Headline News

5, March 2018

At least 10 die in Nigeria farmer-herder clashes ⁰

At least 10 people were killed in several days of violence between herdsmen and farmers in eastern Nigeria, police said on Monday, but the cattle drivers gave a higher toll.

Clashes broke out in a number of remote herding villages in the Mambilla district of Taraba state last Thursday and continued throughout the weekend.

The violence is part of a wider series of clashes between largely nomadic cattle herders and farmers in central and southern Nigeria that has put pressure on the government to act.

“So far we have established the deaths of 10 people in the violence between herders and farmers in the Mambilla area,” said state police spokesman David Misal.

“Security personnel have succeeded in restoring normalcy in the area and there is ongoing security operation to consolidate peace.”

According to herders, Mambilla militia armed with machetes and spears stormed five herding settlements of Nyiwa, Yerimaru, Wuro-Mogoggo, Leme and Gagarum between Thursday and Saturday.

“From our records, 19 people have been killed and 23 injured in the unprovoked attacks in these five villages by armed Mambilla tribe militia,” said the head of the Nigerian herders union MACBAN, Mohammed Keruwa.

Nyiwa was worst hit with nine herders killed by the attackers who also “killed 318 cows, stole 38 cows, 158 sheep and 308 fowls,” he added.

Mambilla lies on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon and is a herding and farming hub reputed for fertile land, lush vegetation and abundant water.

Tensions have been running high for many years between herders and farmers over land and water rights.

The herders are Muslim and the farmers are largely Christian, which adds an ethnic and religious dimension to the tensions. Many herders have fled to northern Cameroon.

In January 2002, more than 20,000 herders fled the Mambilla plateau area into Cameroon following violence with farmers which MACBAN said at the time left 50 herders dead.

In June last year deadly clashes again broke out in the area. MACBAN claimed more than 700 herders were killed in the violence but the authorities gave a much lower toll.

The southern state of Benue has been a flashpoint in recent months after resistance to a new law banning open grazing for cattle.

In January, 73 people from the ethnic Tiv farming communities were buried at a mass funeral after a series of attacks blamed on Fulani herders.

(Source: AFP)

5, March 2018

142 Ambazonians Escape to Akwa Ibom Due to Crisis in Southern Cameroon ⁰

No fewer than 142 Cameroonian are taking refuge in Akwa Ibom State as a result of the crisis rocking the Southern and English-speaking areas of Cameroon, the State Comptroller of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Livingstone Amadi disclosed weekend.

Amadi who made the disclosure during an interview in Uyo said the refugees currently spread across three local government areas of the state. The State Comptroller of NIS, who is barely three months old in the state, said the Cameroonian refugees were being camped in makeshift structures in Oron, Eket and Mkpat Enin Local Government Areas of the State.

According to him, the Akwa Ibom government had assisted with relief materials, stressing that the Cameroonian refugees experience was a national issue to Nigeria given the influx of people from Southern Cameroon.

“You know border states like Cross River, Benue and Taraba, are also affected by the refugees fleeing English-speaking areas of Cameroon into Nigeria.

“The Akwa Ibom state government had sent relief materials to the three different camps to support the refugees there. We have also gotten delegations from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the United Nation High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR),” he added.

Since last year the English-speaking regions of Cameroon had witnessed tensions over alleged discrimination against them by the majority French-speaking population, leading to thousands fleeing the country.

Amadi said within the last three months of his assumption of duty, he had rebranded the state headquarters to make the work environment attractive to both staff and the public.

“We have tiled the passport office, giving facelift to the comptroller’s office; we are tiling the production and enrolment office in the next one week. We are making judicious application of the little funds that we have,” Amadi stated.

The NIS comptroller said he was impressed with the conduct of his officers in the command, emphasising that his officers had exhibited the highest sense decorum in border management.

“The Federal Government is working on modalities for ease of doing business in Nigeria, my officers are very responsible, they cannot brutalise any businessman coming in or going out of Nigeria.

