INTL Africa: Politics, Economics, Military- August 2020

Plain Jane

Just Plain Jane

Deadly jihadist attack targets Cameroon village hosting displaced people
Issued on: 04/09/2020 - 02:56
File photo (March 2019): Members of the Cameroonian Rapid Intervention Force patrol on the outskirts of Mosogo in the far north of the country, where Boko Haram jihadists have been active since 2013.

File photo (March 2019): Members of the Cameroonian Rapid Intervention Force patrol on the outskirts of Mosogo in the far north of the country, where Boko Haram jihadists have been active since 2013. © Reinnier Kaze, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES
2 min
A suicide bomber on Tuesday killed seven civilians in a village housing displaced people in Cameroon’s restive northern tip bordering Nigeria, where deadly attacks have been on the rise.

The police officer said Tuesday’s bombing followed a Boko Haram raid on a village, adding: “The people fled and a young man strapped with explosives chased them and blew himself up.”

The Cameroonian government uses the term Boko Haram to refer loosely to the Nigerian jihadist group of the same name, as well as the breakaway Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) group.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said it “firmly condemns this attack which killed seven civilians and wounded 14 others in Kouyape village.

“The suicide bomb attack took place near Kolofata, close to the border with Nigeria, where some 18,000 internally displaced people have sought safety over the past seven years,” the refugee agency said.

Cameroon’s far north, an impoverished strip of land between Chad and Nigeria, has been a regular target of raids and assaults by Boko Haram since 2013.

The jihadist group launched its insurgency in Nigeria in 2009 before spilling over into neighbouring Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

It has killed more than 30,000 people, forcing three million to flee their homes, according to the UN.

“We are horrified by these senseless attacks on people who have been torn from their villages, fleeing violence perpetrated by armed gangs which rage in the region, only to be stripped of safety again after they just found refuge elsewhere,” said Olivier Guillaume Beer, UNHCR Representative in Cameroon.

“The killing of innocent civilians has to stop,” he said. “We call on armed groups to respect the rights and lives of civilian populations.”

The attack came a month after 18 people died and 15 were injured by an armed group on the Nguetchewe IDP site. Two young suicide bombers were involved in the attacks, according to officials.
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Boko Haram has staged nearly 90 attacks in Cameroon since January.

On August 25, ISWAP attacked a Cameroonian island near the Nigerian border killing 14 people, according to Nigerian authorities.

Security experts say ISWAP is extending its grip and influence around Lake Chad, a vast, marshy area also shared by Niger and Chad.
(AFP)
 

Plain Jane

Just Plain Jane

French soldiers killed in Mali armored vehicle attack
Two French military personnel died in Mali after their armored vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. France has deployed over 5,000 troops in West Africa to fight jihadists in the region.



French soldiers stationed in West Africa as part of Operation Barkhane

Two French soldiers deployed in Mali were killed in an operation on Saturday after their armored vehicle was destroyed by an improvised explosive device, the French presidency said in a statement.

Another soldier was injured in the blast that took place in Tessalit, a town in the country's northeastern region of Kidal.

The soldiers were members of the paratroop regiment based in Tarbes, southwestern France, the statement said.

France has deployed over 5,000 troops in West Africa as part of its Barkhane military operations to fight against Islamists linked to al-Qaida and the "Islamic State."

Read more: Mali coup: ECOWAS, junta transition talks end without deal
President Emmanuel Macron, in a tribute to the dead soldiers, praised "the courage and determination of the French military deployed in the Sahel region."

He also called for a swift transition to civilian control of Mali after the military junta ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in a coup on August 18.

The junta, led by Colonel Assimi Goita, calls itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People.

Ex-president flown to UAE
On Saturday, Keita was also evacuated to the United Arab Emirates for medical treatment. "He left this evening for Abu Dhabi," his former chief of staff, Mamadou Camara, told news agency Reuters. "It is a medical visit of between 10 and 15 days."

After the coup, Keita tendered his resignation and had been detained for 10 days by the ruling military junta. The 75-year-old was released following pressure from the 15-nation West African bloc ECOWAS.

His health had been of concern since he was hospitalized following his detention. The deposed leader had left the hospital on Thursday after treatment for a mini-stroke. He had been moved to his residence under tight security.


Watch video02:17
Mali at impasse after deadlocked talks
Senior French politicians and military officers fear that last month's military coup will further destabilize the West African nation and undermine the fight against the Islamist groups active in Mali and the wider Sahel region.

