Hundreds of Cameroonians living in northern Nigeria, near territory controlled by the Boko Haram terrorist group, are escaping atrocities and returning to their villages of birth with the hope of finding peace. Rights groups, however, say the returnees are rejected by their communities and face several forms of violence.
One hundred returnees who recently arrived at the northern Cameroon border village of Zamai, where people such as Zenabou Abu, 40, talk of the lengthy treks required to find peace and stability.
Abu, who escaped the Sambisa forest stronghold of Boko Haram along the Cameroon-Nigeria border, walked for three weeks — with her eight children in two — to get here. It was upon arriving that she saw her husband for the first time in four years, and finally learned from old friends that her parents had departed Zamai 36 years ago, when she was a kid getting settled in Sambisa with cattle ranchers.
At Zamai's joint Cameroonian-UN operated resettlement camp, Houli Bernadette attends to pregnant and sick returnees. One of them, a 15-year-old girl, had been forced to marry a Boko Haram member.
"She was asked to stop school and forced to get married to a Boko Haram agent when she was 14," says Bernadette "She says the girl's husband is wanted by law enforcement authorities for selling stolen cattle and handing the money to Boko Haram fighters."
UN: 25,000 killed, 2.5 million displaced
Since Boko Haram began launching attacks in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger three years ago, the group has destroyed villages and killed residents, especially men who refused to join them. According to United Nations estimates, some 25,000 have been killed and more that 2.5 million have been displaced.
Sali Bobo, a Cameroon-based rights advocate, says even those lucky enough to have escaped the militants find that peace remains frustratingly elusive.
"They are deeply traumatized because one day they saw foreigners arrive in their villages and slaughter their husbands and male children," he says. "Memories of the horror keep coming to their minds, especially when they see people they have never seen before. They're scared and find it very difficult to communicate."
Beyond being perceived as outsiders, Bobo adds, new arrivals are forced to compete with locals for limited resources. Displaced women and girls, who are extremely poor if not homeless, frequently suffer sexual harassment and sometimes rape, he says.
"The returnees, who are mainly women and children, [are ordered] to obey the people of Zamai village who have agreed to host them," said Ibrahim Hamaoua, Zamai's traditional ruler of Zamai, explaining that conflicts over food and water erupt regularly.
"Within the past two months, hundreds of returnees have complained of hunger and thirst," he added. "The villagers are not happy because they themselves have not had enough to eat and drink."
In February, the United Nations called on the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria to ensure that areas purportedly liberated from Boko Haram forces are truly safe for people returning home.
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Cameroonians Escaping Boko Haram Find No Peace When Returning Home
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EU foreign ministers walk Turkey tightrope
EU foreign ministers are looking for ways to reconcile rights concerns with maintaining a key refugee deal with Ankara. Divisions have also continued over whether to keep up talks on Turkey's EU accession.
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Kenya caps the cost of bank loans
In Kenya the cost of borrowing has come down because the government has passed a law limiting how much banks can charge customers for loans.
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Media Groups Call for Global Support of Press Freedom in Zimbabwe
Media protection groups are calling on the international community to pressure President Robert Mugabe's government to respect freedom of the press in Zimbabwe.
Photojournalist James Jemwa was released on bail Friday after spending a week behind bars, but the Media Institute of Southern Africa said two other journalists were still in custody and several others had been assaulted or had their equipment destroyed by police while covering anti-government protests.
“Media in Zimbabwe should enjoy their freedom as granted by the constitution and not at the benevolence of state agencies," said Nhlanhla Ngwenya, head of the institute in Zimbabwe. "We are seeking to engage commanders of these people who have been arresting and wantonly beating up journalists and actually express our anger and let them know that journalism is not a crime. So the fact that they are found at these protests, it is not because they like it there, but it is because they are answering to their call of duty, as much as the police do so.”
On Thursday, the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists said it wanted international bodies such as the United Nations and the Committee to Protect Journalists to plead with the Mugabe government to respect freedom of the press, which has been guaranteed in the constitution since 2013.
Wave of demonstrations
For the past two months, Zimbabwe has been hit by an unprecedented wave of anti-Mugabe protests accusing the 92-year-old leader of failing to fix the country's economy and respect human rights. It is during those protests that photojournalists have been assaulted, arrested or had equipment destroyed by police.
In a telephone interview Friday, Zimbabwe Information Minister Christopher Mushohwe maintained his earlier stance, in which he blamed journalists for the assaults from the police.