“We are a security agency of government interfacing with the public at all times. My officers had been conducting themselves in an orderly manner depicting the behaviour of trained and disciplined officers,” he maintained.

He said it was unfounded that his men had been extorting money and brutalising travellers along Oron beach in Oron local government area of the state.

Culled from All Africa

5, March 2018

Ambazonia Conflict: Curfew in North West Zone extended amid security crisis ⁰

The curfew in Cameroon’s North West region has been extended by another week by the governor. A March 4, 2018 press release said the extension was to contain growing threats from secessionist activities.

The governor “has renewed the regional order restricting the movement of persons and property as from the 3rd of March 2018 from 09 PM to 05 AM within the North West Region for a period of one week renewable,” the release said.

Governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique also appealed to the population to better collaborate with the law enforcement agencies to ‘put an end to the detrimental activities of secessionist activists and a few misguided individuals who are taking our peace loving and hospitable region hostage.

Under the measure, movement of vehicles, persons and goods shall be strictly forbidden between 9 pm and 5 am. All public places like restaurants snack bars and night clubs shall remain closed.

All transport terminals shall remain closed and night travel buses shall be expected to leave town before the curfew sets in. Circulation of motorbikes is completely suspended.

The orders, however, do not apply to administrative authorities, forces of law and order, persons and vehicles in possession of special authorisations to circulate, and ambulances.

The adjoining South West region also imposed a month-long curfew over similar security concerns. The two regions are at the heart of the Anglophone crisis, where separatists under the so-called Ambazonia republic are seeking to breakaway from French-majority Cameroon.

Source: Africa News

5, March 2018

7 dead in east Congo-Kinshasa raid blamed on Ugandan rebels ⁰

Seven people died in a raid by suspected Ugandan extremist rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the latest in a string of deadly cross-border attacks, officials said Sunday.

“Six people were shot dead and another was stabbed” in the village of Eringeti in DR Congo’s restive North Kivu province, a Congolese military source told AFP.

Eringeti’s mayor Leon Baungatho said the assault happened around 5.30 pm (1530 GMT) on Saturday.

“We are still grieving,” said regional official Noela Kavivutwiraki. “The army needs to redouble its efforts to prevent surprise attacks from Ugandan rebels.”

Thought to be behind a string of deadly attacks in North Kivu, the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia stands accused of a number of atrocities in DR Congo.

Congolese authorities and the UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, accuse the ADF of having killed more than 700 civilians as well as combatants in the Beni region from 2014-16.

The ADF is also accused of killing 14 UN peacekeepers in eastern DR Congo on December 7, in the biggest single loss of peacekeepers in nearly a quarter of a century.

The government in January declared it was waging “war” on the ADF and a Congolese militia, the Yakutumba, which is active in South Kivu province, several hundred kilometers (miles) to the south.

(Source: AFP)

5, March 2018

Nigeria: Cross River government provides succour to Southern Cameroons refugees ⁰

The Cross River government has provided food and non food materials to over 3,500 Southern Cameroonian refugees camping in Boki local government area of the state. Presenting the items on Saturday to the refugees, Dr Mercy Akpama, Managing Director, Cross River Food Bank Commission, said that the gesture was part of the activities to mark Gov. Ben Ayade’s 50th birthday. Newsmen recalled that the state government had donated some materials to refugees camping in Ikom Local government area and promised to also extend same to refugees in Etung, Obudu and Akamkpa local government areas.

Newsmen also report that the state government had promised to build camps for the refugees in order to alleviate their plight pending their return home. Akpama said that Ayade’s administration places premium on the welfare of residents in the state and those in distress. “The governor has sent us here to come and donate this food and non-food materials to you. “In his vision, he has decided that we come here today and give you this food so that you can also join him in celebrating his birthday.

