Tag: West Africa

Burkina Faso: 2 years on, thousands call for release of ‘doctor of the poor’ by Al-Qaeda offshoot

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Burkina Faso: 2 years on, thousands call for release of ‘doctor of the poor’ by Al-Qaeda offshoot
Thousands took to the streets of Djibo, a northern town in Burkina Faso, on Monday (15 January) to call for the government to secure the release of an Australian doctor, Ken Elliott, kidnapped two years ago. The abduction was claimed by the ‘Emirate of the Sahara’, a branch of Al-Qaeda . . . Read More

Nigeria: Boko Haram survivor and her baby ‘shamed’

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Boko Haram survivor Esther*, holding her daughter Rebecca in her arms. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
As Islamic extremist group Boko Haram continues to hold young women captive in West Africa, some have been rescued only to return to their homes in shame, finding themselves labelled “Boko Haram women”. Until October 2015 Esther* lived the normal life of a 17-year-old in Gwoza, a town in southern . . . Read More

Niger: pastor’s daughter kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram militants

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Street scene in Zinder, Niger's second biggest town, where thousands of people fled to after Boko Haram first attacked Diffa in February 2015. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
The teenage daughter of a pastor was kidnapped on 16 October in Diffa, south-eastern Niger, in what appears to be the first targeted kidnapping of a Christian by Boko Haram-affiliated militants in the West African nation. Aphodiya Garba Maida, 17, daughter of a pastor with the EERN (Église Évangélique de . . . Read More

5 Things to know about violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt

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A village head inside his destroyed home in one of the villages in Southern Kaduna that were attacked by Fulani herdsmen, in May 2017. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
In northern Nigeria, targeted violence against Christians comes not only from the Islamic militants of Boko Haram. Clashes with militants among the predominantly Muslim Fulani herdsmen have claimed thousands of Christian lives in Nigeria’s Middle Belt – the handful of states straddling the pre-colonial line dividing Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north from . . . Read More

‘There will never be peace for Nigeria’s Middle Belt unless there’s equality and justice’

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'There will never be peace for Nigeria's Middle Belt unless there's equality and justice'
Obscured by Boko Haram’s headlines, violence has also raged further south, in Nigeria’s Middle Belt: a less reported, years-long campaign which experts now believe has been responsible for more deaths than Boko Haram. Militants among the ethnic Fulani, a predominantly Muslim and nomadic population of cattle herders, are suspected of targeting . . . Read More

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