Friday, May 2, 2014
Video - 19 people killed by car bomb attack in Abuja, Nigeria
A blast on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital Abuja has killed at least a dozen people. The car bomb hit the suburb of Nyanya on Thursday, close to the site of a morning rush hour bomb attack at a bus station on April 14 that killed at least 75 people.
Related stories: Video - Bomb blast in Abuja kills 71
Video - Fatality count in Abuja bomb blast rises to 75
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Police open fire at peaceful protest of government inability to rescue kidnapped schoolgirls
Dozens of armed police officers have attempted to disperse a crowd protesting the abduction of secondary school girls in Chibok, Borno state.
Gunshots were fired by the officers in an attempt to break the protest but the protesters stood their ground.
Some of those who heard the shots first thought it was just teargas, but our reporter and other witnesses who arrived the scene shortly after the shots were fired did not notice any fume to indicate it was teargas.
Some witnesses however say teargas canisters were fired too.There is no report of injury to any of the protesters yet.The crowd are also protesting the hike in the school fees of the Lagos State University, Ojo.Several fully armed police officers have now joined the protesters as they march from CMS bus stop in Lagos Island towards Victoria Island.
Scores of Nigerian women, and a few men, had also protested Wednesday in Abuja to demand the release of over 200 girls kidnapped on April 14 by insurgents believed to be members of the extremist Boko Haram sect.
The girls were kidnapped from the their hostel at the Government Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State.
The protest began at about 3:15 p.m. at the Unity Fountain in the Abuja city centre, with many of the women wearing red to demonstrate anger and outrage at the abduction of the girls.
The women, including some mothers from the troubled Chibok community, carried banners and placards demanding that the Nigerian government do more to free the girls.
Premium Times
Related story: Some of the 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls sold into marriage
Gunshots were fired by the officers in an attempt to break the protest but the protesters stood their ground.
Some of those who heard the shots first thought it was just teargas, but our reporter and other witnesses who arrived the scene shortly after the shots were fired did not notice any fume to indicate it was teargas.
Some witnesses however say teargas canisters were fired too.There is no report of injury to any of the protesters yet.The crowd are also protesting the hike in the school fees of the Lagos State University, Ojo.Several fully armed police officers have now joined the protesters as they march from CMS bus stop in Lagos Island towards Victoria Island.
Scores of Nigerian women, and a few men, had also protested Wednesday in Abuja to demand the release of over 200 girls kidnapped on April 14 by insurgents believed to be members of the extremist Boko Haram sect.
The girls were kidnapped from the their hostel at the Government Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State.
The protest began at about 3:15 p.m. at the Unity Fountain in the Abuja city centre, with many of the women wearing red to demonstrate anger and outrage at the abduction of the girls.
The women, including some mothers from the troubled Chibok community, carried banners and placards demanding that the Nigerian government do more to free the girls.
Premium Times
Related story: Some of the 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls sold into marriage
Denmark bans adopting babies from Nigeria
Denmark has suspended adoptions from Nigeria less than a month after Lagos police arrested eight people at a suspected baby factory.
"I have decided to suspend all adoption from Nigeria with immediate effect," Denmark's minister for children tweeted. "We must do everything we can to protect the children and to give the families peace of mind," he said in a separate statement.
The minister, Manu Sareen, said he had taken the decision after the Danish regulator, the National Social Appeals Board, said it was "no longer justifiable to adopt children from the country".
The board said it was difficult to ensure a lawful and ethical adoption process from Nigeria, but added that couples who had been matched with a child would not be affected by the ban. Further information was required from the organisation that helps Danish couples adopt from Nigeria, AC International Child Support, before making a permanent decision, it added.
In March, Nigerian police arrested several people, including eight pregnant women, during a raid on a house in Lagos. The women planned to sell their newborns for $2,000 (£1,200) each, reports suggest.
