4, January 2018
Nigerian military rescues one of 270 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 0
Nigeria’s military has announced in a statement that its soldiers have rescued one of the 270 schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 by Daesh-linked Boko Haram terrorist group from the town of Chibok.
The statement declared on Thursday that Salomi Pagu was discovered by troops deployed in the town of Pulka along with another girl and a small child, noting that the second girl was not among the Chibok pupils abducted by the notorious terror group.
“They…are in the safe custody of troops and receiving medical attention,” said the military statement without elaborating on the circumstance of their rescue.
The mass kidnapping of more than 270 female students triggered global condemnation and intense criticism of Nigerian officials in the country as well as an international “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign.
Of the 276 originally abducted students, nearly 60 escaped soon after the incident. Some 100 are still believed to remain in captivity.
This is while the Takfiri terror group released 82 of the young girls last May following a swap deal involving a ransom payment to the terrorists and the release of a number of the group’s imprisoned senior members. Prior to that, 24 of the kidnapped girls had been freed or found in 2016.
While the mass abduction in Chibok attracted international attention, aid groups insist that Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands more adults and children, whose fate have largely been neglected by local authorities.
The development came amid earlier reports that at least 31 loggers were believed to have been abducted by Boko Haram militants after they went missing in northeast Nigeria.
Security sources were cited as saying on Wednesday that the alleged kidnapping took place just days after 30 troops vanished following a raid on a military base in the same area.
Boko Haram fighters still operate in hard-to-reach rural areas where military operations are minimal.
Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency against the Nigerian government has further spilled into neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, leaving nearly 20,000 people dead and displacing over 2.6 million more.
Most of the displaced rely on food handouts from aid agencies while others have turned to logging in the arid region for firewood which they sell to purchase food.
The Takfiri terrorists have increasingly targeted loggers in their armed campaign, accusing them of spying and relaying information to the military and the local militia battling them.
On Christmas Day, the militants killed 25 loggers at a logging site outside the city of Maiduguri.
Source: Presstv
8, January 2018
Nigeria evacuating citizens from Libya amid reports of abuses against refugees 0
Nigeria has started evacuating thousands of its citizens trapped in Libya amid reports of rampant abuses against Europe-bound refugees in the North African state.
Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama told reporters during a visit to Tripoli on Saturday that he expected an estimated 5,500 Nigerian citizens to be repatriated as part of the process, but noted that the situation on the ground made it hard to ascertain the exact number.
“Our president has made available all the resources necessary to repatriate all the Nigerians here,” said Onyeama, adding that two planes had been assigned for the task.
Thousands of Nigerians have been stuck in Libya after failing to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
According to a report by Al Jazeera, Nigerians in Libya have conveyed horrific accounts of abuses ranging from imprisonment and torture to slavery and rape.
Citizens of Nigeria make the largest national group among African refugees traveling to Libya in the hope of crossing from there to Italy by sea en the route to other European states.
Around 500 Nigerians were brought in by the government in the first round of the evacuation process over the weekend.
In November 2017, the CNN aired footage, showing live auctions in Libya where black youths were being sold for hundreds of dollars to buyers as farmhands.
The footage drew global outrage, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres saying the reported auctions of refugees as slaves amount to “crimes against humanity” and calling for an immediate investigation into the matter.
Several protests were also held in European cities to condemn the slave markets, with the participants blaming the European Union’s support for a 2011 NATO military intervention in Libya for the current chaotic situation in the African country.
Libya has faced a power vacuum since the NATO military intervention resulted in the downfall of its longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Since then, the country has been grappling with chaos and the emergence of numerous militant groups, including the Takfiri Daesh terror group.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 171,635 asylum seekers entered Europe by sea during 2017. Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Spain were the main destinations, with nearly 70 percent arriving in Italy.
Source: Presstv