97 Nigerians deported from South Africa

While the Nigerian government criticises South Africa’s handling of recent xenophobic attacks on Nigerians, the South African Government has deported 97 Nigerians for committing various offences in the country.

The property of several Nigerians and other sub-Saharan Africans have been destroyed across South Africa in xenophobic attacks that have been condemned by various governments.

While asking its citizens to stop the attacks, the South African government has also blamed illegal immigrants from Nigeria and other countries, as well immigrants who commit crime for the attacks. The government has thus decided to clamp down on such immigrants.

The 97 deported Nigerians landed at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on Monday night in a chartered aircraft with the registration number GBB710 from Johannesburg.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that they were made up of 95 males and two females.

Joseph Alabi, the spokesperson of the Lagos Airport Police Command, confirmed the development.

An immigration source told NAN on condition of anonymity that six of the deportees were returned to the country for drug offences while 10 were arrested and deported for other criminal offences .

The others were said to have committed immigration offences in the Southern African country.

All the deportees were profiled by officials of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) while those deported for drug related offences were handed over to the Police for further investigation.

The Federal Government had also on Monday evacuated 41 Nigerian girls who were trafficked to Mali for sex and labour exploitation.

Six of the suspected human traffickers were also apprehended and brought back to the country for prosecution.

Premium Times

Video - Nigeria rescues 41 girls being trafficked through Mali to Europe

Authorities in Nigeria have rescued 41 girls from human trafficking. They were being smuggled through Mali to Europe. The teenagers returned to Nigeria on Monday night. Authorities say they were rescued after the Nigerian Embassy in Bamako received distress calls. Nigeria has a long history of human trafficking. Hundreds of girls are smuggled into Europe every year. Authorities say the alleged traffickers in this case have been arrested.

Video - Nigerian students say they will expel South Africans

But those talks with African Ambassadors have done little to assuage angry Nigerians. The National Association of Nigerian Students say they will begin expelling South African nationals and business from Nigeria on Tuesday.

Kidnapped German archaeologists rescued in Nigeria

Nigerian security forces have freed two German archaeologists kidnapped by gunmen at a remote dig site.

The two academics were at the German embassy in Abuja on Sunday, and were doing well considering the circumstances, according to the German foreign ministry.

Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, the governor of northern Kaduna state, commended the security agencies for their efforts in securing the release of the Germans, a statement said. It did not say whether anyone had been arrested for the kidnapping.

Gunmen had been demanding a ransom of 60 million naira (about £150,000) for the release of Prof Peter Breunig, and his assistant, Johannes Behringer, who were abducted at gunpoint on Wednesday and walked into the bush from an archaeological dig near Janjala village in Kaduna state. Two villagers who tried to help the Germans were shot and killed by the kidnappers, the police said.

Breunig, 65, and Behringer, in his 20s, are part of a four-person team from Frankfurt’s Goethe University. The other two members, women, were not touched by the kidnappers. The Germans were collaborating with Nigeria’s national commission for museum and monuments to recover relics of the Nok culture. The early iron age people, considered the earliest ancient civilisation of the west African region that is now Nigeria, are famous for their terracotta sculptures.

Kidnappings for ransom are common in Nigeria, with ordinary residents and even schoolchildren targeted as well as foreigners. Victims are usually released unharmed after a ransom is paid.

Guardian

Video - U.S. praises Nigeria's progress, pledges ongoing security support

In an effort to crush Boko Haram, the United States has pledged to continue to provide security assistance to the West African country. Thomas Waldhauser, the head of the U.S Africa Command, AFRICOM, says enormous progress has been made in the fight against the insurgency. He had been speaking at a ceremony at the National Defence College in Abuja. Waldhauserof says America will continue to offer advice and assistance to Nigeria. Over the past two years, Nigerian and regional security forces from Cameroon, Chad, and Niger have made gains in pushing Boko Haram out of the towns and villages in the north-eastern parts of the country and the broader Lake Chad Basin region. The U.S. has praised Nigeria for this progress.