Boko Haram

Authorities in Cameroon must provide answers about the whereabouts of 130 men and boys still unaccounted for 20 months after they were arrested in a crackdown on suspected Boko Haram members, Amnesty International said today on the International Day of the Disappeared.

“The Cameroonian authorities must come clean about the fate of these 130 missing men and boys. The government’s continued failure to reveal their whereabouts adds insult to injury to the families who have already waited a long time for news of their loved ones,” said Alioune Tine, Amnesty International West and Central Africa Regional Director.

The missing people were among more than 200 arrested during a cordon-and-search operation in the villages of Magdeme and Doublé – Far North region - on 27 December 2014. Of those arrested, at least 25 died in custody on the night of the arrests, with another 45 transferred to Maroua prison the day after. Three have died since due to dire conditions in detention.

In the same operation, the security forces also unlawfully killed at least nine civilians, including a child, and destroyed more than 70 homes and other buildings.

Amnesty International considers the 130 people who were arrested and are still missing to be victims of enforced disappearance, a crime under international law. The organization is calling on Cameroon to immediately disclose their whereabouts, ensure independent, thorough and effective investigations into these disappearances and bring those responsible to justice in fair trials without recourse to the death penalty.

Amnesty International has communicated a complete list of the names of all those who disappeared to Cameroon’s Minister of Defense, Minister of Justice and the Head of military operations in the north. However, their families have still received no information from officials.

One woman whose husband and two sons are missing told Amnesty International: 

“We really don’t know what to do… I have been to Maroua prison eight times… we are asking for help. We want the authorities to tell us where our loved ones are.”

Another man described the security forces’ operation that led to the arrests:

“We heard shots being fired all around… Everyone wondered what was happening. There were soldiers everywhere. Then, they [soldiers] took some of the men, stripped them and beat them before going to look for those who were hiding in their houses. Then they [soldiers] rounded them up and loaded them into their trucks. We searched for them everywhere after that but couldn’t find them.”

According to the authorities, the 25 men and boys who died in detention were held in a makeshift cell at the Gendarmerie’s headquarters of Maroua, the main city in the Far North region. They have never revealed the identity of the victims, the cause and circumstances of their deaths, or their place of burial to their families.

In March 2015, the authorities announced that an internal inquiry within the Ministry of Defense was being undertaken to investigate the deaths. The results of this inquiry were not communicated publicly and only one person -- Colonel Zé Onguéné Charles, Head of the Gendarmerie in the Far North region when the incident occurred -- is facing trial. The charges against him, however, are limited to “negligence and breach of custody rules”.

Amnesty International has also documented an additional 17 cases of suspected enforced disappearances of people accused of supporting Boko Haram in the Far North region between June 2014 and June 2016.

“The authorities must conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into what happened in Magdeme and Doublé, and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice. They must also provide full and effective reparation to the families of the victims,” said Alioune Tine.

Background

The Far North region of Cameroon has suffered repeated attacks from Boko Haram since late 2013. Between July 2015 and August 2016 Boko Haram conducted more than 200 attacks, including nearly 40 suicide bombings in the Far North region, killing at least 500 people.

In order to combat Boko Haram, Cameroon has deployed at least 2000 troops of the BIR (Rapid Intervention Battalion) alongside forces from the BIM (Mobile Intervention Battalion) in the Far North region.

While the security forces play a crucial role in protecting the population from Boko Haram’s attacks, they have also committed human rights violations on a significant scale including arbitrary arrest, excessive use of force, extra-judicial executions, illegal and incommunicado detention, torture and enforced disappearances.

Amnesty International’s Protect Our Rights campaign will run from 30 August 2016 until December 2017. The campaign will seek to protect the human rights of those caught between abuses committed by Boko Haram and human rights violations committed by the Cameroonian authorities and security forces in their fight against Boko Haram.

Amnesty International

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Rita Akana

30.Aug.2016

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N'DJAMENA A landmine planted by Islamist group Boko Haram killed four Chadian soldiers on patrol near Chad's border with Niger on Saturday, two security sources said.

They were traveling in a vehicle that rode over the mine at Kaiga Kindji, in the Lake Chad region, which has been plagued by the militants since 2009.

