Nigeria’s President Under Pressure To Quell Violence
Sunday Alamba / AP A police officer walks past the ruins of a market outside the state police headquarters in Kano, Nigeria, on Tuesday. Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s Muslim north, is an ancient, sprawling metropolis of more than 9 million. Last Friday, the Muslim day of prayers was shattered by a series of coordinated bomb blasts. Just down the street from one of the main market areas in the city, the road remains blocked off from a police station hit in the attacks. The radical Islamist sect Boko Haram claimed responsibility. Sagir Ali, a security guard at a parking lot at the market, says he watched as nearby government offices were attacked. “I saw a group of people and they started bombing the immigration office, and then we saw smoke rising,” Ali says. “The attackers told us, ‘Don’t run away. We’re fighting the police, not you civilians.’ ” Ali says the assailants were about his age, a group of young, heavily armed men shouting “Allahu akbar” — God is great. The police say the attacks were well-planned and deadly, and targeted mainly police stations and government buildings. The casualty count from the multiple bombings in Kano is between 150 and 200, and rising. Nigeria’s security forces have been sharply criticized for failing to contain Boko Haram. Under pressure to stop the violence, President Goodluck Jonathan traveled to Kano over the weekend. He says the militants have changed tactics. “These suicide attacks have not been a part of us; they are quite new to us,” Jonathan says. “Unfortunately, the whole world is passing through terror attacks; it’s an ugly part of our history. It’s a very ugly phase.” A Homegrown Threat Enlarge Aminu Abuabakar / AFP/Getty Images Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan (left) walks with the Emir of Kano Ado Bayero during a one-day visit to the city that was rocked by recent attacks. Aminu Abuabakar / AFP/Getty Images Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan (left) walks with the Emir of Kano Ado Bayero during a one-day visit to the city that was rocked by recent attacks. From a homegrown sect that initially picked on government and security institutions, Boko Haram has evolved into a serious security threat for Nigeria. Some describe the killing, shooting and bombing at will as a declaration of war against Jonathan’s government. Boko Haram means “Western education is sinful” in Hausa, the lingua franca in northern Nigeria. The sect has said it wants Islamic Sharia law imposed…
After Bombings, An Exodus From A Nigerian City
Enlarge Grant Clark / NPR Glory Ndudi, a Christian, and her five children board a bus headed out of town on Wednesday. The recent bomb attacks that have targeted churches in Kano, Nigeria, have led to an exodus of Christians from the city. Grant Clark / NPR Glory Ndudi, a Christian, and her five children board a bus headed out of town on Wednesday. The recent bomb attacks that have targeted churches in Kano, Nigeria, have led to an exodus of Christians from the city. The New Road bus station in the heart of Kano is a scene of bedlam. Men, women and children are milling around, with huge bundles and baggage in all shapes and sizes, waiting to be loaded onto half a dozen buses. Others are already onboard. They’re in a desperate hurry to head south, leaving behind this troubled city in the north of Nigeria. The exodus was prompted by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, which carried out multiple bombings on Jan. 20 that claimed nearly 200 lives in and around Kano, the largest city in the mostly Muslim north. The attacks have shaken residents in Kano and particularly the Christians, who are a majority in southern Nigeria but a minority in the north in a multiethnic country of more than 140 million. Map Of Nigeria Kemi Ezioha, a 32-year-old businesswoman and mother of four boys — who was born and raised in Kano — says she fears for her life. “In the bomb blasts, they normally kill both Christians and Muslims,” she says of Boko Haram. “But they threaten us in church. We can’t go to church. We can’t pray. We can’t do anything. So the whole thing is just too much. The whole thing is just hopeless. Everyone just wants to go. We are not safe.” Others standing nearby, like Glory Ndudi, nod vigorously in agreement. Ndudi is wearing a red T-shirt and a deep frown etched on her forehead. Her five children have already taken their seats on a bus. “Everywhere we are running. We can’t sleep. In the night, we can’t sleep. We can’t stay. We want to go. We are tired. Can’t you see the way I’m feeling? I’m shaking…
Fears of looming food shortage in Burundi
