Tag: West Africa

Nigeria: Benue death toll 60 over past 10 days, admits police chief

March 22, 2017 Nigeria Agatu, Benue, Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, Nigeria, West Africa

”It all started on Friday when the herdsmen forcefully entered our village to graze on farmland, but were resisted by our youths. They left – only to mobilise and storm our village in their numbers, shooting sporadically and chasing everyone from their houses.” A survivor of a recent Fulani herdsmen’s . . . Read More

UPDATE: Kidnapped German archeologists freed; no ransom paid

February 27, 2017 Nigeria Abuja, Fulani herdsmen, Kaduna, Kafanchan, Lagos, Middle Belt, West Africa

In the village of Goska, houses were destroyed, churches burnt and shops vandalised in a December attack.World Watch Monitor UPDATE (27 Feb): Two German archaeologists kidnapped in Nigeria’s north-western state of Kaduna were freed on Saturday (25 Feb). Peter Breunig and Johannes Buringer were taken by gunmen on 22 . . . Read More

Gambia no longer an Islamic Republic

January 30, 2017 The Gambia Adama Barrow, Islamic extremism, The Gambia, West Africa, Yahya Jammeh

The Gambia’s new president, Adama Barrow, has pledged reforms, including removing laws which violate freedom of religion. In December 2015, ex-president Yahya Jammeh had declared the West African country an Islamic republic, saying the decision was made because Islam is the religion of most citizens, raising fear among Christians and . . . Read More

Burkina Faso: citizenship for kidnapped Australian

November 29, 2016 Burkina Faso Ansar Dine, Burkina Faso, Djibo, Islamic extremism, Ken Elliott, Kidnapping, Ouagadougou, West Africa

An Australian surgeon kidnapped by jihadists in Burkina Faso nearly a year ago, and whose whereabouts remain unknown, has been declared a citizen of the West African nation, an official decree announced on Wednesday (17 Nov.). Ken Elliot was abducted along with his wife Jocelyn in January 2016 by Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists . . . Read More

Rising Islamist militancy across Sahel belt threatens African Christianity

September 8, 2016 Agadez, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar Dine, Beatrice Stockly, Islamic extremism, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Muammar Gaddafi, Niger, Sahel, Timbuktu, Tuareg, West Africa

More than 70 churches, as well as Christian homes, schools and orphanages,were burned down by Islamists in Niger in January 2015.World Watch Monitor As the world focusses on potential military advances against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, it risks overlooking another vast region where militant Islam is . . . Read More

US lawmaker pledges to push for special envoy to Nigeria

May 11, 2016 Nigeria Agatu, Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, West Africa

A member of the U.S. Congress said on Wednesday (11 May) that he will help introduce legislation calling on the president to establish a special envoy to Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad region, in an attempt to sharpen the American response to deadly Islamist insurgencies that have killed thousands . . . Read More

Village massacres strain Nigeria further, as traditional nomads fight modernisation

March 23, 2016 Nigeria Agatu, Benue, Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, Katsina, West Africa

The aftermath of an attack, which claimed hundreds of lives, in the central Nigerian state of Benue, Feb. 2016.World Watch Monitor In the rural village of Agatu, in north central Nigeria, someone had successfully installed a solar panel in his home before the arsonists lit their fires. It was . . . Read More

Niger: a year after 70 churches destroyed in anti-‘Charlie’ riots

January 20, 2016 Niger Charlie Hebdo, Islamic extremism, Mahamadou Issoufou, Niamey, West Africa, Zinder

Demolishing Boukoki’s EERN church, damaged in the anti-Charlie’ riots in 2015, ahead of its rebuildingWorld Watch Monitor A year has passed since the churches in the West African country of Niger experienced the worst attacks in their history, in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. On . . . Read More

Burkina Faso dead include 7 mission workers

January 19, 2016 Burkina Faso Al-Mourabitoun, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar Dine, Djibo, Ouagadougou, West Africa

Six of the 29 people killed by Islamist militants in Burkina Faso on Friday were on a humanitarian trip prompted by their Christian faith, while a seventh was a US missionary who, with his wife, had been running an orphanage and women’s refuge in the West African country since 2011. . . . Read More

Fleeing Boko Haram – nowhere to run, nowhere to hide

November 12, 2015 Abuja, Adamawa, Boko Haram, Borno, Cameroon, Chad, Chibok girls, EYN, Genocide, Jos, Kaduna, Niger, Nigeria, Samuel Dali, UN, West Africa, Yobe, Yola

A special report by IRIN, built on field visits to Nigeria’s north-eastern region which the military has re-taken from the Boko Haram insurgency, reveals an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in the Lake Chad Basin region. In Europe, Syrian refugees with the means head for their country of choice, armies of aid . . . Read More

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