News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

How mother-of-three escaped Boko Haram

Posted: 23 May 2016 05:41 AM PDT

Khadija Ibrahim described how she escaped from Boko Haram Islamists after being drugged and told she was going to become a suicide bomber.

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Maiduguri - A Nigerian mother of three has described how she escaped from Boko Haram Islamists after being abducted, drugged and told she was going to become a suicide bomber.

Khadija Ibrahim, 30, said she was snatched by two men from a bus station in the northeastern city of Maiduguri on Friday, as she travelled to see her doctor for medical treatment.

Her account backs up theories that female suicide bombers used by Boko Haram are not willing participants.

The group has deployed the tactic against civilian “soft” targets since mid-2014.

“They offered me a lift, which I readily accepted because I wanted to be at the hospital on time. They drugged me by placing something on my nose and I lost consciousness,” she told reporters on Sunday.

“I just woke up to realise I had been stripped and strapped with a suicide vest and heard one of my captors whispering to me that I was going to do God's work.”

Ibrahim, who has three children, said the kidnappers told her she was being taken to attack the Kantin Kwari textile market in the northern city of Kano.

But she said she came round from the effects of the drugs and feigned unconsciousness until she saw her chance to escape when the car overheated twice on the way and was forced to stop.

Ibrahim said she managed to unfasten the bomb vest during the second breakdown, which happened after they reached Kano late on Friday.

“While the driver went to look for water the other man went out to the opened bonnet to examine the engine, which gave me an opportunity to ran out of the vehicle,” she said.

Another young woman who was in the car with her may also have been drugged, she suggested, as she looked “dumb and unaware of what was happening around her”.

It is not known what happened to her.

Ibrahim said she was picked up by a man in the Hotoro neighbourhood of Kano late on Friday, who took her to the police.

They then handed her to the state governor, Umar Ganduje.

“If this woman had not regained consciousness the story would have been different by now,” he told reporters.

Boko Haram has attacked the Kantin Kwari market before. In December 2014, two young female suicide bombers killed four people, while a third refused to detonate her explosives and was arrested.

In July 2014 there was a spate of suicide bomb attacks by young women in Kano, which led the state government to cancel celebrations to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadaan.

AFP

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Pope and top imam hold historic meeting

Posted: 23 May 2016 05:39 AM PDT

Pope Francis met the grand imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque in a historic encounter that was sealed with a hugely symbolic hug.

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Vatican City - Pope Francis met the grand imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque at the Vatican on Monday in a historic encounter that was sealed with a hugely symbolic hug and exchange of kisses.

The first Vatican meeting between the leader of the world's Catholics and the highest authority in Sunni Islam marks the culmination of a significant improvement in relations between the two faiths since Francis took office in 2013.

“Our meeting is the message,” Francis said in a brief comment to a small pool of reporters present at the start of his meeting with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb.

In a statement on the trip, Al-Azhar said Tayeb had accepted Francis's invitation in order to “explore efforts to spread peace and co-existence.”

The “very cordial” meeting lasted around 30 minutes, the Vatican said in a statement after the talks.

Tayeb's decision to fly to Rome, unexpectedly announced last week, followed the easing of serious tensions that marked the reign of of Francis's predecessor, Benedict XVI.

Ties were badly soured when the now-retired Benedict made a September 2006 speech in which he was perceived to have linked Islam to violence, sparking deadly protests in several countries and reprisal attacks on Christians.

Pope John-Paul II met the then-grand imam of Al-Azhar in Cairo in 2000, a year before the September 11 attacks on New York transformed relations between the West and the Islamic world.

AFP

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Visas for African students made easier

Posted: 23 May 2016 04:00 AM PDT

Home Affairs has emphasised the strides the department had made in its immigration policy, particularly for students.

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Johannesburg - Concerns about visas and long waiting times for asylum-seekers were raised on Saturday at an event held by the Diaspora African Women Renaissance.

Hosted by the women’s rights organisation at the Victory Theatre in Houghton, Joburg, participants included the Department of Home Affairs and immigration and human rights experts.

Ronney Marhule from the Department of Home Affairs emphasised the strides the department had made in its immigration policy, particularly for students. An amendment by the department granted student visas for the duration of their study if they attend any South African university, except Unisa, which is a distance-education university, he said.

“We have taken a number of good decisions, simply because we understood the difficulties that students have experienced,” Marhule said. “We are cognisant that, on a number of occasions, students were expected to return home and apply for extensions, and that affected their academic record.”