The Nigerian-based Boko Haram wants to create a breakaway Islamic state in the region and once occupied an area the size of Belgium. 

But a regional offensive led by Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger - the four countries most affected by Boko Haram - has chased it out of much of that territory.

The group has in response retreated to Nigeria's Sambisa forest, from where it has fought a guerrilla campaign against civilians and security forces.

Boko Haram is thought to have killed as many as 15,000 people since the launch of its insurgency seven years ago.

Its insurrection has strangled economic and farming activity around Lake Chad, leaving tens of thousands hungry.

Nearly half a million children around the lake face "severe acute malnutrition" due to drought and the insurgency by Boko Haram, UNICEF said on Thursday.

Reuters

 

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Rita Akana

28.Aug.2016

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The Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram has killed ten people and kidnapped 13 women and children at a village near Chibok on Saturday.

According to the residents of Kubrrivu who spoke to AFP, the Boko Haram fighters arrived in the village on Saturday night and opened fire while they were sleeping. They looted and burned homes before kidnapping 13 women and children.

“The Boko Haram fighters were on four motorcycles, (and) three on each, and fired on houses while people were sleeping,” reported Damina Luka, resident of a nearby village.

“They burned everything, after stealing food stocks and livestock, and abducting women and children,” he added. 

Ayuba Alamson, a community leader at Chibok, located 20 kilometers away, confirmed to AFP that 13 people were abducted in the attack.

“Of the 13 people, there were 7 women, 5 boys and a girl,” he added.

In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 teenage girls from Chibok provoking a widespread outrage in Nigeria and around the world. Fifty-seven of them managed to escape soon after their abduction.

In 2014, the village of Kubrrivu was totally destroyed in a previous attack by the group displacing residents.

A year later, the Nigerian army took control of the territory and residents rebuilt their homes.

Despite numerous military victories since the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari took over power in 2015, many communities in northeastern Nigeria remain under control of the Islamist sect.

African News

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Rita Akana

22.Aug.2016

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At least three killed and 24 others injured in Mora town, with authorities suspecting involvement of Boko Haram.

A suicide bomber on a motorbike killed three people and wounded 24 at a market in north Cameroon, where armed group Boko Haram has been waging an armed rebellion since 2009, authorities said.

A senior military official told Reuters news agency that the bomber was also killed in the attack in Mora, in Cameroon's Far North province. 

He said that it was possible one of the three victims was also on the bike. Another security source said authorities were convinced this was the work of Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to ISIL, wants to create an Islamic state in the region spanning four countries. 

 A regional offensive against Boko Haram led by Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger - the four countries most affected by the armed group - has chased it out of towns in the Lake Chad region.

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Rita Akana

21.Aug.2016

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First Chibok girl rescued from the Boko Haram militants in Nigeria claims to have missed her militant husband and that she is unhappy to be separated from the father of her baby.

Amina Ali is among the over 200 school girls kidnapped by the militant group two years ago. Amina, 21 year, with her four months old baby were rescued early this year.

'I want him to know that I am still thinking about him… Just because we got separated, that does not mean that I don't think about him. I just want to go home - I don't know about school,' she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an exclusive interview.

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Rita Akana

18.Aug.2016

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It has been two days since the jihadist sect Boko Haram released a video that showed as many as 50 of the missing Chibok schoolgirls still alive, and the Nigerian government has yet to reach out to the family of the girl who was singled out in the video.

The lack of contact has again left the families of the Chibok girls feeling neglected.

"No one from the Nigerian government has contacted us. Maybe it's because we are poor or because we don't have oil in Chibok. We are nobody. But I am glad to know that God has answered my prayers by keeping her alive," said Esther Yakubu, whose daughter appeared in the video. "The message I have for the federal government is to release the [jailed] fighters so that the [other] fighters will release the girls.”

In the latest Boko Haram video, Yakubu's daughter Dorcas Maida Yakubu spoke in her native language.

"We are suffering here. There is no kind of suffering we haven't seen," Dorcas Maida Yakubu says in the recording. "Tell the government to give them [Boko Haram] their people so we can also come home to be with you. ... There is nothing you, or we, can do about this, but to get their people back to them, so we can go home."

