NAIJAFEED

Friday, March 5, 2021

Deadly violence mars reunion between schoolgirls and parents in Nigeria, witnesses say

At least one person has been shot dead and two others injured as hundreds of kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls who had been released were reunited with their parents, eyewitnesses told CNN.

The girls were abducted on Friday by armed men who raided their state-run school in Nigeria's northwest Zamfara State, police said. A spokesman for the area's regional governor Bello Matawalle said Tuesday that all 279 girls had been safely returned and accounted for.

But violence broke out as the schoolgirls were reunited with their parents in Jangebe on Wednesday, eyewitnesses told CNN.

Witnesses said parents who wanted to take their children home grew impatient with government officials who were making speeches. The officials also told parents they planned to keep the girls at the school overnight before sending them home, observers said.

Video obtained by journalists on the ground showed the relatives yelling and storming into the hall where the girls and officials were. Youths who came in with the adults started throwing rocks at government officials, parents said. Soldiers then opened fire, which led to further chaos with parents scrambling to grab their daughters.

One parent, Safiyanu Jangebe, told CNN: "We got tired of waiting. The government officials were talking and talking while we were just waiting to take our kids. They started saying that they would hand over the girls to us tomorrow (Thursday). We couldn't take that ... some angry youths started throwing stones at the soldiers. They started firing and shot three kids. One is dead. Why is the government treating us without human feelings?"

Abubakar Shittu's son was one of the teenagers shot. Video provided to CNN from journalists at the hospital showed the boy laying in a bed with a bloody leg.

"After they abducted our daughters look how soldiers came and shot our kids. Now which of these pains are we going to deal [with]," Abubakar said in the video, as he is standing over his unconscious son, who is lying on a hospital bed.

Zamfara Police Commissioner, Abutu Yaro, denied that his men shot at parents and children, calling the reports "fake news."

"I think the parents hurriedly carried their children because they think they come from very far villages, that was what happened," he said. "As for the shooting that is a fake report, I do not have that report on my table."

Immediately after the incident, the local government imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Jangebe, it announced in a statement on Wednesday. "This is to prevent any further breach of peace," read the statement, which did not refer to the shooting.

The girls' abduction is the latest in a string of kidnapping cases. At least 42 people were abducted from a state-run school last month and later released, and more than 300 schoolboys were taken and later freed in December.

Kidnapping for ransom is rife in parts of Nigeria and has become a major security challenge. State governors regularly pay ransoms to secure the safety of victims but rarely admit to doing so.

By Isaac Abrak

CNN

In Nigeria, an agonising wait for parents of 300 abducted girls

Video - More than 300 schoolgirls abducted in Northwest Nigeria

Video - Why are school children increasingly being kidnapped in Nigeria?

Video - Freed schoolboys arrive in Nigeria’s Katsina week after abduction

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Video - 279 kidnapped Zamfara schoolgirls released

The government says 279 schoolgirls kidnapped in northwest Zamfara state have been released. Gunmen took them from a state run school on Friday. It is the latest of a series of abductions in the region. Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris joins us live, from Gusau in Nigeria’s Zamfara State, for the latest updates.

Monday, March 1, 2021

Nigeria to take delivery of 3.92 mln doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday

Nigeria expects to take delivery of 3.92 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, the third West African country to benefit from the COVAX facility after Ghana and Ivory Coast, the government’s coronavirus task force said on Sunday.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with some 200 million people, has reported fewer than 1,900 COVID-19 deaths so far, much better than had been widely predicted early in the pandemic.

Last week, Nigerian drug regulator approved the Astrazeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine use in Nigeria.

The dispatch is part of an overall 16 million doses planned to be delivered to Nigeria in batches over the next months by the COVAX facility, the task force said in a tweet.

The COVAX facility for poor and middle-income countries is co-led by Gavi, the vaccine alliance, and the World Health Organization, with UNICEF as an implementing partner.

Nigeria plans to inoculate 40% of the population this year and 30% more in 2022. The country expects to receive vaccine donations that will cover one-fifth of its population and then procure an additional 50% of its requirement to achieve herd immunity, the budget head has said.

Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said Nigeria will draw up a supplementary budget in March to cover the cost of COVID-19 vaccinations, for which no provision was made in the 2021 finance bill adopted in December. (Reporting by Felix Onuah and Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos; writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Reuters

In Nigeria, an agonising wait for parents of 300 abducted girls

Families in northwest Nigeria’s Zamfara state are desperately waiting for news of their kidnapped daughters after more than 300 schoolgirls were taken by gunmen from a government school on Friday, the latest in a series of mass school abductions to hit the country.

Some parents and other relatives on Sunday gathered at the all-girls boarding school in the Jangebe village amid speculation that the children had regained their freedom after being held in a forest.

“There have been rumours flying around that the girls have been found; the government denied them but these rumours refuse to go away,” Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from the school, said.

With police coordinating a joint rescue operation with the military and helicopters combing the forest, Idris said a number of government ministers had arrived in Zamfara to meet local officials. “Senior officials confirmed to Al Jazeera that some progress has been made and [expressed hope] in the next 24 hours the girls will be back home,” Idris added.

Locals say more than 100 gunmen in military uniforms invaded the village early on Friday morning before heading to the school’s hostel for the sleeping students.

Humaira Mustapha’s two daughters – Hafsa and Aisha, 14 and 13 respectively – were among the 317 schoolgirls abducted.

“Whenever I think about my daughters I’m filled with indescribable grief,” Mustapha told AFP news agency, making no effort to wipe away the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Whenever I serve food to their younger sister, tears keep flowing from my eyes because I keep thinking about the hunger and thirst they are going through,” said the 30-year-old mother of three.

“I’m appealing to the governor to do everything to rescue our daughters who are facing real danger to their lives,” Mustapha added. “As a mother, my anguish is crushing me.”
‘Scared of going back to school’

Aliyu Ladan Jangebe said his five daughters aged between 12 and 16 were at the school when the kidnappers stormed in. Four were taken away but one escaped by hiding in a bathroom with three other girls, he told The Associated Press news agency.

“We are not in [a] good mood because when you have five children and you are able to secure (just) one. We only thank God … But we are not happy,” said Jangebe.

“We cannot imagine their situation,” he said of his missing daughters. Residents of a nearby village said the kidnappers had herded the girls through the town like animals, he said.

Masauda Umar was among the schoolgirls who managed to escape. “I was coming out from the door and I met somebody but ran back and hid under my bed,” she said. “I’m scared of going back to school because of what happened, but I will go back if the government makes it safe.”

One resident at the village said the gunmen also attacked a nearby military camp and checkpoint, preventing soldiers from responding to the mass abduction.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said the government’s priority is to get all the hostages returned safe and unharmed.

The girls’ abduction has caused international outrage, with the United Nations chief calling for the girls’ “immediate and unconditional release” and safe return to their families.

Nigeria has seen several such attacks and kidnappings in recent years. On Saturday, 24 students, six staff and eight relatives were released after being abducted on February 17 from the Government Science College Kagara in Niger state.

In December, more than 300 schoolboys from a secondary school in Kankara, in northwestern Nigeria, were taken and later released. The government has said no ransom was paid for the students’ release.

The most notorious kidnapping was in April 2014, when 276 girls were abducted by the Boko Haram armed group from the secondary school in Chibok in Borno state. More than 100 of those girls are still missing.

Boko Haram is opposed to Western education and its fighters often target schools. Other organised armed groups, locally called bandits, often abduct students for money. The government says large groups of armed men in Zamfara state are known to kidnap for money and to press for the release of their members held in jail.

Nigeria’s criminal networks may plot more such abductions if this round of kidnappings go unpunished, say analysts.

“While improving community policing and security, in general, remains a mid-to-long-term challenge, in the short term authorities must punish those responsible to send a strong message that there will be zero tolerance toward such acts,” said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan-based think-tank.

Al Jazeera

Friday, February 26, 2021

Video - Victims who were kidnapped from a bus in Nigeria speak out

Kidnapping for ransom has become one of the most reported crimes in Nigeria. Hundreds of people are being held by gangs across the country, and in a recent case, dozens of passengers were kidnapped from a bus.