost three years ago but it feels as if it happened yesterday," he added.
With the two boys handcuffed on the back seat, the car drove towards the Sambisa forest, one of Boko Haram's strongholds bordering Cameroon. The abductors quickly asked the family for a ransom of 20 million nairas (or US$100,000) for the release of Adam and Paul, then 12 and 14, or they would be killed.
In the forest, the brothers, who are Christians, were forced to convert to Islam. Paul remembers that his kidnappers kept screaming: "We will cut your throat if you don't convert."
On the second day of their captivity, the boys were forced to stand against a mud wall. Boko Haram militants trained their Kalashnikovs on their backs and threatened again to kill them. "Then they dragged us to a well and I thought they would throw us in, but they just wanted to scare us …They finally brought us back under the tree where we had been sleeping the past night," Paul recalls.
With no blankets to keep warm at night, little food to eat for several days and the constant threats of execution, the two boys kept thinking they would die. "We were often crying. We were cold. We were thinking how much we missed home and our mother," Paul said.
The two boys were told they would be trained to become fighters – a fate that they would in fact escape. Unknown to them, negotiations were underway between the boys' uncle and one of the leaders of Boko Haram in Borno State, and they were finally released after seven terrifying days.
Hundreds and possibly thousands of children have been abducted in Nigeria since 2013, when Boko Haram stepped up their insurgency. The spectacular kidnapping of 276 girls in Chibok, in Borno State, on April 14 two years ago made headlines all over the world and generated unprecedented social media engagement (see #BringBackOurGirls). Some 50 of the girls managed to escape in the following hours and days of the brutal kidnapping, although the fate of the others remains unknown.
Abductions of girls and boys had been happening long before that high-profile incident and still occur on a regular basis. Schools and dormitories have been raided regularly in north-eastern Nigeria by armed men. Boys are kidnapped for recruitment into the sect's ranks while abducted girls will be exposed to forced marriage, sexual exploitation and abuse.
Some families have escaped to neighbouring countries for more safety and as a preventive measure, although kidnappings of children have also been reported in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. In the past year, girls have also been used more and more to carry out suicide bombing attacks.
"Being kidnapped or being a victim of violence are life-threatening events that trigger huge anxiety and distress. It will impact enormously on the emotional world of any child," says Caroline Schmidt, UNHCR Regional Education Officer for West Africa and the Nigeria situation, based in Dakar.
In refugee camps in West and Central Africa, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and its partners have implemented activities that support boys and girls who have experienced violence or abuse, and have suffered during their flight or have been separated from their families.
They receive special assistance, including psycho-social support and access to child-friendly spaces. UNHCR also trains and supports teachers to ensure that schools are safe and protective spaces where they can regain a sense of normalcy.
It is hoped that a safe environment such as the ones provided through schools in refugee camps and host communities will enable children and youths to have a positive outlook on the future.
"We are refugees now in Cameroon, and we feel safer. I miss my home in Nigeria, my village and my friends," Paul said, noting the ongoing insecurity in his homeland. "But I am still afraid of going back there and possibly meet with the men who abducted me."
Helene Caux in the Far North Region of Cameroon
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 2738
- Details
- Boko Haram
Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida is easy to spot in a crowd. Dressed all in red from her cowboy hat to her boots, she stood on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to mark the somber two-year anniversary of the abduction of more than 200 girls from the northern Nigerian village of Chibok by the militant group Boko Haram.
Wilson leads a weekly gathering of members of Congress to call for the release of the girls. The attending lawmakers dress in red, too, just as demonstrators in Nigeria do.
The Chibok girls represent hundreds or thousands of girls and women who have been kidnapped and raped by Boko Haram, and hundreds of men and boys who have been hurt or killed, Wilson said Thursday. More than 2.6 million people have been displaced by the group's violence.
Wilson said she has visited Nigeria, and heard shocking firsthand accounts of the group's unspeakable atrocities, including beheadings. She and other members of Congress strongly condemned the fact that Boko Haram is forcing girls as young as eight years old to act as suicide bombers in terrorist attacks.
Wilson was joined on the Capitol steps by Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a number of other lawmakers and some Nigerian girls who escaped from Boko Haram and now have safe haven in the United States.
Bipartisan fight
Republican Representative Chris Smith made clear that Congress' efforts to keep the issue alive is a bipartisan one. Smith pointed out that Boko Haram wages war on girls and women, often singling out Christians, but that most of its victims are fellow Muslims.
Democratic Representative Barbara Lee agreed that the terrible ordeal of the Chibok girls is a symbol of a much broader war on women by Boko Haram, saying that what their fighters are doing amounts to modern-day slavery. Some terrorism experts believe that the Chibok girls, and other Nigerian girls kidnapped later, are alive and that they are being held as a potentially valuable ransom tool.
A video that has emerged recently shows some 15 girls, alleged to be Chibok girls, dressed in black.
Terrorism expert Malcolm Nance told VOA that he believes the video is legitimate, and he believes Boko Haram is trying to extort money from the Nigerian government. He also said the girls may be forced to cook, clean and bear children for Boko Haram fighters.
Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee is calling for Congress to allocate funds for the families of victims who were abducted, and also vowed to keep advocating for the girls’ release.
Wilson is ready to "hop on a plane" at a moment's notice to welcome the Chibok girls upon their release, and promised to keep pushing for it until it happens.
VOA
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 2719
- Details
- Boko Haram
A video showing 15 of the 219 schoolgirls held by the jihadist group Boko Haram has added pressure on the Nigerian government to secure their release, after activists accused authorities of mishandling the case in the two years since their mass kidnap.