"Journalists should never, ever be part of a demonstrating mob," he said. "You should always be on the side of law enforcement agents. And that is what is done internationally." If protesters resort to violence, he added, journalists' job "is to take pictures and not to be part of them."
Mushohwe repeated his position despite the fact that video and photos have been circulating on social media showing police assaulting or chasing journalists and, in some instances, asking them to delete their work.
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Nigeria’s Northeast Prepares to Resume School
Officials in Nigeria’s war-torn northeast are rebuilding damaged schools and moving displaced people out of classrooms in an effort to get students who were disrupted by years of Boko Haram violence back to their studies.
With 10.5 million students — nearly one in three — out of the classroom, Nigeria has one of the world’s largest populations of primary school-age children who are out of school, the U.N. Children’s Fund announced this week.
The seven-year insurgency by Boko Haram has had a major impact on education in the country’s northeastern corner. One million children have been forced to leave school because of the violence, UNICEF says. About 1,200 schools have been damaged, looted or turned into shelters for displaced people.
Borno state, where the insurgency got its start and which was the scene of some of the most intense fighting, will start its term later this month now that the militants have gone. State education minister Musa Inuwa Kubo said the local governments were taking steps to get classrooms ready for returning students.
Internally displaced people have been relocated, and "we have renovated all the schools that the IDPs stayed in," Kubo said.
Boko Hararm roughly translates to "western education is forbidden." The group has murdered teachers and students, and destroyed more than 140 schools in Borno state alone, Kubo said.
Rebuilding under way
Reconstruction has started on some schools that have been destroyed, particularly in towns near the state capital, Maiduguri, Kubo said.
In Chibok, site of the mass Boko Haram kidnapping of 279 schoolgirls from the town’s boarding school in 2014 that sparked global outrage, Nigerian army engineers have started rebuilding.
But some parts of Borno remain too dangerous to access, Kubo said. Fifteen schools in these areas will not open when classes resume.
Years of fighting have forced about 2.7 million people to flee across Nigeria and its neighboring regions. That’s caused a surge of displaced people into cities such as Maiduguri.
Toby Fricker, a UNICEF spokesman, said some schools will face a 180 percent increase in students.
Easier access to school?
But this influx may also offer some advantages, Fricker said. Borno is one of Nigeria’s poorest states and school attendance was low even before the insurgency.
"You really have a lot of displaced people who are in towns or even in internally displaced camps and in some cases have easier access to education because of the location," requiring less travel than before, Fricker said.
The moves to rebuild schools could not come soon enough. While the insurgents damaged the school in Chibok during the kidnapping, the government leveled it completely soon afterward.
Parents complained that the demolition left their children with no place to continue their education.
If her abducted daughter is rescued, Esther Yakubu says she would let Dorcas Yakubu finish her education at the new school – on one condition.
"She cannot live in the school anymore," Yakubu said. "You know, if she’s with me at home, just going to the school to write her paper and come back home, this [kidnapping] would not even happen to her."
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I owe NHC nothing, claims Mbowe
Mbowe says his firm owns 75 per cent of the property through a 1997 deal
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DAS’ no-show raises questions
Districts authorities here have remained tightlipped over the no-show of the newly-appointed District Administrative Secretary.
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Baada ya miaka 10, Real Madrid waweka rekodi ya matumizi madogo kwenye usajili
Ukimya wa Real Madrid katika soko la usajili umewafanya mabingwa hao wa ulaya kuweka rekodi ya kutumia Fedha kidogo zaidi kwenye usajili katika kipindi cha miaka 10 iliyopita, huku wakiwa na hatari ya kufungiwa kwa vipindi viwili vya usajili.
Real wametumia kiasi cha Euro million 30 walizowalipa Juventus kumrudisha Alvaro Morata kikosini kutokea Turin.
Hivyo tangu walipomnunua David Beckham mwaka 2003, mwaka huu ndio wametumia kiasi kidogo zaidi katika kuimarisha kikosi chao. Mwaka huo, Raisi wa Madrid Florentino Pérez alitumia 25 million euros kumsajili nahodha hiyo wa zamani wa England.
2009: Msimu wa gharama zaidi
Wakati mwaka 2003 walitumia kiasi kidogo zaidi, msimu wa 2009/2010 ndio msimu ambao Madrid walitumia fedha nyingi zaidi, walitumia jumla ya 259 million kufanya usajili. Huu ndio msimu ambao Perez alirejea madarakani na kuwasajili Cristiano Ronaldo (96 million), Kaká (65), Karim Benzema (35) na Xabi Alonso (30).