Foreign students face additional hurdles when it comes to immigration, education and finances, said Ozoemena Nwamadi, president of the National Association of Nigerian Students in South Africa.

“South Africa has grown so much since universities opened their doors to the outside world,” Nwamadi said. “Immigration problems in South Africa have not been favourable to foreign students. These challenges have discouraged a lot of people from continuing their education in South Africa.”

One attendee accused the department of not dealing adequately with corruption. “It is embarrassing as a South African to see how we treat our African brothers and sisters,” she said.

The Star

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Libya intercepts 850 migrants at sea

Posted: 23 May 2016 03:24 AM PDT

Libyan coastguards intercepted about 850 migrants off the coast near the western city of Sabratha, a spokesman said.

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Tripoli - Libyan coastguards intercepted about 850 migrants on Sunday off the coast near the western city of Sabratha, a spokesman said.

Ayoub Qassem said the migrants were from various African countries and among them were 79 women, including 11 who were pregnant, as well as 11 children.

They were travelling in inflatable rubber boats, he said.

Libya is a major departure point for mainly sub-Saharan African migrants trying to reach Europe through crossings arranged by people smugglers.

Migrants are often given flimsy boats that are ill-equipped for travelling across the Mediterranean.

The flow of migrants has increased amid the turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising against long-time Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

More than 30 000 have already crossed on the central Mediterranean route to Italy this year, and more are expected to attempt the journey in calmer weather during the summer.

The International Organisation for Migration has identified 235 000 migrants in Libya, but says the real number is likely to be much higher, between 700 000 and one million.

Some of these stay in Libya to work before either returning home or trying to continue on towards Europe.

Reuters

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Tear gas used to disperse Kenyan protesters

Posted: 23 May 2016 02:18 AM PDT

Kenyan police fired teargas to disperse protesters demonstrating against an electoral oversight body which opposition parties want scrapped.

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Mombasa, Kenya - Kenyan police in the port city of Mombasa fired teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters demonstrating against an electoral oversight body which opposition parties want scrapped, a Reuters witness said.

Police in riot gear earlier patrolled the streets while businesses stayed closed for fear of looting, the witness said.

About three hundred protesters demonstrated with placards reading “IEBC must go home now”, a reference to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

Another banner read “Democracy on trial. The struggle is on.”

It is the fourth week running for the protests, called by the opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD). In similar previous protests in the capital Nairobi, police have used tear-gas and water cannon against stone-throwing crowds.

“We shall not allow any disruption to normal business activities in the city. The demonstrations are illegal and the organisers have been clearly warned. If they insist on rioting, they will meet us there,” Lucas Ogara, Mombasa's police chief, told Reuters.

Kenya's next presidential and parliamentary polls are not due until August 2017.

But politicians are already trying to galvanise their supporters in a nation where violence erupted after the 2007 vote and the opposition disputed the outcome in 2013.

The opposition CORD coalition, led by Raila Odinga who lost the 2013 vote and unsuccessfully challenged the result in court, has accused the IEBC of bias and said its members should quit. IEBC officials have dismissed the charge and say they will stay.

The government has called on the opposition not to stage street protests against the IEBC and asked them to pursue other peaceful means to bring about change.

But CORD on Sunday vowed to keep up the protests in Nairobi and other regions. “Kenyans will be doing this, as we have done in the past, in exercise of their right to assemble peaceably and to direct the widest possible attention to a great national issue,” it said in the statement.

Reuters

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Ten facts about Boko Haram's 7-year insurgency

Posted: 23 May 2016 02:16 AM PDT

World leaders and aid chiefs have been discussing how to coordinate the fight against Boko Haram.

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Niamey - World leaders and aid chiefs have been discussing how to coordinate the fight against Boko Haram and respond to the humanitarian crisis created by the Islamist militant group's seven-year insurgency in north-east Nigeria.

Nigeria's neighbours, French President Francois Hollande, and senior US and British officials attended a security summit earlier this month in the Nigerian capital of Abuja.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien will speak at a panel on the impact of Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin region at this week's World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, where he hopes to draw attention to the needs of the affected populations.

Here are 10 facts about Boko Haram:

- The Islamist militant group Boko Haram became active in 2003 and carried out its first attack in 2004, from its then heartland in north-east Nigeria around Maiduguri.

- Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful” in the Hausa language, demands the adoption of sharia (Islamic law) across Nigeria and considers all people who do not follow its ideology to be infidels, whether they are Muslim or Christian.

