Threat ‘stalls’ homecoming
No Gambia deal
NGALA, Nigeria, Dec 14, (Agencies): Seen from above in a helicopter, the straight white walls of Ngala camp in northeast Nigeria carve a misshapen star out of the dry brown scrub.
There are 55,000 people living in tents and straw huts inside the geometric garrison, protected from Boko Haram jihadists by the military.
Though the city of Ngala is less than a kilometre away, these people can’t go back to a normal life.
“Boko Haram is still here, the only thing we can do is wait for food,” said Aishi, a 50-year-old woman with deep lines in her tired face.
Over the past year, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has made repeated announcements that Boko Haram is close to being defeated and that thousands of people are returning home.
“They are done for,” said Buhari early this month. “The security situation in Nigeria had improved significantly.”
But many reclaimed towns, like Ngala, are charred, looted ruins still vulnerable to Boko Haram attacks.
So the people live in the guarded camps, cut off from any means of supporting themselves and dependant on external aid, while international humanitarian organisations warn of an impeding famine.
“Here we can’t do anything, we can’t leave the camp because Boko Haram will attack us,” said Abdullahi Asuha, a traditional chief.
“Boko Haram has plundered our crops, our herds and burned our land.”
Authorities estimate that 3,000 people have come to the Ngala camp in the past month, seeking shelter and food in a devastated region.
Today virtually all of Nigeria’s northeast is under military control.
Signs of the seven-year Boko Haram war that has killed over 20,000 people and displaced more than 2.6 million are everywhere.
Lampposts with broken solar panels lie on the ground, while enormous craters left by exploded mines have shattered the roads.
Most highways are blocked, civil authorities haven’t returned, and the majority of the displaced people are in camps scattered across northeast Borno state.
But Nigeria’s military insists that things are back to normal.
“The region is stable compared to what it has been, we have restored normalcy,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Omote, who commands Battalion 3 in Ngala.
Omote said his men had “carried out many clearing operations” and destroyed Boko Haram training camps.
The jihadists may be weakened, but instability and sporadic fighting still break out.
BANJUL:
Supporting
Also:
Buhari
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s ruling party challenged his defeat in a Dec 1 election at the Supreme Court on Tuesday as West African leaders failed to reach a deal that would see him accept the result and end a deepening political crisis.
Soldiers also seized the headquarters of the national elections commission and sealed it off just hours before the mediation delegation representing regional bloc ECOWAS touched down in the tiny riverside nation.
Jammeh, who has ruled Gambia since taking power in a 1994 coup and is accused of widespread rights abuses, initially conceded defeat to his main challenger, Adama Barrow. But in a dramatic about-face that drew international condemnation he then rejected the poll results last Friday.
JOHANNESBURG:
South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar, who fled to Democratic Republic of Congo in August after fierce fighting, is being held in South Africa to stop him stirring up trouble, diplomatic and political sources said on Tuesday.
Removing Machar from circulation would be a blow to his rebel SPLA-IO faction in its three-year war with President Salva Kiir’s mainstream SPLA, and could sway a conflict the United Nations fears is tilting towards genocide.
Over a million people have fled the world’s youngest nation since conflict erupted in late 2013 when Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, fired Machar, a Nuer, as his deputy.