Bujumbura, Burundi (IRIN) – There are fears of a looming food shortage in Burundi after heavy rains damaged two successive harvests, say officials. “More than half of the expected harvest was lost in flooding and siltation,” Methode Niyongendako, a consultant with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said. The rains peaked in mid-September and November, exceeding forecasts in terms of volume and frequency, and were the heaviest since October 1961, according to households questioned, added Niyongendako. The most affected provinces include Gitega, Mwaro, Ngozi and Ruyigi, which have many rivers running through them. In Makamba, in the south of Burundi, at least 60 percent of the banana, cassava and maize crop was swept away, according to Salvator Sindayigaya, the agriculture provincial director, with the Kayagoro, Kibago, Makamba and Nyanzalac communes the most affected. The affected crop accounts for the country’s June to December harvest, agriculture season C, which represents 15 percent of the annual production. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) , the persistence of banana bacterial wilt in the provinces of Cankuzo and Kirundo and the continuation of cassava mosaic disease have further undermined food availability. “In Cankuzo, food stocks for the poorest households are quickly depleting because the harvest from the 2011 C, mainly beans and maize, was lower than expected due to excess rains,” added FEWS NET. At present, the Ministry of Agriculture and partners are assessing the production for season 2012 A, which ends in January and represents 35 percent of the total annual production. But there is little hope for good stocks as heavy rains, which started with the planting season in September 2011, continued throughout the cropping season. On 11 January, for example, some 45 hectares of crops were destroyed in Buganda, northwestern Cibitoke Province. “We were expecting a good harvest but hail destroyed all the crops of cassava and maize,” said Ernest Ndayizeye, a local leader. “Our children will die of hunger.” Rising prices and funding issues In central Karuzi Province, Isaac Nimpagaritse, an agriculture official, noted that food prices had increased. A kilogram of beans is now selling for 800 francs (US$0.62), double the normal price, after the bean crop was damaged at the flowering stage. “If they [farmers] plant 50 kilograms of beans…
Basua community battles for survival
Kampala, Uganda (IRIN) – The marginalized western Ugandan Basua community is fighting extinction; forcibly removed from their forest home two decades ago, they have struggled to cope with modern life and have been ravaged by health crises, including HIV. Uganda has two indigenous forest communities – the Batwa people of the southwest, a larger group originally from Rwanda and Burundi, and the Basua in the west who came from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Already marginalized for their short stature and for being traditional forest dwellers, the Basua have continued to receive less assistance than the Batwa because they are more geographically isolated and have a smaller population, numbering just 100. Forced resettlement Western Uganda’s Semliki Forest – the historical home of the Basua – became a National Park in 1993, and as a result, the community has lost its hunter-gatherer existence; they now have to request permission to fish and collect medicinal herbs and firewood, and are forbidden from hunting. The Basua have been moved around ever since, most recently to a village outside the small trading town of Bundimasoli in 2007, after a local NGO won a grant from the European Union to build a village for them, but the project collapsed under corruption allegations before it was completed. The community still has no clear rights to the land where it was resettled, and struggles to access basic services such as clean drinking water and healthcare. “Imagine someone is used to maybe going to the office, working, making phone calls, going to the ATM, withdrawing money… then you dump them in the forest instead,” said Fred Lulinaki, a program director at the East and Central Africa Association for Indigenous Rights (ECAAIR). “If they survive, it will be just by luck.” Some Basua men and women find casual jobs such as hauling wood, but most sit around the village with nothing to do. Some have turned to alcohol. Of the 40 children, Lulinaki said only two attend school, either because they are orphaned or their parents cannot afford the cost of pens and school fees. Fifteen of the community’s children are orphans. HIV Ezekiel Mugisa, local coordinator of the Organization for the Survival of the Basua (OSIBA), said the first documented case of HIV among them was in 1985, but the virus really established a foothold when the Allied Democratic Forces – a…
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