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UN: Death Toll Among Refugees Crossing Mediterranean Is Highest Ever
The U.N. refugee agency estimates nearly 4,200 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea since Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body washed ashore on a Turkish beach one year ago. During the first eight months of this year, the agency reports, more than 280,000 people have made the treacherous sea crossing to Europe.
The number of arrivals in Greece has practically dried up, following the implementation of a European Union-Turkey accord under which migrants are prevented from leaving Turkish shores. But the numbers leaving Libya for Italy remain high.
UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said Friday that the change in the migratory pattern had caused a spike in the number of casualties.
“So far this year, one person has died for every 42 crossings from North Africa to Italy, compared to one in every 52 last year," he said. "This makes 2016 to date the deadliest year on record in the central Mediterranean. The chances of dying on the Libya-to-Italy route are 10 times higher than when crossing from Turkey to Greece.”
Legal pathways
Spindler said these dangers reinforce the urgent need to increase legal pathways for refugees to seek asylum in European countries. These, he said, could involve resettlement or private sponsorship, family reunification and student scholarship schemes.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Children’s Fund estimated that 500,000 refugee and migrant children had fallen prey to smugglers. The agency said people smuggling and human trafficking were now estimated to be worth up to $6 billion annually.
UNICEF spokeswoman Sarah Crowe told VOA that children, especially unaccompanied youngsters, who use smugglers to reach European countries of destination were very vulnerable to exploitation.
“It may mean that they have to pay off their debts in favors, in exploitative services, such as labor, sexual prostitution, sexual exploitation and so on," she said. "But sometimes, just out of desperation, they will fall into the hands of other criminals, organized crime, et cetera.”
To help protect refugee and migrant children, UNICEF is calling for greater efforts in tracking and documenting smuggling and trafficking networks that target children on the move.
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Samsung recalls phone over safety issues
Samsung said Friday it would suspend sales of its latest flagship smartphone Galaxy Note 7 as reports of exploding batteries threatened to damage the reputation of the South Korean electronics giant.
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PM’s Dodoma shift on course
The government’s relocation to Dodoma gathers momentum.
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Council treasurer sought over loss of Sh84m
Longido District Commissioner Daniel Chongolo has ordered the arrest of the council treasurer over the alleged loss of Sh84.37 million paid out to ghost worke
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Hurricane Hermine leaves Florida coastal damage
One person was killed, buildings were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of homes were left without power. Hermine has weakened into a tropical storm as it heads up the US east coast.
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Brela, NMB deal eases running of business
Businesspersons will no longer need to physically visit the Business Registration and Licensing Agency offices for services, thanks to a new partnership with NMB Bank.
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Women’s activists want law changed
Women’s rights activists want the government to review the Education Act.
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Mayanja: Siasa zinaua soka
Tatizo la kushuka kwa soka la Tanzania kumeelezwa kuwa ni siasa nyingi zinazoingizwa kwenye michezo pamoja na viongozi wengi kung’ang’ania madarakani.
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Mhasibu kizimbani akidaiwa kumtukana JPM
Mhasibu wa Sekondari ya Mtakatifu Joseph, Elizabeth Asenga (40), jana alipandishwa kizimbani katika Mahakama ya Hakimu Mkazi Kisutu kujibu shtaka la kutuma ujumbe wa kumkashifu Rais John Magufuli kupitia mtandao wa WhatsApp.
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Ngasa yamkuta Sauzi
Kitendo cha mshambuliaji wa kimataifa wa Tanzania kuvunjiwa mkataba wake na klabu ya Free State ya Afrika Kusini, kimechukuliwa kama kujimaliza kisoka.
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Nigeria kuwatoa Dante, Mwantika
Matokeo yoyote ya timu ya Taifa (Taifa Stars) dhidi ya Nigeria ‘Super Eagles’ leo saa 11.00 jioni (sawa 1:00 usiku Tanzania) yatatokana na kiwango pia ubora wa mabeki.
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Ndalichako awafunda wahitimu JKT
Waziri wa Elimu, Sayansi, Teknolojia na Mafunzo ya Ufundi, Profesa Joyce Ndalichako amesema ili Tanzania iwe miongoni mwa nchi zenye ushindani kwenye elimu duniani, juhudi zaidi zinahitajika kukuza na kusimamia kiwango chake.
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