kidnapped - The African Mirror

Nov

2022

Nine health workers kidnapped in Cameroon

AMINDEH BLAISE ATABONG NINE health workers have been kidnapped from a government-run hospital in Cameroon's restive northwest, one of two regions where armed separatists have been fighting government troops to create a breakaway state, the local mayor said. Acha Kennedy Ngu, mayor of the town of Batibo where the kidnapping took place, said the health workers were abducted on Thursday and were still being held. Ngu did not give further details as he was not in town when it happened, he said. The attackers' identity and motives were unknown. A spokesperson for the Ambazonia Governing Council, whose armed wing -…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

Nearly 3,300 migrants stranded in Mexico were kidnapped, raped or assaulted – report

WORLD

TED HESSON NEARLY 3,300 migrants stranded in Mexico since January due to a U.S. border policy have been kidnapped, raped, trafficked or assaulted, according to a report by a human rights group released on Tuesday. The report, by New York-based Human Rights First, documents cases of migrants and asylum seekers stuck in Mexico since U.S. President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20. The number of cases has jumped in recent weeks from roughly 500 such incidents logged in April to 3,300 by mid-June. Biden, a Democrat, has moved to reverse many of the restrictive immigration policies of his Republican…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

French journalist kidnapped in Mali

NEWS

FRENCH Foreign Affairs minister Jean-Yves Le Drian confirmed yesterday that a French journalist who disappeared last month in Mali's northern city of Gao had probably been taken hostage by Islamist militants in West Africa's arid Sahel region. Olivier Dubois this month appeared in a video appealing to authorities to do everything they can to free him from the JNIM (al Qaeda North Africa) holding him. French authorities have previously only confirmed Dubois' disappearance. "Everything leads us to believe he's the hostage of a jihadist group", Le Drian told RTL radio.

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

FACTBOX-The violence and insecurity affecting Nigeria

NEWS

LIBBY GEORGE UNREST and violence are worsening across Nigeria, where gunmen in the northwest were reported to have kidnapped around 30 students from a forestry college overnight in the fourth mass school abduction since December. Growing public anger prompted President Muhammadu Buhari to replace his military high command earlier this year. Here is a summary of the violence: ARMED GANGS, NORTHWEST/NORTH-CENTRAL NIGERIA Armed gangs that rob and kidnap for ransom, commonly described as "bandits", are active across the northwest. Such groups killed more than 1,100 people in the first half of 2020 alone, according to rights group Amnesty International. In…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

School children abducted in Niger released

NEWS

GUNMEN in Nigeria on Saturday released 27 teenage boys who were kidnapped from their school last week in the northern state of Niger, while security forces continued to search for more than 300 schoolgirls abducted in a nearby state. Schools have become targets for mass kidnappings for ransom in northern Nigeria by armed groups, many of whom carry guns and ride motorcycles. On Feb. 17, 27 students, three staff and 12 members of their families were abducted by an armed gang who stormed the Government Science secondary school in the Kagara district of Niger state, overwhelming the school's security detail.…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

‘Hotel Rwanda’ hero says he was kidnapped and blindfolded before arrest

NEWS

Paul Rusesabagina Rusesabagina, a political dissident who has lived in exile in Belgium and the United States, was arrested in August after returning to the country. At the time it was not immediately clear whether he had returned voluntarily or had been coerced. "I was kidnapped to come here," Rusesabagina said in court in the capital, Kigali, as he applied for bail. "...They tied my legs and my arms and I was blindfolded." Prosecutors denied he had been kidnapped and said due process had been followed. "No one kidnapped Paul Rusesabagina...he was detained at a legally recognised place after being…