Large parts of Mali are still outside the government's control and the fight against insurgents has left thousands of people dead since 2012.
In total, 45 French soldiers have died serving in the region since 2013, according to the French military.
adi/sri (AFP, Reuters)
 

Plain Jane

Just Plain Jane

Niger probe: Soldiers executed dozens of civilians
An investigation into the deaths of more than a hundred people last year has put the blame on the country's army. Dozens of people disappeared after an Islamist attack at a military base in December.



Symbolbilder Niger Armee (Getty Images/AFP/I. Sanogo)

Niger's army was responsible for the disappearance of more than 100 people in the western part of the country in 2019, the country's National Commission on Human Rights said in a new report published on Saturday.

Many of those that are missing are feared executed, the watchdog said.

The commission said those that disappeared were from the Inates zone in the troubled Tillaberi region. The disappearances occurred after a deadly attack by Islamic extremists on the military post that killed at least 71 soldiers last December.

Read more: Coronavirus denialism still holding Africa back
"It's not a question of incriminating the whole of Niger's army, it is a question of identifying some uncontrolled elements of the army who are to blame for the massacre and disappearance of 102 civilians in the Tillaberi region," said Ali China Kourgueni, the commission's secretary-general.

The watchdog said it was investigating earlier reports from human rights group Amnesty International that said the armies in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso were responsible for more than 200 disappearances.

'Executions of unarmed civilians'
"There have indeed been executions of unarmed civilians and the mission discovered at least 71 bodies in six mass graves," said Abdoulaye Seydou, the president of the Pan-African Network for Peace, Democracy and Development. The group participated in the probe.

"It is elements of the Defense and Security Forces (FDS) which are responsible for these summary and extrajudicial executions," added Seydou, who said those who were killed were attacked with blades and small arms.

Read more: Africa's Sahel seeks new ways to fight terrorism
Seydou said more than 70 witnesses were interviewed between May and July this year, though added that there were limitations to the report. He said they were unable to determine if senior levels of the military were responsible for the deaths.

The government has received the report, but there has been no response.

Niger has suffered years of conflict with Islamic militants. The UN said extremist groups in the wider region, which includes Mali and Burkina Faso, killed more than 4,000 people last year.
"What happened in Inates must not happen again," said Kourgueni. "The rest is now up to the judicial authority."

Soldiers in Mali and Burkina Faso have been accused of extrajudicial killings and other abuses as they take on a growing insurgency in the tri-border region.
kbd/mm (AP, AFP)
 

PghPanther

Has No Life - Lives on TB
For all the evil bestowed about colonization of Africa by 1st world countries.....regardless of the social situations of separation of race, Apartheid and all the other evils claimed under such rule. The simple fact remains that Blacks have always been better off with the White man running their country than leaving it to Africans to run...........Whites bring civilization to resource rich/IQ poor nations................but when they leave those nations they end up reverting back to their hunter/gatherer status complicated by the fact that during White reign their populations increase beyond what hunter gather status could maintain so that when they revert back to that primitive existence again then starvation settles in.........and on top of that over time Blacks will start complaining and want Whites to come back....

This happens over and over again...............its time to admit that the two social existences created by the White race and the Black race when left on their own accord create incompatible behavioral traits within a shared existence, especially under a White civilization.......the experiment from the days of manual cotton picking are over........make the break and leave it at that..........

But what are the elite powers to be and their social puppets doing?...............trying to mix the races all up so that one day we have neither a White existence nor a Black existence but some hybrid IQ that will leave us with a society somewhere between modern 1st world civilization and a hunter gather status...............and the loss of what real progress humanity could experience through a White race who on their own are destined to reach the stars and discover the deep understanding of reality through scientific progress........

I do believe the elites want to continue their own demographic small pedigree........but want the masses to be a racially mixed brown world with the social existence level on par with Brazil 2.0 worldwide in order to control the masses........and they do that under the guise of we are all party to the great humanity of one and are all the same with social justice for all...................and they push it in education, media and entertainment.

Its a dangerous game for the elites to play because how far can you destroy society in order to control it without losing that key threshold demographic of the population needed to make society work or else fall down the social rabbit hole of dystopia.

But there are some within the elites (the usual suspects in history) who are happy to be at the forefront of this goal that know we cannot have a nation with a pedigree White race demographic dominance on this planet anymore....................."never again" they cry.........can we allow that kind of country to exist in the future and by all accounts in today's world their strategy is working.........

Whites are now 8.75% of the worlds population that's just 700 million out of a soon to be 8 billion people on this planet.
 
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