US Mission to Nigeria Faulted as Genocidal Violence Intensifies
For 34-year-old conflict reporter Lawrence Zongo, Nigeria’s so-called “silent slaughter” struck too close to home this week.
“On Monday, I helped bury my cousin, Wiki Moses, and her two small children,” he told The Epoch Times. She was among the 27 citizens of the Northern Plateau state who have fallen victim to terrorist attacks since May 21, he said.
“Yesterday [March 24], I attended the burial of my friend, Mangawa Bulus, 32, a beloved gospel singer, who was killed that same day as he was returning with three others from a funeral. In my area of Miango, there were three people killed today.
Boko Haram Terrorists Merge With Bandits in Nigeria
That alliance threatens to worsen the violence afflicting this West African nation.
“The Greenfield [University] abduction is unique because for the first time we saw a cooperation between some bandits and Boko Haram elements, which confirm that Boko Haram are encroaching into the field,” kidnapping mediator Sheikh Ahmad Gumi told Channels TV on May 16. Gumi, a former captain in the Nigerian army, is the senior cleric of a mosque in the state capital of Kaduna city, a two-hour drive north of the federal capital of Abuja.
The abduction of 22 students from Greenfield University on April 17 remains in a state of negotiation; five of the students have been slain and one released amid negotiations with some of the parents; Boko Haram and the bandits are demanding a ransom of approximately $280,000 for the remaining 16 Greenfield students. Meanwhile, Gumi said that Boko Haram terrorists attempted to take over negotiations related
Taliban Say No to Afghan President’s New Peace Plan Arshad Mehmood
The provisional accord reached last year in Doha is the only way, the Islamists insist
[Islamabad] The Taliban has categorically rejected President Ashraf Ghani’s new peace proposal and said the Doha agreement the US and the Islamist movement signed in February 2020 is the “best plan” for peace and stability in Afghanistan.
His idea comes on the heels of a new proposed US peace plan that would see Ghani step aside for an interim period during negotiations over a new constitution for the country.
Dr. Muhammad Naeem, a Doha-based Taliban political spokesperson, told The Media Line in an exclusive interview that “after the tireless efforts of international and regional stakeholders and with the full support of the United Nations, the Doha peace agreement was drafted, and accepted by the international community as well.”
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Local media published the names of almost a dozen victims: 18-year-old Anwer, 22-year-old Sher Mohammad, 28-year-old Hassan Jan, 17-year-old Naseem, 38-year-old Aziz, 35-year-old Chaman Ali, 36-year-old Abdullah, 33-year-old Karim Baksh, 35-year-old Mohammad Sadiq and 18-year-old Abdullah Shah.
Masooma Hazara mourns the killing of five of her family members on the 5th night of the sit-in near Hazara Town in Quetta, Pakistan.
Asef Ali Mohammad/The World
Hazaras are an ethnic group native to Afghanistan who have survived genocidal campaigns, slavery and land dispossession since the 1800s, according to Derakhshan Qurban-Ali, a Hazara Canadian human rights advocate and a law graduate from McGill University.