Weeping parents identified the girls captured by Boko Haram fighters, who want to establish an Islamist state in northeast Nigeria and have waged a seven-year campaign of violence, killing thousands of people and displacing two million.
President Muhammadu Buhari, elected a year ago on a promise to end endemic graft and crush the group, said in December the government could talk to Boko Haram if credible representatives emerged.
In January he said the government was launching a new investigation into the kidnapping, vowing to return the girls captured at a school in the town of Chibok while taking exams. But little has emerged since then.
In the video, apparently taken in December and given to government officials by Boko Haram as proof of life for the negotiations, a person asks the 15 girls to say their names as they stand quietly in two rows, wearing headscarves.
"I saw all the girls and they are Chibok girls," Esther Yakubu, a parent of one of the abducted girls who saw the video broadcast by CNN said. "I recognise some of them because we are in the same area with them."
Yakubu was marching with some 30 other parents and activists to the presidential villa in the capital Abuja to demand the government do more to return the girls. Police stopped them at the road leading to the villa.
Witnesses to the kidnapping, Nigerian military and security officials, Western diplomats and counter-terrorism experts blame a series of failings by politicians and the military in dealing with the militants, including a lack of co-ordination.
Information Minister Lai Mohammed told CNN the government was still reviewing the video. When asked about efforts to get the girls released he only said: "There are ongoing talks."
A top government official who declined to be named, said an official reaction would only be made once the military had established the video's authenticity.
Buhari said in a statement he hoped the girls would be "rescued", suggesting the army will try to liberate them.
"Thousands of persons, mostly women and children, who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, have already been rescued and reunited with their families," he said, without mentioning the video.
Buhari said he "continues to believe that with the total commitment of the Federal Government, Nigerian Armed Forces and security agencies...the girls will be eventually rescued."
INFORMATION "LOST"
Activists said Buhari's government is not doing enough, urging the state to use the video for clues to find the girls and speak to girls who had managed to flee Boko Haram captivity.
"The incredible wealth of information that victims of terrorists can offer our security forces is being lost in the current undefined and ineffective approach," Aisha Yesufu of the #BringBackOurGirls group said in a statement.
Buhari has blamed his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan who was slow to react to the abduction.
Under Buhari's command, Nigerian troops backed up by Chad, Niger and Cameroon have recaptured most of territory held by Boko Haram, which pledged allegiance to Islamic State last year.
However, Boko Haram has no unified leadership which makes it difficult for the government to find someone to negotiate with, analysts say.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau appeared in a video circulated last month in which he seemed to suggest he was ailing and Boko Haram was losing its effectiveness. But another video emerged last week saying there would be no surrender.
Fulan Nasrullah, a security analyst, said there was little chance of a breakthrough in the talks between the government and the militants after the failure of previous efforts.
"The government is angry about the leak, as are the insurgents," he said. "The insurgents are not currently willing to negotiate for the girls following the government's alleged bad faith in previous negotiations," he said. (Additional reporting by Felix Onuoha, Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by James Macharia and Dominic Evans)
Reuters
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 2447
- Details
- Boko Haram
Boko Haram may have abducted children and young women in Cameroon for sex exploitation and suicide bombing. Internally displaced persons were also vulnerable to human trafficking by militant groups.
Yazan Imra, 18, was abducted from the Nigeria- Cameroon border town of Gambarou and taken to one of the terrorists' hideouts. For two years, Imra was sexually abused and is now a mother of a 16 month-old baby. She doesn't know the father of her child.
Since the insurgency began in the early 2000, thousands of young girls and boys have been abducted by Boko Haram militants. Many have been forcefully recruited as suicide bombers, domestic workers and many as sex slaves. "Boys serve as domestic workers and also trained on the use of guns and explosives," Imra told DW. "Girls we were sexually exploited and we also worked as cooks for the fighters," she added.
In the meeting of police chiefs in Cameroon's capital Yaounde last Friday (08.04.2016), it was revealed that thousands of women, children and men were trafficked from Cameroon, Central African Republic(CAR), Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) and Equatorial Guinea. The head of Interpol office for central African states, Lawrence Oben Enow, confirmed that the victims were later turned into combatants, sex slaves and spies for the Islamist group.
"Women and children are either sold to rebels in the Central African Republic and Boko Haram terrorists in northern Cameroon or forced to join them," Enow said.
The United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), said in December 2015 that Boko Haram related violence across the Lake Chad Basin has led to the increased number of refugees in the region. At least 75,000 worst affected Nigerians are still hosted in Cameroon's Far North region and 82,000 internally displaced people affected by the spillover of the conflict to Cameroon since 2013. The UN's children education fund UNICEF saysmore than 1 million children in northeastern Nigeria and its neighboring countries cannot attend school due to insurgency.
Former abductees ostracized
The UN provides food, shelter and medical assistance to former abductees and refugees. However, many of those who escaped or freed from Boko Haram bases face stigma. "Sometimes we've got problems because they treat us like terrorists," Elias Yega told DW.
Hamidou Mohamat, 21, was kidnapped alongside his three brothers from the Nigerian town of Kumshe and recruited as a fighter. Mohamat escaped and handed himself to the Cameroonian military, and since then he has been held in Minawao military camp. Analysts however, say that those like Mohamat who escape captivity should not be held at a military base but rather be rehabilitated in recognized centers.
Cameroon's senior military official, Alain Mvogo, said that those who hand themselves in are held there for investigation purposes. He added that those traumatized refugees and victims were given special attention and counseling. "The global objective is to free all those who have been held in bondage by Boko Haram and bring back peace to their communities," Mvogo said.
DW
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 4600