“There is no greater pain like depriving a people of their ancestral homes and reducing them to wants in body and soul,’’ she said. Dr Itam Abang, member representing Boki I state Constituency in the state house of assembly, urged the refugees to be law abiding. Abang said that the state was working with the federal government and the international community to find a solution to their plight. “Governor Ayade’s administration has value for human welfare and security; this he has shown through the delivery of all these food and non food materials,’’ she said.

Mr John Inaku, Director General of Cross River State Emergency Management Agency, told the refugees that the state governor was passionate about their plight. “We have your brothers and sisters in other locations as well, these items are for those of you in Boki and I can assure you that the governor will also reach others soon,” he said. Mr James Ogar, who spoke on behalf of the refugees, lauded the government and people of the state for their concern, noting that the gesture was a sign of true love to those in need. Newsmen report that the items included rice, plantain, beans, yam, garri, palm oil, cartons of Indomie, toiletries, cooking utensils amongst others.

Source: www.vanguardngr.com

5, March 2018

Cameroonian launches drones for global market ⁰

Talking fast and dreaming big, William Elong shows off the first “made in Cameroon” drone at his sixth-floor workshop in downtown Douala, minutes from the economic capital’s Atlantic seafront.

The 25-year-old, known as a high-flyer after being named one of Forbes’ most promising young Africans under 30, is enthusing about his new unmanned aerial drones and keen to promote his company and Africa as a place where IT and new tech can flourish.

We must “get out of the Afro-centric vision of business” to “understand that when one has a global vision, worldwide, this includes Africa,” Elong says in a discussion of future technologies.

Elong has no degree in IT or robotics but studied strategy and competitive intelligence in France, becoming the youngest-ever graduate from Paris’ Economic Warfare School.

He founded his startup Will & Brothers in 2015 with a main project called Drone Africa, which aims to provide drones for civil purposes to businesses, the state in Cameroon and elsewhere.

With a top range of up to 20 kilometres (12 miles), the drones can be used for purposes as different as cartography, media coverage, support for agriculture and detecting gas in mines to reduce the risk of accidents.

“The know-how is here, in Cameroon,” says Elong, who is aware young African talent often seeks employment in Europe and elsewhere. He says at this stage his firm’s capital of $200,000 (162,400 euros) has come from Western backers.

Also supported by the government of President Paul Biya, Elong hopes eventually to raise $2 million to expand the business but he regrets that “not many Africans are involved” in the project, which features two airborne types of drone and one terrestrial model.

The commercial market in Africa is expanding with unmanned aircraft already whizzing across the skies delivering items like medicine and food, and even helping farmers sow seeds.

– ‘Flying wing’ –

In Rwanda, drones get medical supplies such as blood and vaccines to remote areas. Tanzania is launching a similar programme. And drones equipped with night-vision cameras help to detect and track poachers in Kenya, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Elong presents the two airborne prototype models on a table inside his assembly shop. The first “flying wing that we’ve baptised Algo” has the furthest range and could prove an economical solution to the costly task of making maps, he suggests.

Three drone makers at work in the plant run by William Elong, 25, who aims for a Cameroonian entry into the market for pilotless aircraft

The second type, known as Logarythm, has four arms forming a propeller, can reach an altitude of up to 500 metres (1,640 feet) and is fitted with high-definition cameras, which would be useful in high-risk zones and for precision work, Elong adds.

Crucially, he argues, manufacturing costs are lower than those of foreign manufacturers, so the drones produced will be priced competitively across the African marketplace.

He envisages “selling drones to Vietnam, to Venezuela, to Denmark for example, and becoming one of the biggest global enterprises in this sector.”

Elsewhere, two young engineers in white lab coats are carefully building a prototype. “When all the components are available, we are able to assemble a drone like this in 24 hours,” says engineer Louis Ekani.

Some of the parts are made in Cameroon, while others are supplied from abroad.

– ‘The pride of Cameroon’ –

“The start was extremely complicated,” says young technical director Yves Tamu, who is described on the company website as an entrepreneur, digital champion and inventor. “But we have a dynamic, autonomous and state-of-the-art team thanks to which we found the solution (to assembling drones).”

