Makurdi, Nigeria | AFP | Five people have been killed in fresh clashes between farmers and nomadic herders in Benue state in central Nigeria, the epicentre of a wave of deadly violence this year over grazing land, police said Monday. “Just yesterday we had a case where two persons were …
Read More »Nigerian girls reunited with families after Boko Haram kidnapping
Dapchi, Nigeria | AFP | The schoolgirls kidnapped by the Boko Haram jihadist group in Dapchi, northeastern Nigeria, were reunited with their families on Sunday after spending nearly five weeks in captivity. The 105 girls, covered head to toe in burkas, arrived aboard five buses in the town of Dapchi, in …
Read More »Nigeria’s Buhari meets with Dapchi girls
Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari received the released Dapchi girls on Friday in a meeting clouded by the absence of a Christian student still held by Boko Haram for refusing to convert to Islam. “We entered into negotiation solely to make sure that no single girl …
Read More »Freed Boko Haram girls in Abuja for debrief and president meeting
Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | More than 100 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram were in Nigeria’s capital on Thursday, a day after their surprise release that fuelled rumours about how their freedom was won. A total of 104 of the 110 students seized from the school in Dapchi, in the …
Read More »Security fears shut boarding schools in NE Nigerian state
Kano, Nigeria | AFP | Boarding schools have been shut indefinitely in the northeast Nigerian state most affected by Boko Haram violence, the government has said, in the latest blow to children’s education. “All boarding secondary schools in the state, with the exception of those in (the state capital) Maiduguri …
Read More »Abducted Nigeria schoolgirls ‘brought back’ by Boko Haram: parents
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Boko Haram Islamists who kidnapped more than 100 schoolgirls in Dapchi, northeast Nigeria, just over a month ago have returned the students to the town, two parents told AFP on Wednesday. A senior government source in Abuja and police in Yobe state also confirmed the …
Read More »Nigeria was warned before Boko Haram abduction: Amnesty
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria’s military was on Tuesday accused of ignoring repeated warnings about the movements of Boko Haram fighters before they kidnapped 110 schoolgirls in the country’s restive northeast. The students — the youngest of whom is aged just 10 — were seized from the town of …
Read More »Nigeria skips African summit in blow to free trade deal
Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari will not attend the African Union summit in Rwanda this week, an official statement said Sunday, in a blow to plans to launch a major free trade treaty across 54 countries. The meeting in Kigali is intended to formally launch the …
Read More »Shell, ENI accused of negligence over Nigeria oil spills
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria was on Friday urged to re-open investigations into 89 oil spills in its southern delta region, after claims that Shell and ENI misreported the causes. Rights group Amnesty International said there were “reasonable doubts” about how the spills happened, suggesting corrosion rather than oil …
Read More »Nigeria promises return of kidnapped schoolgirls
Damaturu, NIGERIA | AFP | Nigeria’s president, in a visit to the country’s troubled northeast, on Monday predicted success in what he described as relentless efforts to release more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram. The jihadists are still holding 112 of the 219 students they abducted from the Borno …
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