There have been several raids on supposed Nigerian baby factories since 2011, with more than 100 women discovered during such operations. Investigations by Nigeria's anti-trafficking agency that year revealed that babies were being sold for up to $6,400 each.
Buyers tend to be couples who are unable to conceive, and boys typically fetch a much higher price than girls.
According to the EU, Nigeria is one of the biggest sources of people trafficked into Europe, where victims are often forced into prostitution.
Human trafficking is widespread in west Africa, where children are sometimes bought to work on plantations and in mines and factories, or as domestic help. Others are sold into sexual slavery or, less commonly, sacrificed in magic rituals.
The Guardian
Related stories: Video - Baby trafficking syndicate arrested in Imo state
Another baby factory busted in Nigeria
16 pregnant women freed from baby factory in Nigeria
"I have decided to suspend all adoption from Nigeria with immediate effect," Denmark's minister for children tweeted. "We must do everything we can to protect the children and to give the families peace of mind," he said in a separate statement.
The minister, Manu Sareen, said he had taken the decision after the Danish regulator, the National Social Appeals Board, said it was "no longer justifiable to adopt children from the country".
The board said it was difficult to ensure a lawful and ethical adoption process from Nigeria, but added that couples who had been matched with a child would not be affected by the ban. Further information was required from the organisation that helps Danish couples adopt from Nigeria, AC International Child Support, before making a permanent decision, it added.
In March, Nigerian police arrested several people, including eight pregnant women, during a raid on a house in Lagos. The women planned to sell their newborns for $2,000 (£1,200) each, reports suggest.
There have been several raids on supposed Nigerian baby factories since 2011, with more than 100 women discovered during such operations. Investigations by Nigeria's anti-trafficking agency that year revealed that babies were being sold for up to $6,400 each.
Buyers tend to be couples who are unable to conceive, and boys typically fetch a much higher price than girls.
According to the EU, Nigeria is one of the biggest sources of people trafficked into Europe, where victims are often forced into prostitution.
Human trafficking is widespread in west Africa, where children are sometimes bought to work on plantations and in mines and factories, or as domestic help. Others are sold into sexual slavery or, less commonly, sacrificed in magic rituals.
The Guardian
Related stories: Video - Baby trafficking syndicate arrested in Imo state
Another baby factory busted in Nigeria
16 pregnant women freed from baby factory in Nigeria
Some of the 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls sold into marriage
Scores of young girls and women kidnapped from a school in Nigeria are being forced to marry their Boko Haram abductors, a local human rights group has reported.
Halite Aliyu, of the Borno-Yobe People’s Forum, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that more than 200 girls who were kidnapped two weeks ago had been sold to the fighters for $12.
Aliyu said the information given about the mass weddings was coming from villagers in the Sambisa Forest, on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon where Boko Haram was known to have a number of hideouts.
"The latest reports are that they have been taken across the borders, some to Cameroon and Chad,'' Aliyu said.
It was not possible to verify the reports.
Community elder Pogu Bitrus of Chibok town, from where the girls were abducted, told the BBC's Hausa service that some of the kidnapped girls "have been married off to insurgents".
"A medieval kind of slavery. You go and capture women and then sell them off,'' Bitrus said.
At the same time, the Boko Haram network was reportedly negotiating over the students' fate and demanding an unspecified ransom for their release, a Borno state civic leader told The Associated Press. The abductors have also claimed that two of the girls have died from snake bites.
Information regarding the girls’ exact whereabouts still remains unclear.
About 50 of the kidnapped girls managed to escape from the captors in the first days after their abduction, but some 220 remained missing, according to the principal of the Chibok Girls Secondary School, Asabe Kwambura. They are between 16 and 18 years old and had been recalled to the school to write a physics exam.
"Find Our Daughters"
The government and military's failure to rescue the girls prompted Nigerian protesters to march on the country's parliament on Wednesday.
The march, dubbed "A Million-Woman March" was promoted on Twitter and attracted several hundred women and men, mostly dressed in red, carrying placards that read "Find Our Daughters".