The average age of employees is barely 22 and the team comprises mainly engineers and developers who have spent two years building airworthy drones.

“Will & Brothers is the pride of Cameroon,” gushed Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Libom Li Likeng at a government ceremony to present the drones in early February.

Their design demonstrates “the innovative capacity of Cameroonian youth”, she added.

Elong’s firm is represented in Ivory Coast and plans to open offices in France and the United States, but he stresses the development of artificial intelligence is his primary goal.

Will & Brothers has worked on an AI known as Cyclops, which enables drones to detect people, objects and vehicles and to identify different types of animal at specific sites.

“Artificial intelligence is the future of humanity,” Elong says, confident that Africa can at least try to compete with the big tech giants in California. “It knocks me out that so many people here take no interest in technology.”

Source: The Citizen

5, March 2018

Yaounde: Biya regime says it busted regional child trafficking ring ⁰

Cameroonian authorities say they have dismantled a network of child traffickers responsible for dozens of abductions in the region over the past several months. The network is said to have extended into neighboring Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad.

The operation intensified after three young children were found dead in the back of a truck, prompting angry residents to torch a hotel owned by alleged traffickers.

Hundreds of people are still visiting the neighborhood where the inn was razed last Tuesday by an angry mob in Cameroon’s southern town of Kiossi, on the border with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

Thirty-nine-year-old Vanessa Nzali was among parents of missing children who arrived in Kiossi Friday. She says she had traveled some 280 kilometers from Cameroon’s capital Yaounde when she heard that unidentified children had been found there by Cameroonian police. She says she immediately decided to travel to Kiossi to see if her missing 11-year-old daughter was among the children.

People are seen gathered at the remains of an inn burned down by an angry mob suspecting the inn's owner to be linked to child trafficking, in Kiossi, Cameroon, March 3, 2018. (M. Kindzeka/VOA) — People are seen gathered at the remains of an inn burned down by an angry mob suspecting the inn’s owner to be linked to child trafficking, in Kiossi, Cameroon, March 3, 2018. (M. Kindzeka/VOA)

Nzali says four months ago she returned home from work and was informed by her neighbors that her daughter went to fetch water from a well and four men forced her into their car and drove off. She says her neighbors also told her there was a baby crying in the car.

Quetong Handerson Kongeh, the most senior Cameroon government official in the Ntem Valley administrative unit that includes Kiossi, says the inn was razed after a vehicle belonging to its owner was found with the three dead children who, as determined later, were aged two, four and seven years old.

“At about 2 p.m., their parents started looking for them and could not find them. These children had been kidnapped by some suspects who took them into an inn deep down into the quarter in Kiossi. They administered some toxic products and these children went off [died]. They now put these children inside bags and tied them, and put all of them in the back booth of a vehicle.”

Handerson Kongeh says 15 people suspected to be members of a network of child traffickers operating in Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea were arrested when investigations were opened.

In 2016, the Yaounde-based Interpol office for central African states reported that thousands of children, alongside men and women, were forcibly abducted in Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo to be used as combatants, cooks, guards, sex partners, servants, messengers, and spies.

Quetong Handerson Kongeh, center, the most senior Cameroon government official in the Ntem Valley administrative unit that includes Kiossi confers with local officials, in Kiossi, Cameroon, March 3, 2018. (M. Kindzeka/VOA)

Patricia Asta of the local non-governmental organization Children’s Rights says child kidnapping has increased in Central African states because many childless couples and mothers are ready to buy from the black market. She says some are forced to serve as commercial sex workers, while others are recruited or kidnapped and then transported to far away places where they are forced to work as pickpockets, beggars and drug transporters.

Asta says within the past several months at least 26 cases of abductions have been reported to her NGO, with parents saying their children either were tricked, forced or persuaded to leave. She says they also have had cases of children who were held for ransom.

She says her organization has decided to educate parents to be vigilant. It is also asking all victims to join the associations’s lawyers in legal processes that will protect and free children from predators who are out to target mainly naive teenagers. She says it is her wish to see to it that all child traffickers are punished.

