Up to 400 migrants died in boat capsize off Libya: survivors
Initial investigations indicate the boat may have capsized after passengers started moving when they saw the Italian rescue team. The latest tragedy came as Italian authorities said around 8,500 migrants had been rescued at sea between Friday and Monday, reigniting a debate in Italy about whether the country has a duty to house all new arrivals. Recent good weather in the Mediterranean has prompted a spike in the number of migrants attempting to reach Italy aboard boats. An increasingly violent and chaotic situation in Libya, a key jumping off point for migrants, has also helped prompt the hike in asylum seekers trying to make it to Europe. AFP on Yahoo News
Libya migrants: UN urges more effort to save lives
The UN refugee agency says not enough is being done to save the lives of the increased numbers of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. A UNHCR spokesman told the BBC around 400 migrants were still missing after their boat capsized off Libya. The Libyan coastguard has told the BBC it expects more people to attempt crossings later this week. Hundreds more migrants rescued from boats in the Mediterranean are due to arrive in Sicily during the day. More than 8,000 migrants have been picked up since Friday, and more boats are heading for the Italian coast. BBC
OP-ED. Muhammadu Buhari: We Will Stop Boko Haram
When Boko Haram attacked a school in the town of Chibok, in northeastern Nigeria, kidnapping more than 200 girls, on the night of April 14, 2014, the people of my country were aghast. Across the world, millions of people joined them in asking: How was it possible for this terrorist group to act with such impunity? It took nearly two weeks before the government even commented on the crime. This lack of reaction was symptomatic of why the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan was swept aside last month – the first time an incumbent president has been successfully voted out of office in the history of our nation. For too long they ruled, not governed, and in doing so had become so focused on their own self-interest and embroiled in corruption that the duty to react to the anguish suffered by their citizens had become alien to them. The New York Times
Nigeria’s President-Elect Muhammadu Buhari Says He Can’t Promise To Find Chibok Girls
They have been gone a year now, the hundreds of girls abducted by Islamic militants from their school in northeastern Nigeria. And while the cry to “Bring Back Our Girls” remains a worldwide cause, the new president Tuesday would not repeat his predecessor’s failed promise to find them – only that they won’t be forgotten. A solemn march was held to remember the 219 girls seized from their boarding school in Chibok by gunmen from the Boko Haram extremist group. In Nigeria’s capital of Abuja, 219 girls paraded in the streets, with each carrying a placard bearing the name of a kidnap victim. AP on The Huffington Post
Why the United States and Nigeria Will Never #BringBackOurGirls
[…] The failure to locate the missing students also shows how hard it is for the United States to operate in a country like Nigeria, where corruption within the political establishment and the military is rampant and can undermine joint efforts for cooperation against terrorist organizations. The Pentagon tried to help in the search for the girls, but human rights abuses by the Nigerian military and efforts by the regime of former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to shift responsibility for the missing girls onto Washington spoiled ties between the White House and Abuja. Jonathan was defeated in Nigeria’s presidential election late last month in part because his challenger, former military strongman Muhammadu Buhari, successfully pinned blame on him for the schoolgirls’ disappearance. Now, Nigeria’s new president admits they may never be found. Foreign Policy
Nigeria’s Violent Year Since ‘Bring Back Our Girls’
Last April, the social-media campaign #BringBackOurGirls helped galvanize international outrage about the plight of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped from the village of Chibok by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram. One year later, 219 of them remain missing. As that campaign joins Kony 2012 in the junkyard of digital activism, Boko Haram continues its campaign of violence. According to Amnesty International, the group has kidnapped 2,000 women since the beginning of last year, “forcing many into sexual slavery or combat,” as Reuters noted. The Atlantic
Nigeria: Abducted women and girls forced to join Boko Haram attacks
At least 2,000 women and girls have been abducted by Boko Haram since the start of 2014 and many have been forced into sexual slavery and trained to fight, said Amnesty International on the first anniversary of the abduction of the Chibok school girls. Based on nearly 200 witness accounts, including 28 with abducted women and girls who escaped captivity, a new 90-page report, ‘Our job is to shoot, slaughter and kill': Boko Haram’s reign of terror, documents multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Boko Haram, including the killing of at least 5,500 civilians, as it rampaged across north-east Nigeria during 2014 and early 2015. Amnesty International
Note to Boko Haram: Western education is NOT a sin
One year ago, on April 14, 2014, 276 teenage girls staying in the dormitories of a government secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, northeast Nigeria, were abducted by Boko Haram. Of the original total, 57 managed to escape, leaving 219 still missing. They remain unaccounted for to this day. Several aspects of this event were profoundly shocking and disturbing: the sheer scale of the abduction; the lack of security and protection for the girls in a region where repeated attacks on students, teachers and education facilities had taken place; how a “soft target” like a girls’ school could be so easily attacked; the bravado, cruelty and callousness shown by Boko Haram in subsequent communications; and how the national government and Nigeria’s armed forces struggled to deal with this incident. Al Jazeera
Al-Shabab Attack on Somali Ministry Kills 18
Somali militant group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s bombing and assault of a government complex in the capital, Mogadishu. Security Ministry spokesman Mohamed Yusuf told VOA Somali that 18 people were killed and at least 15 others wounded in the attack on the country’s Higher Education Ministry. A witness said militants set off a car bomb outside the ministry walls, allowing the attackers to storm the building and open fire. VOA
Kenya rights group shutdown ‘harming counter-terrorism efforts’
Kenya rights groups condemned Tuesday the suspension of two key Muslim civil society organisations for suspected links to Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab, saying it will damage efforts to counter extremism. Kenyan authorities last week put HAKI Africa and Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), two Mombasa-based civil society groups, on a list of 85 individuals and organisations accused of supporting the Islamists. The list, which also froze key money transfer companies vital for impoverished Somalia, was part of a crackdown on alleged Shebab supporters following the massacre of almost 150 people at Garissa university by the extremists.AFP on Yahoo News
Did Kenya’s police command structure result in greater loss of life?
