Intense gunfire from bandits caused a Nigerian fighter jet to crash in northwestern Zamfara state, but the pilot survived by ejecting from the aircraft. Nigeria’s air force said on Monday the crash occurred on Sunday as the Alpha jet, a light attack aircraft, was returning to base from a mission on the Zamfara-Kaduna border. The jet “came under intense enemy fire which led to its crash”, an air force statement said, but pilot Abayomi Dairo successfully ejected. “Luckily, the gallant pilot … successfully ejected from the aircraft,” air force spokesman Edward Gabkwet said. “Using his survival instincts, the pilot, who … Continue reading Nigerian fighter jet shot down by bandits, pilot survives

Gunmen in Nigeria have abducted at least eight people from a hospital in the north-west of the country, police say. The attack took place at the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Centre in Zaria early on Sunday morning. Reports say the number of people taken by the group is higher and includes nurses and children. There has been a recent spate of abductions from schools and universities for ransom. Police said the gunmen, thought to be from criminal groups known locally as “bandits”, opened fire on a police station in the city. While they were engaged in the shootout, another group … Continue reading Failed State: Nigeria gunmen kidnap nurses and infants from hospital

Armed attackers have killed a police officer and kidnapped at least 80 students and five teachers from a school in the northwestern Nigerian state of Kebbi, police, residents and teachers said. The attack took place on the Federal Government College in the remote town of Birnin Yauri in Kebbi State on Thursday. It is the third assault by armed gangs on a school or college in Nigeria in less than a month which have been attributed by the authorities to bandits seeking ransom payments. Usman Aliyu, a teacher at the school, said the gunmen took more than 80 students, most … Continue reading Update: Policeman killed, 80 students abducted in Nigeria school attack

Armed attackers have killed a police officer and abducted five teachers and an unknown number of students from a school in the northwestern Nigerian state of Kebbi, police said. The attack took place on the Federal Government College in the remote town of Birnin Yauri in Kebbi State on Thursday. It is the third assault by armed gangs on a school or college in Nigeria in less than a month which have been attributed by the authorities to bandits seeking ransom payments. A spokesman for the police in Kebbi State, Nafiu Abubakar, said one officer had been shot dead during … Continue reading Failed State: Policeman killed, students abducted in attack on Nigerian school

Attackers killed 88 people in Nigeria’s Kebbi state on Thursday, spurring its governor to pledge a bigger deployment of security forces on Sunday as insecurity spreads largely unchecked through the country’s northwest.The attackers who swept through eight villages in Nigeria’s Kebbi state had come from the neighboring states of Niger and Zamfara, authorities say. Perpetrators swept through eight villages, killing people and sending residents fleeing, police said, giving a death toll of 88. Details began to emerge on Saturday. A spokesperson for Kebbi Governor Abubakar Bagudu said on Sunday the attackers had come from neighboring Niger and Zamfara states, rustling … Continue reading Failed State: Bandits kill 88 people in northwestern Nigeria

Nigerian Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has been seriously wounded after trying to kill himself to avoid capture during clashes with rival Islamic State-allied jihadists in the north of the country, two intelligence sources said Thursday. Shekau’s Boko Haram faction and fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province had been battling in northeastern Borno state, where ISWAP militants have become the dominant force in Nigeria’s more than decade-long jihadist insurgency. Shekau, who made international headlines when his men kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014, has been reported dead several times since Boko Haram first began its insurgency … Continue reading Nigeria’s Boko Haram leader badly wounded in gunfight with another terror group

White contractors were prioritised for evacuation ahead of Black locals during a rescue operation following an attack in March by an armed group known locally as al-Shabab on the Mozambican town of Palma, according to Amnesty International. In a report compiled from interviews with 11 Black survivors, Amnesty on Thursday charged that even dogs were pulled to safety before Black people by a helicopter that airlifted civilians from a hotel where they had sought refuge. “White contractors [were] airlifted to safety before local Black people,” said Amnesty, adding the hotel manager took his two German Shepherd dogs on the rescue helicopter, leaving … Continue reading White people rescued before Black people in Palma

Gunmen have killed at least seven Nigerian police officers in a night of attacks in the southern oil hub of Rivers State, police said on Saturday. The attackers opened fire on a checkpoint on Friday evening, then drove on to hit two police stations, the statement said. Officers fired back, killing two of the raiders and injuring some of the others who escaped in a stolen car, police added. The killings came amid deteriorating security in Rivers State, whose capital, Port Harcourt, is the gateway to the oil-rich Niger Delta region and other parts of Africa’s largest crude exporter. Last … Continue reading Failed State: Gunmen kill Nigerian police officers in southern oil hub

Kidnappers have released the remaining 29 students they were holding captive, nearly two months after abducting them from a forestry college in Nigeria’s Kaduna state. “The Kaduna State Police Command has reported to the Kaduna State Government, the release of the remaining students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization,” local state security official Samuel Aruwan said in a statement on Wednesday. Gunmen had taken 39 students from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in northwest Nigeria on March 11 and previously released 10 of them. The newly released students arrived at police headquarters in Kaduna city on Wednesday night looking weak, … Continue reading Update: Kidnappers free 29 students abducted in Nigeria

A local official in northern Burkina Faso has said at least 18 people were killed and one seriously wounded in an attack this week that also caused “massive displacement”. Salfo Kabore, governor of Seno province located in conflict-hit Burkina Faso’s Sahel region, said unidentified gunmen carried out the attack on Monday in Yattakou village. Many local residents fled towards the capital of the Seytenga commune, while the wounded person was taken to hospital in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, Kabore said in a statement on Wednesday. The attack happened the same day that two Spanish journalists and an Irish conservationist were killed … Continue reading Gunmen kill 18 in Burkina Faso attack

At least 31 Nigerian soldiers were killed when IS-aligned jihadists ambushed a military convoy escorting weapons and overran a base in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, military sources said on Monday. The attack was the deadliest this year against Nigeria’s army which has been battling a decade-long jihadist insurgency in the region that has killed 36,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes. “We lost 31 soldiers, including their commander who was a lieutenant colonel, in the ambush by the terrorists,” a military officer said about the attack which happened around 1100 GMT. The convoy was transporting weapons to … Continue reading Jihadists kill 31 soldiers in northeast Nigeria

At least 19 civilians were killed when armed men raided a village in west Niger close to the border with Mali, officials have said, in the latest bloodshed in the troubled region. The governor of Tillaberi region said dozens of heavily armed attackers on motorbikes stormed the village of Gaigorou on Saturday evening. Governor Ibrahim Tidjani Katiella told DPA news agency the attackers, who likely came from Mali, surrounded the village and then started killing the inhabitants. A municipal official from Dessa on Sunday confirmed that 19 people were killed and two others wounded in the attack. He told AFP … Continue reading 19 people killed in west Niger attack