Cameroon, according to the 2012 trafficking in persons report by the U.S. State Department, also is a source, transit, and destination country for children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.

Source: VOA

4, March 2018

Turkey seeks close ties with Africa ⁰

Ankara has been seeking to expand its influence in Africa in the face of tensions with Egypt, where calls are growing for a public boycott of Turkish goods.

Ties between Ankara and Cairo strained in 2013, when then Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled the country’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Sisi’s rise to power as a “coup” an accused the UN of having done “nothing but watch the events such as overthrowing the elected president in Egypt.”

Recently, Erdogan wrapped up a five-day tour of the African countries of Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal and Mali with a large business delegation and a diplomatic entourage.

“We want to walk with Africa while a new world order is being established,” he tweeted at the end of his trip.

This is while a public boycott of Turkish goods has been launched in Egypt to protest what its leaders call Erdogan’s “anti-Egyptian policies.”

The boycott campaign has become the hottest trending topic on Egyptian social media, with 12,000 tweets including #boycott Turkish products, privately-owned Egyptian daily Youm7 reported on Sunday.

Social media users called on the Egyptian government to take action against businessmen importing products from Turkey, saying that purchase of Turkish goods would “contribute to the killing of Egyptians.”

“Turkey acts against Egypt’s political interests everywhere,” said Hisham Baker, a legal expert who initiated the boycott campaign with his friends. “This is why Egyptians have a national and moral obligation to stop buying its products.”

Turkey and Egypt have also been at odds over the latter’s maritime demarcation deal with Cyprus in a potential struggle over resources in the gas-rich eastern Mediterranean.

Additionally, Cairo is concerned about Turkey’s close economic and military ties with Sudan.

Relations between Egypt and Sudan have been soured in recent months by disputes over the ownership of the “Halayeb Triangle” border territory, and over the broader issue of use of water from the River Nile that passes through their territories.

The triangle lies between Egypt and its southern neighbor and the borders have been contested by Sudan since 1958. Cairo says it is Egyptian territory.

Source: Presstv

4, March 2018

US: Man shoots himself dead outside White House ⁰

A man has shot himself dead outside the White House, the US Secret Service – in charge of protecting the residence of the American president – announced, noting that no one else was harmed in the incident.

“At approximately 11.46am, a white male suffered a self-inflicted gun-shot wound to the head outside the North White House fence line. The subject is deceased,” said the Secret Service in a statement on Saturday.

It further added, “The subject approached the vicinity of the North White House fence line and removed a concealed handgun and fired several rounds, none of which appear at this time to have been directed towards the White House.”

US Secret Service officers inspect a car reportedly belonging to a man who shot himself at the White House in Washington, DC, on March 3, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

The White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley also briefed reporters about the apparent suicide event, saying: “We’re aware of the incident. The president has been briefed.”

The identity of the dead man and the motive behind his action remain unclear. Washington DC Police Department, which is leading the investigation into the incident, announced later in the day that it was “working to notify next of kin” of the dead individual, hinting that he has been identified.

At the time of the incident, US President Donald Trump was away from the White House and staying with his wife Melania at his Florida vacation spot, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property.

FBI officers are seen outside the White House as several blocks are closed down by the US Secret Service on March 3, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)

According to local reports, Trump spent the morning at one of his golf courses in the southeastern state before flying back to Washington to attend an evening event.

Donald Trump was not in residence at the time of the incident. The president and his wife Melania were in Florida, staying at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property. Trump spent the morning at one of his golf courses in the state before flying back to Washington to attend an evening event.

At the time of the shooting, which took place near the main entrance of the White House, the building was placed on lockdown. Members of the White House press corps tweeted that they were sheltering in the briefing room.

Source: Presstv

4, March 2018

Slovania: Slain journalist buried ⁰

Slain Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak was laid to rest in his wedding suit on Saturday as police released the seven Italian nationals who were detained regarding Kuciak’s explosive report on high-level corruption.