The aftermath of the Garissa University College attack in Kenya has been characterised by a blame game between the police and the military over who takes credit for what despite the fact that the response was slow. During the Mpeketoni attack last year, the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) identified slow response and structural command inefficiencies as some of the key issues that ought to be addressed. Sadly, the same story repeated itself in the Garissa attack. Kenya’s current police structure has three separate police commanders who oversee the different entities that make up the National Police Service. The country heads of the Kenya Police Service, the Administration Police Service and the semi-autonomous Criminal Investigations Department (CID) all report to national police headquarters in Nairobi. The East African
Kenyan police chief’s misuse of plane fuels anger over Garissa massacre
Criticism of the Kenyan authorities’ slow response to the Garissa massacre has reached new heights after a police chief admitted that a plane meant to transport commandos to the scene was instead being used to fly his family back from holiday on the coast. The revelation on Tuesday fed growing fury at the government’s failure to intervene during the day-long slaughter at Garissa University by al-Shabaab militants on 2 April, which cost 148 lives. The Guardian
Countering Al-Shabaab’s narrative in Kenya’s fight against extremism
In March 2015, several months after the Kenyan coastal town of Mpeketoni and neighbouring villages were brutally attacked, the Somalia-based armed group, Al-Shabaab, released a video of the attack on Youtube. In what seemed like a direct retaliation to previous Kenyan government responses to terror, the video sharply discredited the government’s claim that the attack was not staged by Al-Shabaab, but by “local political networks”. The video has since been deleted, but its main import seemed to be the projection of a well thought-out, manipulative propaganda strategy that sought to justify violent tactics, propagate an extremist ideology and win new recruits. In this way, the video added to an existing series of online and offline platforms through which Al-Shabaab members, recruiters and sympathisers have constructed a narrative that has gained traction amongst a section of Kenya’s young Muslim population. African Arguments
Little Mogadishu, Under Siege
[…] In a show of solidarity, Little Mogadishu made contributions and donations to the grieving families, making donations to the Kenyan Red Cross as it tried to manage the fallout from the assault. Three days after the attack, there was a peaceful protest against the Garissa attacks in Eastleigh. The day after that, the community leaders of Eastleigh held a food drive, followed by a blood drive the next day. Six days after the massacre, Eastleigh held an interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims. Yet an unmistakable sense of unease permeates the community. In a speech two days after the attack, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta promised to take the fight to al-Shabab. But he added that “the planners and financiers” of the attack were “deeply embedded” in Kenyan communities. Radicalization, he cautioned, “occurs in the full glare of day, in madrasas, in homes, and in mosques with rogue imams referring, it seemed, directly to communities like Eastleigh. Foreign Policy
East Africa’s Neglected Weapon Against Terror: Rule of Law
On March 30, Joan Kagezi, a senior Ugandan prosecutor, was assassinated in front of her children while on her way home from the grocery store in a Kampala suburb. Kagezi was one of the key prosecutors in the trial of 13 suspected members of the Somali militant group al-Shabab accused of perpetrating the July 2010 bombings in Kampala that killed 76 people watching a World Cup game. The start of the Kampala trial in the middle of March was a landmark in Uganda’s fight against terrorism. But now the Directorate of Public Prosecutions has lost one of its stars. With her strong personal presence, Kagezi was a powerful and well-respected prosecutor as well as a constant advocate and mentor for others in her field. World Politics Review
U.N. Asks Kenya Not to Close Somali Refugee Camp in Wake of Garissa Killings
The United Nations refugee agency urged Kenya on Tuesday to reconsider plans for closing Dadaab, one of the world’s oldest and biggest complexes of refugee camps, and forcing its more than 350,000 Somali inhabitants back into Somalia. The agency said such a forced repatriation would violate international law. Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, announced the plans to close Dadaab and repatriate its population on Saturday as part of the Kenyan response to the April 2 attack on Garissa University College by Somalia-based extremist Shabab gunmen that killed 148 people, including 142 students. Kenya initially responded to the attack with airstrikes on Shabab positions in Somalia. But in a further move linked to security, Mr. Ruto told the United Nations refugee agency it had three months to relocate the camp’s population. If the agency failed to comply, Mr. Ruto said, “we shall relocate them ourselves.” The New York Times