Parents have voiced fury at the military's rescue operation, accusing the security services of ignoring their daughters' plight.
Former World Bank vice president and ex-Nigerian cabinet member Obiageli Ezekwesili, addressed protesters at Unity Fountain in Abuja as the march kicked off.
She accused the military of having "no coherent search-and-rescue" plan.
"If this happened anywhere else in the world, more than 200 girls kidnapped and no information for more than two weeks, the country would be brought to a standstill," she told AFP.
The protest underscored how large parts of northeastern Nigeria remained beyond the control of the government.
Until the kidnappings, the air force had been mounting near-daily bombing raids since mid-January on the Sambisa Forest and mountain caves bordering Chad.
Aliyu said that in northeastern Nigeria "life has become nasty, short and brutish.
"We are living in a state of anarchy.''
Aljazeera
Related stories: kidnapped school girls believed to have been taken out of Nigeria
Video - Search continues for the 200 kidnapped schoolgirls
Wole Soyinka calls for the release of the kidnapped school girls
Halite Aliyu, of the Borno-Yobe People’s Forum, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that more than 200 girls who were kidnapped two weeks ago had been sold to the fighters for $12.
Aliyu said the information given about the mass weddings was coming from villagers in the Sambisa Forest, on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon where Boko Haram was known to have a number of hideouts.
"The latest reports are that they have been taken across the borders, some to Cameroon and Chad,'' Aliyu said.
It was not possible to verify the reports.
Community elder Pogu Bitrus of Chibok town, from where the girls were abducted, told the BBC's Hausa service that some of the kidnapped girls "have been married off to insurgents".
"A medieval kind of slavery. You go and capture women and then sell them off,'' Bitrus said.
At the same time, the Boko Haram network was reportedly negotiating over the students' fate and demanding an unspecified ransom for their release, a Borno state civic leader told The Associated Press. The abductors have also claimed that two of the girls have died from snake bites.
Information regarding the girls’ exact whereabouts still remains unclear.
About 50 of the kidnapped girls managed to escape from the captors in the first days after their abduction, but some 220 remained missing, according to the principal of the Chibok Girls Secondary School, Asabe Kwambura. They are between 16 and 18 years old and had been recalled to the school to write a physics exam.
"Find Our Daughters"
The government and military's failure to rescue the girls prompted Nigerian protesters to march on the country's parliament on Wednesday.
The march, dubbed "A Million-Woman March" was promoted on Twitter and attracted several hundred women and men, mostly dressed in red, carrying placards that read "Find Our Daughters".
Parents have voiced fury at the military's rescue operation, accusing the security services of ignoring their daughters' plight.
Former World Bank vice president and ex-Nigerian cabinet member Obiageli Ezekwesili, addressed protesters at Unity Fountain in Abuja as the march kicked off.
She accused the military of having "no coherent search-and-rescue" plan.
"If this happened anywhere else in the world, more than 200 girls kidnapped and no information for more than two weeks, the country would be brought to a standstill," she told AFP.
The protest underscored how large parts of northeastern Nigeria remained beyond the control of the government.
Until the kidnappings, the air force had been mounting near-daily bombing raids since mid-January on the Sambisa Forest and mountain caves bordering Chad.
Aliyu said that in northeastern Nigeria "life has become nasty, short and brutish.
"We are living in a state of anarchy.''
Aljazeera
Related stories: kidnapped school girls believed to have been taken out of Nigeria
Video - Search continues for the 200 kidnapped schoolgirls
Wole Soyinka calls for the release of the kidnapped school girls
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Video - Herbal medicine still in demand despite access to modern medicine
Traditional medicine in Nigeria appears set to continue attracting the interest of the general population. This, despite the advent of advanced medical treatment and technology. Herbal medicine provides a cheaper option for many, who say they cannot afford conventional treatment.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)