Boko Haram fighters killed older boys and men in front of their families before taking women and children into the forest where many died of hunger and disease, freed captives have revealed.
Hundreds of women and children were rescued by the Nigerian army last week from Islamist fighters in northern Nigeria’s Sambisa Forest in a major operation.
After days on the road in pickup trucks, hundreds were released on Sunday into the care of authorities at a refugee camp in the eastern town of Yola, to be fed and treated for injuries.
Some told reporters about their ordeal. “They didn’t allow us to move an inch,” said Asabe Umaru. “If you needed the toilet, they followed you. We were kept in one place. We were under bondage.
“We thank God to be alive today. We thank the Nigerian army for saving our lives.”
The camp took in 275 women and children, some with heads or limbs in bandages, late on Saturday.
Nearly 700 kidnap victims have been freed from the Islamist group’s forest stronghold since Tuesday, with the latest group of 234 women and children liberated on Friday.
“When we saw the soldiers, we raised our hands and shouted for help,” Umaru, a 24-year-old mother of two, told Reuters.
“Boko Haram, who were guarding us, started stoning us so we would follow them to another hideout, but we refused because we were sure the soldiers would rescue us.”
The prisoners suffered malnutrition and disease, she said. “Every day, we witnessed the death of one of us and waited for our turn.”
Another freed captive, Cecilia Abel, said her husband and first son had been killed in her presence before the militia forced her and her remaining eight children into the forest.
She barely ate for two weeks before the military arrived. “We were fed only ground dry maize in the afternoons. It was not good for human consumption,” she said.
“Many of us that were captured died in Sambisa Forest. Even after our rescue, about 10 died on our way to this place.”
The freed prisoners were fed bread and mugs of tea as soon as they arrived at the government camp. Dr Mohammed Aminu Suleiman of the Adamawa state emergency management agency said 19 were taken to hospital for special attention.
The army said troops patrolling on Saturday discovered 260 women and children wandering in Adamawa state. Some had fled their homes during fighting while others had been abducted but managed to escape from the Islamists.
The military said a supplier of food and fuel to Boko Haram was arrested on Sunday morning.
Amnesty International estimates the insurgents, who are intent on bringing western Africa under Islamist rule, have taken more than 2,000 women and girls captive since the start of 2014. Many have been used as cooks, sex slaves or human shields.
The prisoners freed so far do not appear to include any of more than 200 schoolgirls snatched from school dormitories in Chibok town a year ago, an incident that drew global attention to the six-year-old insurgency.
Umaru said her group of prisoners never came in contact with the missing Chibok girls.
Guardian
Monday, May 4, 2015
Friday, May 1, 2015
President Goodluck Jonathan pledges he'll hand over a terrorist free Nigeria
President Goodluck Jonathan pledged Thursday in Abuja that he will do all within his powers to ensure that all Nigerian territory still held by terrorists and insurgents are totally liberated before May 29, 2015.
Receiving a delegation of Heads of Customs from the West and Central African Region of the World Customs Organisation, led by the Secretary-General of the organisation, Kunio Mikuriya, Mr. Jonathan said he was determined to hand over a country completely free of terrorist strongholds to the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari.
The president said ongoing military operations in the North-East had already recorded huge successes, with two states completely free from the control of terrorists, while operations in the third state had reached a concluding stage.
“We can now say two states are completely free from terrorist control, while in the third state, it is only in one Local Government Area that they are still present; that is in the Sambisa Forest,” he said.
President Jonathan noted that the military had already moved into the forest to seize the remaining camps of the terrorists.
He said the recent rescue of about 300 abducted girls and women was further evidence of the success being achieved in the ongoing operation.
On his decision to concede victory to the President-elect, Mr. Buhari, before all the results of the presidential elections were announced, Mr. Jonathan said elections must be approached from a nationalistic point of view.
“Our elections should be about where Nigeria is going,” he said. “If Nigeria is moving forward, it is for the good of all Nigerians. My children and grandchildren will live and grow in this country and contribute to it.
“I always tell my colleagues to leave office when their time is up. We are trying to encourage African leaders not to remain in power as kings until death.”
Mr. Mikuriya commended the President for supporting the reform of the Nigeria Customs Service.
He noted that other African countries had already started emulating the vision, strategy, adoption to new technology and result- oriented training of officers that were captured in Nigeria’s reforms.
Premium Times
Receiving a delegation of Heads of Customs from the West and Central African Region of the World Customs Organisation, led by the Secretary-General of the organisation, Kunio Mikuriya, Mr. Jonathan said he was determined to hand over a country completely free of terrorist strongholds to the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari.