- Since 2009, the militants have waged an insurgency aimed at establishing an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria.

- The most high-profile attack took place on April 14, 2014, when the militants kidnapped 276 schoolgirls, from a secondary school in Chibok in Borno state, northeast Nigeria. About 50 of the girls escaped but 219 were captured.

- Boko Haram controlled a swath of land in northeast Nigeria around the size of Belgium at the start of 2015, but was pushed out by Nigerian and regional troops. The militants have since struck back with cross-border attacks and suicide bombings.

- About 2 000 girls and boys have been kidnapped by Boko Haram since the beginning of 2014, and are used by the group as cooks, sex slaves, fighters and even suicide bombers.

- Boko Haram used 44 children to carry out suicide attacks in West Africa last year, up from four in 2014, with some as young as eight, mostly girls, detonating bombs in schools and markets.

- The insurgency has forced around 2.4 million people to flee their homes in the four Lake Chad Basin countries - Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

- The militant group has killed more than 15 000 people.

- Boko Haram last year pledged allegiance to Islamic State, which rules a self-declared caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, and may be sending fighters to assist the group in Libya.

Reuters

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Mapisa-Nqakula: Here’s the facts about Burundian woman

Posted: 23 May 2016 12:19 AM PDT

Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula says she is “saddened” by a report alleging she abused state resources to help a Burundian woman enter SA unlawfully.

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Johannesburg - The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on Monday said “she was saddened” by the Sunday Times report alleging she that transported a young Burundian woman into the country unlawfully and that in the process, she abused state resources.

In a detailed statement issued by the Ministry of Defence and Military Veterans, Mapisa-Nqakula said the report was a “deliberate attempt to twist the facts in this matter”.

The Sunday Times reported that Mapisa-Nqakula had conceded that she flew from Waterkloof Air Force Base to the Democratic Republic of Congo to collect a Burundian woman who had been arrested for falsifying travel documents.

But the ministry of defence said Mapisa-Nqakula found it particularly “hurtful that despite her sharing the circumstances involved in the unfolding of this matter with the Sunday Times, the reporter chose his obvious bias and sensation, without any regard for the protection of a child rescued from a life of abuse and abandonment”.

The defence ministry added: “In so doing the reporter, Mzilikazi wa Afrika, may have caused to reverse months of progress the child has made in healing and rebuilding her life.”

Mapisa-Nqakula said: “For more than two years now, my family and I have been living with a young woman, a Burundian national, that was forced to leave her home to escape a life of abuse at the hands of her father. Her mother died, having committed suicide due to abuse when the little girl as three years old.

“The young woman had become friends with my children during their various holiday visits, between 2013 and 2014, to Burundi, where my sister lived during her diplomatic tour of duty for the SA government.

“During this period, Mimi, as we all call her in the house, visited my family in South Africa twice, including spending the festive holidays of 2013 with us.

“As required by our immigration laws, my family and I provided letters of invitation and confirmation for living expenses in order for her visa to be issued.

“On both occasions that she had visited us in 2013, Mimi was issued a visa (visitor’s permit) on the presentation of her Burundi passport.

“It was only after our children had returned with Mimi to Burundi for the January leg of the holidays that we became aware of the circumstances under which she had been living and that since her childhood, she had lived a life of abuse and had lived with various relatives and foster families in Europe, the US and Burundi, since her mother died,” said Maspisa-Nqakula.

The minister said Mimi expressed a wish to live in South Africa to pursue her studies and to live in a safe environment.

“Her father initially allowed her to travel to SA and also gave her passport, which he normally kept,” said Mapisa-Nqakula.

“On the day the children were to travel, her father followed her at the airport with security personnel and demanded that she not travel.

“Mimi was already over 18 years of age and protested that she can no longer continue to live in a secretive life of abuse and that with her father’s powerful connections she will not receive protection in Burundi. (This traumatic conversation of the confrontation in the airport security office is recorded by the children and is available)

“Since her father could not legally stop her from travelling, he once again confiscated her passport, which still had a valid 3 months South African visa from her previous travel to SA.

“From this moment, Mimi resolved to seek refuge with friends and other families and seek help to obtain papers to leave Burundi on her own,” said Mapisa-Nqakula.

The minister said Mimi approached the UNCHR, which registered her case, but could not assist her as their scope was limited to assisting refugees who were entering Burundi to seek protection from other countries.

“They did not have the ability to assist her to leave the country, but given the seriousness of her case, they advised her to seek entry into the Democratic Republic of Congo and advised her to contact the Congolese embassy in Bujumbura,” said Mapisa-Nqakula.

