Nigeria News
Hundreds die as police shoot ousted Morsi’s supporters
CAIRO (AFP) – Security forces stormed the Cairo protest camps of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi’s supporters in a long-anticipated assault Wednesday that officials said led to almost 280 deaths across Egypt.
In response to the violence, the army-backed interim government imposed a month-long nationwide state of emergency and curfews in Cairo and 13 other provinces.
Authorities said 278 people were killed, including 43 policemen, with many of the deaths in Cairo but with the violence spreading from the capital and claiming lives across the country.
The state of emergency went into effect at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT), with what will be a daily 11-hour curfew beginning at 7:00 pm.
Gory photographs and video images of the Cairo bloodbath dominated social media networks, as world powers called for restraint and condemned the show of force by security forces.
At least four churches were attacked, with Christian activists accusing Morsi loyalists of waging “a war of retaliation against Copts in Egypt”.
Bodies are laid out in a make shift morgue after Egyptian security forces stormed two huge protest camps at the Rabaa al-Adawiya and Al-Nahda square where supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi were camped, in Cairo, on August 14, 2013.
Hours after tear gas canisters first rained down on tents of protesters in the sprawling Rabaa al-Adawiya camp in eastern Cairo, an AFP correspondent counted at least 124 bodies in makeshift morgues there.
In a field hospital, its floors slippery with blood, doctors struggled to cope with the casualties, leaving the hopeless cases, even if still alive.
The health ministry said 235 civilians were killed in the Cairo crackdown and in subsequent clashes across Egypt.
Egyptian Muslim brotherhood supporters of Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi evacuate a wounded man during clashes with riot police at Cairo’s Mustafa Mahmoud Square after security forces dispersed supporters Morsi on August 14, 2013.
The interior ministry added that 43 security personnel had lost their lives.
Among those killed in Cairo was 17-year-old Asmaa al-Beltagui, daughter of wanted Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed al-Beltagui, a spokesman for Morsi’s movement said.
And Britain’s Sky News said a veteran cameraman, Briton Mick Deane, was shot and killed while covering the violence.
Security officials had originally spoken of gradually dispersing the sit-ins over several days but the dramatic descent on the squares shortly after dawn came as a surprise to many.
The violence prompted vice president and Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei to resign, saying his conscience was troubled over the loss of life, “particularly as I believe it could have been avoided.”
“It has become too difficult to continue bearing responsibility for decisions I do not agree with and whose consequences I fear,” he said.
By Wednesday evening, a security official said Rabaa al-Adawiya was “totally under control. There are no more clashes.”
The authorities later said calm had been restored across the country.
Earlier, hundreds of Morsi supporters were given safe passage out of the camp, some flashing victory signs as they left through a security corridor.
A security official confirmed to AFP hundreds of people were taking advantage of the safe passage offer but said that some diehards had stayed behind to fight on.
Shortly after dawn, witnesses and an AFP correspondent said security forces fired tear gas before surging into Rabaa al-Adawiya, sparking pandemonium among the thousands of protesters who had set up the camp soon after Morsi was ousted in a July 3 military coup.
Men in gas masks rushed to grab each canister and dunk them in containers of water, as the main stage near the mosque of the camp blared Islamic anthems and protesters chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest.)
In the smaller of the protest camps, at Al-Nahda square in central Cairo, police said they took control of the square after two hours.
Television footage showed flattened tents, as women and children flanked by police and army troops were led out of the square.
Dozens rounded up in the dispersal were shown sitting on the ground, handcuffed and surrounded by security forces.
– Use of force widely condemned –
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Europe’s leading powers, along with Iran, Qatar and Turkey, strongly denounced the use of force by the interim government.
The White House said Washington, which provides Egypt with massive military aid, “strongly condemns” the violence against the protesters and opposes the imposition of a state of emergency.
Interim prime minister Hazem al-Beblawi praised the police for their “self-restraint” and said the government remained committed to an army-drafted roadmap that calls for elections in 2014.
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood urged Egyptians to take to the streets in their thousands to denounce the “massacre.”
“This is not an attempt to disperse, but a bloody attempt to crush all voices of opposition to the military coup,” Brotherhood spokesman Gehad al-Haddad said on Twitter.
But Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said no more protests would be tolerated.
The anger against the Islamist movement was evident as residents of several neighbourhoods clashed with Morsi loyalists.
Clashes also erupted between security forces and Morsi supporters in the northern provinces of Alexandria and Beheira, the canal provinces of Suez and Ismailiya and the central provinces of Assiut and Menya.
In Alexandria, hundreds of angry Morsi supporters marched through the streets armed with wooden clubs chanting “Morsi is my president.”
An AFP reporter said they set fire to tyres and tore down pictures of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the coup.
It was a dramatic turn of events for the Muslim Brotherhood, who just over a year ago celebrated Morsi’s victory as Egypt’s first elected president.
But Morsi’s turbulent year in power, marred by political turmoil, deadly clashes and a crippling economic crisis, turned many against the Islamist movement.
On June 30, millions took to the streets to call on the army to remove Morsi.
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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
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