The president said ongoing military operations in the North-East had already recorded huge successes, with two states completely free from the control of terrorists, while operations in the third state had reached a concluding stage.
“We can now say two states are completely free from terrorist control, while in the third state, it is only in one Local Government Area that they are still present; that is in the Sambisa Forest,” he said.
President Jonathan noted that the military had already moved into the forest to seize the remaining camps of the terrorists.
He said the recent rescue of about 300 abducted girls and women was further evidence of the success being achieved in the ongoing operation.
On his decision to concede victory to the President-elect, Mr. Buhari, before all the results of the presidential elections were announced, Mr. Jonathan said elections must be approached from a nationalistic point of view.
“Our elections should be about where Nigeria is going,” he said. “If Nigeria is moving forward, it is for the good of all Nigerians. My children and grandchildren will live and grow in this country and contribute to it.
“I always tell my colleagues to leave office when their time is up. We are trying to encourage African leaders not to remain in power as kings until death.”
Mr. Mikuriya commended the President for supporting the reform of the Nigeria Customs Service.
He noted that other African countries had already started emulating the vision, strategy, adoption to new technology and result- oriented training of officers that were captured in Nigeria’s reforms.
Premium Times
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Video - hundreds of bodies found in Nigeria town recaptured from Boko Haram
As coalition troops continue to fight Boko Haram, a disturbing picture is emerging about the civilian casualties.
There are reports of hundreds of bodies being recovered in the town of Damasak, which was recaptured from Boko Haram a month ago.
Video - Nigeria reacts to Boko Haram leader making TIME's 100 most influential people list
Boko Haram is clearly back in the headlines - and earlier this month the group's leader Abubakr Shekau was named as one of the Time magazine's top 100 most influential people in the world. Nigerians have been reacting to that.
EXO - Nigeria's Super Hero
It was not until 2008, when the new wave of superhero movies started breaking worldwide, that he started working on a concept, thinking “If you don’t do it now, you’re never going to do it,” he recalls.
By that point he was working in the US, having left Nigeria in 2002 to study at Georgetown University. He saved up some money, produced a seven-minute teaser and began to shop it around to producers and investors in the US and Nigeria, without much success.
“I had someone say to me ‘no one’s going to watch anything based on African characters.’ I had a producer tell me that point blank,” Okupe says. “I respectfully disagreed. I believe if it’s done right, if it’s done well, people will gravitate to it.
“I grew up watching Superman, not because he was fighting in Metropolis in America, but because I could connect to the story. I was just a kid from Africa. So why can’t the reverse be true? Why can’t I create an African superhero that everyone can connect to.”
African content – and in particular Nigerian content – has been gradually increasing in global prominence over the past few years, as a young, increasingly technology-savvy population clamours for movies, books and games that better reflect their own experiences.
‘Nollywood’, Nigeria’s film industry, which pumps out thousands of movies per year, is now a global industry worth $250m in 2012, and undoubtedly more now. Technology companies, such as Jason Njoku’s IrokoTV, have raised millions and made more in building out networks online to package and distribute content.
The huge expansion of mobile telephony – there are more than 100m mobile phones in Nigeria today, and smartphone use is growing as data services expand – has driven a consequent explosion in mobile gaming. Nigerian games studios, such as Maliyo and Kuluya, have developed relatively simple, but hugely popular titles based on Nigerian stories. The latter is estimated to be worth around $2m, and now has more than a million downloads.
Breakout Nigerian music stars, such as D’Banj, have inspired producers in the US and Europe to seek out talent in West Africa, with Jay-Z the latest big name to start scouting the region.
Frustrated in his attempts to get his product in front of producers, Okupe has changed tack, and is now raising money to turn his idea into a graphic novel, with the aim of building a brand around his concept, his character, Wale Williams, and his setting of ‘Lagoon City’ – to Lagos what Gotham City is to New York.
“I figured if I could build a fanbase, it’ll be easier for me to go back to a TV network or a distributor and say, look, people are waiting for something like this… people want to see an African superhero. We want to see diverse superheroes. People are clamouring for things like this.”
Nigerian – and African – stories could, Okupe hopes, follow the path of Japanese manga and anime, which broke into Western markets in a huge way in the 1980s and 1990s.
“I’m very optimistic,” Okupe says. “It’s going to be a tough road, but I believe it’s going to happen. When it happens, it’s going to be like a tidal wave of movies, comic books, video games.”
Written by Pete Guest
Forbes
Related story: Nigeria's own Comic-Con celebrates 3 years
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