Our website use cookies to improve and personalize your experience and to display advertisements (if any). Our website may also include cookies from third parties like Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and Youtube. By using the website, you consent to the use of cookies.

Nigerian kidnappers demand $620,000 for release of school hostages

Nigerian kidnappers demand $620,000 for release of school hostages

GUNMEN who kidnapped 286 students and staff from a school in northern Nigeria last week have demanded a total of 1 billion naira ($620,432) for their release, a spokesman for the families of the hostages and a local councillor told Reuters. The school children, some older students and members of the school staff were abducted on March 7 in the town of Kuriga, in Nigeria's northwestern Kaduna State, in the first mass kidnapping in the country since 2021. Jubril Aminu, a community leader who acts as a spokesman for the families of the hostages, said he had received a call on his…
Read More
Zimbabwe opposition party says activist found dead after abduction

Zimbabwe opposition party says activist found dead after abduction

A Zimbabwe opposition activist has been found dead after he was abducted on Saturday during a political campaign just outside Harare, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party said, the second abduction in weeks of an opposition party member. Tapfumaneyi Masaya was reportedly bundled into a vehicle by unknown men while campaigning for the main opposition party CCC's candidate ahead of by-elections on December 9, the party said. CCC spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi told Reuters on Tuesday that Masaya was tortured and dumped on the outskirts of Harare. Masaya's body was later moved to a mortuary at Parirenyatwa Hospital, about 5km from central…
Read More
Nigerian gunmen broke doors, windows in university abduction

Nigerian gunmen broke doors, windows in university abduction

GUNMEN in Nigeria broke down doors, shattered windows and abducted 24 female students from hostels of a university in northwestern Zamfara state in the early hours, witnesses said, in the latest kidnapping to hit the state. As they marched their victims away, the armed men also took a security guard and 10 construction workers who were sleeping in a makeshift shelter on the premises of Federal University Gusau, local officials said. "The armed bandits arrived on motorcycles and started shooting sporadically, that's when I woke up. They went to the girls' hostels near the campus, breaking windows and doors and…
Read More
Nigeria: ransom paid, 74 children freed

Nigeria: ransom paid, 74 children freed

 Gunmen in Nigeria have released 74 children out of more than 80 people who were abducted earlier this month in northwestern Zamfara state after ransoms were paid, parents and a village head said on Saturday. Gangs of armed men have attacked hundreds of local communities across northwestern Nigeria in recent years, while Islamist militants continue to stage attacks in the northeast. Two parents from Zamfara's Wadzamai village said they paid 20,000 naira ($43.50) each and their children were among those released on Friday and had suffered from severe malnutrition. A village head in Wadzamai said 11 people were still being held but…
Read More
2 red cross workers abducted in Mali

2 red cross workers abducted in Mali

TWO workers for the International Committee of the Red Cross have been kidnapped in northern Mali, the ICRC in Mali said on Twitter. It said the abductions took place between the northern cities of Gao and Kidal - long a hotspot for jihadist and militia violence. "We confirm the kidnapping of 02 of our colleagues this morning ... We ask for no speculation about the incident so as not to hinder its resolution," the ICRC in Mali said. It did not disclose the names or nationalities of those kidnapped. Mali has faced instability since 2012 when Islamists hijacked an ethnic…
Read More
WHO doctor kidnapped in eastern Mali

WHO doctor kidnapped in eastern Mali

UNIDENTIFIED assailants in eastern Mali have abducted a doctor working for the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.N. agency said in a statement. Dr Mahamadou Diawara was taken from his car on Monday in the town of Menaka, located in an eastern region where jihadist groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State are active. Assailants also attacked his driver but left him behind. WHO "is working with local authorities to investigate the abduction and ensure our colleague's quick return to his family," the statement said. Diawara was sent to Menaka at the start of 2020. He has been leading…
Read More
60 abducted Burkinabe women freed

60 abducted Burkinabe women freed

THIAM NDIAGA SIXTY-SIX women and children kidnapped by armed assailants in northern Burkina Faso last week have been freed, national broadcaster Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTP) said. The mass kidnapping was unprecedented in Burkina Faso, which is facing a violent Islamist insurgency that spread from neighbouring Mali in 2015. On 12 and 13 January, armed men seized the women and their children while they were scouring the bush for fruit and leaves outside two villages in the district of Arbinda, in the Sahel region's Soum province. Security forces staged a rescue operation and found 27 adult women and 39 babies, children and…
Read More
Ransom demanded for abducted Nigerian children

Ransom demanded for abducted Nigerian children

HAMZA IBRAHIM DOZENS of children were abducted by gunmen from a farm in northern Katsina state and the kidnappers were demanding a ransom for their release, police and residents said. Katsina is the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari and is among states in northwestern and north-central Nigeria where armed gangs on motorbikes have killed people or kidnapped them for ransom from villages and highways. Police spokesman for Katsina Gambo Isah confirmed the abduction of the children but did not give details. Residents told Reuters that the children were taken on Sunday while harvesting crops at a farm located between…
Read More
Suspected al Shabaab attackers abduct four in Kenya, including paramedics

Suspected al Shabaab attackers abduct four in Kenya, including paramedics

ATTACKERS suspected to be members of Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group have abducted two paramedics, plus a driver and a patient near Kenya's border with Somalia, police said. The attackers ambushed an ambulance belonging to the regional county government of Mandera, north east of the country, as it transported the patient to a hospital in the county. "The .... ambulance (was) en route to Elwak hospital for referral with a patient ... and ... in the company of hospital staff," Mandera's Lafey police station said in a report late on Tuesday. "They were carjacked by suspected AS (al Shabaab)…
Read More
Two Catholic priests abducted in Nigeria, diocese says

Two Catholic priests abducted in Nigeria, diocese says

TWO Nigerian Catholic priests have been abducted in Nigeria's northern state of Kaduna, the local diocese said, nearly two weeks after another priest was taken from his parish in the same state. Fathers John Mark Cheitnum and Donatus Cleopas were abducted in the town of Lere after they arrived for a parish function at Christ the King Catholic Church, Yadin Garu, the diocese said. It was not immediately clear who was behind the abduction. Kidnappers abducted another priest from his rectory in Kaduna state earlier this month while parishioners were waiting for him to conduct the morning mass, the local…
Read More