Kuciak’s murder has raised fresh concern about media freedom and corruption both in Slovakia and Europe. It follows the October 2017 assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who had denounced corruption in Malta.

Kuciak’s burial in the northern Slovak village of Stiavnik came a day after his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, was laid to rest in her wedding gown in the northern town of Gregorovce. The couple, both 27, were to marry in May.

The ceremony began with the reading of a poem written by Jan for his fiancée that he had planned to read at their wedding.

Leading the funeral mass, Bratislava Archbishop Stanislav Zvolensky told hundreds of mourners packed into the local Roman Catholic church that “if the murderer thought he was able to silence Jan, he was wrong.”

“He achieved the opposite. An attack on a journalist is also an attack on the freedom of our country. We must not allow it.”

Slovak police commander Tibor Gaspar has said the motive for murder was “most likely” related to Kuciak’s investigative journalism.

In Italy, prosecutors have suggested that the ‘Ndrangheta may have been behind the killing of Kuciak and his fiancée, who were found dead at their home near Bratislava on Sunday.

Kuciak was about to publish an article that raised possible political links between Italian businessmen operating in Slovakia and the ‘Ndrangheta.

Political tool?

Hours before the funeral, police released seven Italian nationals named in Kuciak’s report and who were detained on Thursday, a day after it was posthumously published.

Police investigators said that after “checking the facts,” they were unable to bring charges within the legal 48-hour detention period.

Thousands flocked to candlelit anti-corruption vigils for the murdered journalist held on Friday across Slovakia, an EU, and NATO country of 5.4 million people.

People hold a banner reading “Attacking a journalist = attacking all of us” during a silent protest march to pay tribute to murdered Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova, at the Freedom Square in Bratislava, Slovakia, on March 2, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused the opposition of using the murder as a “political tool to get people out on the streets and gain power.”

The latest protests echoed a wave of anti-graft rallies by mostly young Slovaks last year demanding the dismissal of senior police officials and ministers in Fico’s government for alleged foot-dragging on fighting corruption.

The seven Italians were taken into custody on Thursday in police raids in the eastern town of Michalovce.

Slovak media reported that among those held was businessman Antonino Vadala — the owner of several companies — and some of his relatives, alleged by Kuciak to have links to the mafia and contacts in the Slovak government.

€1 million reward

The allegations in Kuciak’s report triggered an angry rebuke from Fico, who showed reporters stacks of euro bills totaling the €1-million (US$1.2-million) reward he has offered for information that could lead to the killers.

Interior Minister Robert Kalinak said on Facebook on Thursday that Italian police, Europol, the FBI, and Scotland Yard pledged to help Slovak investigators.

Two close Fico associates were forced to resign after the article was posthumously published on Wednesday, while one minister quit in protest.

Echoing opposition parties, the leader of Most Hid, a junior partner in Fico’s three-party coalition, has also demanded Interior Minister Robert Kalinak resign.

The party said Saturday it would meet on March 12 to decide whether to quit the coalition after Kalinak refused to step down on Saturday.

‘Dangerous’ insults

Fico once told journalists they were “dirty, anti-Slovak prostitutes,” but he vowed that his government was committed to the “protection of freedom of speech and the safety of journalists” in the wake of the murder.

Christophe Deloire, the secretary-general of Reporters without Borders (RSF), told AFP he had asked Fico on Friday in Bratislava to “clearly express his regrets” for having publicly insulted journalists, something the RSF chief called “dangerous.”

Fico’s office later issued a statement saying that there was “no call on the PM to apologize to journalists,” denying Deloire’s claim.

But contacted by AFP, Harlem Desir, the Freedom of the Media representative at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, confirmed that Deloire had called on Fico to apologize to journalists.

The European Parliament is expected to send a fact-finding mission to Slovakia as early as next week, German MEP Ingeborg Grassle said on Saturday.

(Source: AFP)