Dorcas Maida Yakubu also says many of her fellow abductees have been injured and hurt. Some have been killed by Nigerian airstrikes, which the Nigerian military said was unlikely.

The captive was 15 years old when Boko Haram abducted her and nearly 300 of her classmates from their school in the town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria in April 2014.

Possibility of negotiations

Boko Haram's latest video has sparked a fierce debate within Nigeria about the possibility of negotiations between the federal government and the jihadist sect. Last year, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said he was open to talking to a credible Boko Haram leader.

That is a struggle for the group.

Ever since the 2009 extrajudicial killing of its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, the sect has been fractured, with splinter groups emerging and disappearing from the public eye.

Earlier this month, a leadership crisis erupted when the Islamic State announced Mohammed Yusuf's spiritual son, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, as the "governor" of the Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP), otherwise known as Boko Haram.

The announcement implied that Abubakar Shekau, who has led the group since the death of the founder, had been replaced.

The group is now split into factions, with both al-Barnawi and Shekau vying for supremacy and denouncing one another in recent audio broadcasts.

The Nigerian federal government said it has reached out to the group. But the divisions threaten possible negotiations.

Failed talks

In the past, talks with the sect have fallen through over lack of credible liaisons. The Nigerian government said it is being cautious.

But some say that the latest video is a publicity stunt by Shekau, who appears desperate. An ongoing military offensive by troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon has forced Boko Haram to flee from many areas it once controlled.

Muslims Rights Concern, a Nigeria group that protects the rights of Muslims, says, "Boko Haram released the video because its logistics are in shambles. It is surrounded on all sides. Its supplies are cut off. The game is up. Boko Haram should surrender instead of trying to hoodwink Nigerians."

Counterterrorism policy analyst Yan St-Pierre says Shekau's message is intended to go beyond his own followers and his rival, al-Barnawi. It may be aimed directly at the central power, the Islamic State.

"It's actually speaking to [IS leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi and anyone else who is in the high rank of ISIS officials to show them, ‘Look, choosing Abu Musab al-Barnawi is a mistake. I'm actually the one in the charge. I'm the one that provided results for this organization. I'm the one who still has control. I'm the one who is still pulling the strings,' " said St-Pierre, using another acronym for the militant group.

The Bring Back Our Girls group, which has spearheaded the campaign to pressure the Nigerian government to find and rescue the missing Chibok girls, says it is not opposed to negotiations. The members plan to march to the presidential office in the next few days to re-engage with Buhari.

Repeated requests

Boko Haram has repeatedly used the Chibok girls as a bargaining chip, demanding the federal government release detained Boko Haram members in exchange for the girls. But there are also hundreds of other, lesser-known hostages being held by the group.

"Will they also be used as bargaining chips?" St-Pierre asked. "By negotiating with Boko Haram, by giving into its demands, it would most likely set a precedent that would not end up well.

"At this point in time, especially if you look at the larger picture, it's not to the advantage of the Nigerian government to free the girls via negotiations, especially if you consider all that PR [public relations] rhetoric about being on their way to defeating Boko Haram, and Boko Haram being kicked out. It would be acknowledging the fact that they are unable to complete the job," he added.

Boko Haram has killed at least 20,000 people in its seven-year uprising against the Nigerian government. It surpassed IS in 2014 to become the world's deadliest terrorist group, according to the 2015 Global Terrorism Index, published by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

Esther Yakubu knows how dangerous the group is, but she says negotiating with them is a high price that must be paid as soon as possible. After the mass abduction, she fled her home in Chibok. More than 2 million people have been displaced because of Boko Haram attacks.

Her family now rents a two-bedroom home in Abuja, where every night the family gathers to pray for Dorcas Maida to return.

"I just want my sister back," says 15-year-old Happy.

Esther Yakubu ends the night the way she often does, opening her Bible and looking at the photos left between the pages — two pictures of her smiling daughter captured just days before she was kidnapped.

Staring at the photo, tears gather in her eyes and fall down her cheeks.

"We are with you in spirit, even though you are not physically here with us," she says.

VOA

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Rita Akana

17.Aug.2016

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