“She was then advised she could be assisted to obtain a temporary Congolese passport. In order to avoid the risk of alerting her father of the impending escape, she had to assume a false name at the Uvira border, she was assisted with temporary travel documents to travel into the Congo and present herself to the South African embassy and reveal her true identity for assistance and protection.

“Having concern for her destitute situation, and worried for her safety in a foreign country, I had once again, in my individual capacity, written an assurance letter to the SA embassy in the DRC to assist her in obtaining a visa so that she can travel to SA. In this regard she had become a classical case for refugee assistance and protection.

“She was, however, arrested in the Congo on suspicion of holding a fraudulent document as she couldn’t speak French or any of the Congolese local languages.

“This young, frail and vulnerable woman, known to my family and a friend of our children, became destitute and vulnerable to further abuse, possibly even sexual harassment. She was in detention for a total of 10 days,” said Mapisa-Nqakula.

She said it was “also around this time that I was supposed to travel on official business” for the 26th AU summit in Addis Abba towards the end of January 2014.

“My delegation and I were also due to meet with my counterpart in the DRC, in preparation for the ministerial consultation of countries dealing with the Great Lakes crisis, on the side of the AU summit,” said the minister.

“Given this opportunity, after the meeting, I had brought the matter of Mimi’s plight to the minister to enquire if there is a way for her to be assisted.

“The minister in the DRC, then consulted the immigration office to enquire about her circumstances, and was informed that she had not committed a crime and was only detained to verify how she obtained a Congolese travel document and that they had concluded there investigation in that regard.

“They also confirmed that my account of her circumstances collaborated her written statement at the time of detention and that she could be released.

“To avoid her being deported back to her country, I offered to take her with me and to assist her in gaining her lawful travel documents.

“It is therefore completely misleading, as reported by the Sunday Times, that I had organised a trip and assembled a delegation of senior military and government officials, simply to travel to the Congo to illegally ‘smuggle’ a child.

“Mimi had been lawfully released by the Congolese government after my clarification of her circumstances and the conclusion of their own investigation,” said Mapisa Nqakula.

She said fortunately Mimi had kept a copy of her passport with a South African visa on a memory stick.

“It was through this document that she was able to travel with me to Addis Ababa and return to South Africa, legally. Why the Sunday Times report chooses to claim that she travelled with fraudulent documents, is beyond comprehension.”

Mapisa-Nqakula said a copy of Mimi’s passport was available.

The minister said Mimi has since “applied and obtained a study permit and enrolled at a college in South Africa while living in my house”.

The minister said: “Mimi is finally on a path of healing and living in conditions of safety and it is my hope that she will find stability that will help to prepare her for a full and productive future life.

“Over this period, she has re-established contact with her family, and recently, we recently also received a request from her father to meet with her, and with her consent advised that he can come and see her at the house where she can be comfortable.

“It is my hope that she can continue to study and complete her studies with our support and that this will prepare her to be a stable and independent woman, when she finally leaves our home on completion of her schooling.

“I have no regrets in the actions that I have taken and my involvement in assisting this child. I would never have been able to live with my conscience if something had happened to her when I knew that I could have done something to help her. I believe it was the right thing to do.”

The defence ministry said it “will like to put it on record that the facts as presented above were given to the Sunday Times reporter Mr Mzilikazi wa Afrika, who came with the editor-in-chief to interview the minister late Sunday afternoon”.

The ministry said it had initially “recorded our concern” with the editor that Mapisa-Nqakula was only informed at 2pm that there was a story involving her being written for the following day, and that they would want her response.

“It was always our concern that such a last-minute approach would jeopardise the integrity of the story as, so close to the deadline, the story had already been written without the minister’s side of the story, and that it would be difficult, at that late stage to rework the story to reflect the truth, even after obtaining the facts,” said the defence ministry.

“The sensational manner in which the report was finally written, is a confirmation of our fears. They had however insisted that they will go ahead with their own story and as a result the interview was granted.

“The sensational headline for a front page story was however too tempting for them to take the time to verify all the facts that have been given, including contacting the UNHCR, the immigration departments and Mimi’s family back home. Once again, the truth suffered at the hands of unethical and unprofessional conduct of an enthusiastic reporter yearning for bygone glory.”

The defence ministry said Mapisa-Nqakula “reserves all her rights in seeking recourse on this matter for her, her family, including the protection of Mimi from abuse and harassment”.

African News Agency

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