Guinea Opposition Sidelined as the Military’s Power Grows
Clashes between the opposition and security forces continued for a second day in Guinea’s capital. In an email interview, Mohamed Saliou Camara, a professor of history and international relations at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, discussed domestic politics in Guinea. WPR: What have been the major issues of contention between the government and the opposition during Guinea’s political transition back to democracy, and where do they stand in the run-up to this year’s presidential election? World Politics Review
Too Small to Care in Gambia? Banjul’s Hidden Human Rights Crisis
In the past few months, the West African nation of Gambia, not much bigger than Connecticut, has received an unusual amount of international media coverage. After an alleged coup attempt in December against President Yahya Jammeh, several Gambian Americans were charged in the United States under the Neutrality Act, an eighteenth-century law that makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to participate in an attack against a “peaceful country.” Foreign Affairs
Cairo: Are radical Muslims the result of what’s taught at Islam’s most prestigious school?
Al Mu’tasim Billah, Sufyan al Omari and Omar al Masri are 21-year-old students at Cairo’s al Azhar University, the oldest and most prestigious institute of Sunni Islamic learning in the world. But none of them is planning to graduate. Al Mu’tasim Billah – the name means “he who seeks Allah” – traveled to Syria six months ago to join the Islamic State. Al Omari wants to follow as soon as possible. Al Masri is looking closer to home: He hopes to join Wilayat Sina, an extremist group in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. The names are not real. They are the noms de guerre the men have chosen for their new lives as holy warriors. And that, they say, is the logical consequence of the education they received at al Azhar. McClatchy
Violence growing in central Mali 2 years later
A new report says that armed groups in Mali are carrying out a growing number of attacks, and that the violence is taking place closer to the capital than ever. Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that militants are increasingly active in central Mali, where they have targeted civilians accused of supporting French and UN forces. Corinne Dufka, West Africa director at Human Rights Watch, says Mali’s government needs to act soon as “the pace of attacks is intensifying.” News 24
Former CAR leaders sign ‘meaningless’ peace agreement
Two former presidents of the Central African Republic have signed an agreement reaffirming last year’s truce deal, but is expected to have no power as the country’s current interim government was not part of the negotiations. The agreement between Michel Djotodia and Francois Bozize was signed on Tuesday, four months after the talks started in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, according to Uhuru Kenyatta, the Kenyan president. “Critics say what happened here is meaningless, but the Kenyan mediators say because they got the main fighting factions and the two former presidents to the table is still a step forward,” said Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from Nairobi. The details of the deal were not made public. Al Jazeera
Xenophobic violence in South Africa leaves at least five dead
At least five people have been killed and hundreds forced to flee their homes in one of South Africa’s worst outbreaks of xenophobic violence in years, authorities said on Tuesday. Most of the recent unrest occurred in and around the coastal city of Durban, where police said two foreigners and three South Africans were killed. The dead included a 14-year-old boy who was allegedly shot during looting on Monday night and died at a hospital, police colonel Jay Naicker said. Some 34 people have been arrested for possession of unlicensed firearms and other crimes in the last two days, he said. The Guardian
Algeria discovers weapons cache near Libya border
The Algerian army has discovered a weapons cache near its border with Libya, the Algerian defense ministry said on Tuesday. Last year, Algeria closed its border crossings to Libya and put its military on high alert, fearing an influx of Islamist militants exploiting chaos in neighboring Libya. The cache was found in a remote southern corner of the country, bordering Libya and Niger. It included two mortars, two rocket launchers, 45 rockets of different types and 225 kg of explosives and landmines, the ministry said in a statement. Algerian officials worry that militants from al Qaeda and Islamic State are building up a presence in lawless southern Libya to move fighters and weapons across porous borders with Algeria, Chad and Niger. Reuters
Can the IMF save Ghana’s currency?
A cool $114 million has just found its way into Ghana’s struggling bank balance, courtesy of a new loan package with the International Monetary Fund. It’s not huge money in the grand scheme of things, but alongside the government’s own reforms – and with more IMF funds on the way – it could be just enough to rescue Ghana’s free-falling cedi and stabilise its wobbly economy. Daily Maverick
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