‘Boko Haram raids force people to flee’

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Boko Haram atrocities in the northeastern parts of Nigeria have compelled people to leave their homes, fleeing to neighboring Cameroon, an official says.

“We’ve been flooded here in (the town of) Mora by Cameroonians and Nigerians fleeing Boko Haram,” a Cameroonian police officer said on Sunday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officer added that until Friday, “there were already more than 10,000 people in Mora. Not a day goes by without more people coming.”

A large number of people have been internally displaced in Nigeria and many others have crossed the borders into neighboring countries, because of the attacks conducted by Boko Haram Takfiri militants. 

On Saturday, the militants continued their acts of terror in Nigeria’s twin towns of Gamboru and Ngala, killing scores of civilians.

“They are now killing people like chickens. They started by selective killings and later went on a killing spree,” said a Gamboru resident.

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for many deadly gun and bomb attacks in various parts of Nigeria since the beginning of its militancy in 2009. Over 10,000 people have so far been killed in the assaults.

The militants have also conducted a number of assaults and kidnappings in Cameroon, including the abduction of the deputy prime minister’s wife in late July.  Following the abduction, the Cameroonian army launched a successful operation and rescued Amadou Ali’s abducted wife.

Boko Haram — whose name means “Western education is forbidden” — says its goal is to overthrow the Nigerian government.

MSM/MAM/AS

Most trapped Nicaraguan miners freed

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Rescuers have freed most of 24 trapped Nicaraguan gold miners following a mine collapse near the northeastern city of Bonanza.

The saved miners were in good condition although they were slightly dehydrated, said Nicaraguan Deputy Interior Minister Carlos Najjar on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear if the remaining miners trapped at the El Comal mine had been located.

The mine, which is located near Bonanza, a town 420 kilometers (260 miles) to the northeast of the capital Managua, collapsed after heavy rains began on Thursday.

The miners were said to be unlicensed freelancers not employed by a particular company.

Last month, two miners died at the mine after a landslide, which made the mine’s owner, Colombian firm Hemco, warn them against entering the mine it found to be unsafe.

Meanwhile, the rescued miners joined efforts to save their colleagues.

“The sadness of feeling yourself trapped in a hole is immense but I never lost hope… I kept thinking I was too young to die and above all, I thought about my two daughters,” said a 32-year-old miner at a hospital in Bonanza.

NT/MAM/AS

Return Izadi women, activists demand

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Human rights activists and organizations have called on the international community, the Iraqi government, and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to take immediate measures to bring back thousands of Izadi women abducted by ISIL terrorists, Press TV reports.

They also demanded maximum penalty for states that support the Takfiris in waging violence in crisis-hit Iraq and Syria.

“The KRG, Baghdad, and the international community all have the responsibility of bringing back our girls and of punishing the countries backing ISIL in Iraq and Syria,” said female human rights activist Nyaz Abdullah, adding, “Girls as young as three years of age have been abducted, killed, raped, enslaved, and imprisoned.”

“International silence over this cannot be tolerated,” she noted.

According to the United Nations, as many as 200,000 civilians, mostly from the Izadi Kurd community, have fled their homes after the capture of the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar by the ISIL militants.

Scores of Izadi women have been kidnapped and many others killed since then.

Human rights activist Nazer Jamil Abdulaziz, who spoke to survivors in Sinjar, said the displaced are “completely traumatized,” and were suffering from “different psychological problems.”

ISIL has now “established slave markets in the Nineveh Province,” and was transferring some of the women to Syria for slavery, said Mohammed Gomashini from the Independent Human Rights Committee.
 
Iraq has been fighting the ISIL terrorists since they took control of Mosul on June 10. The takeover was followed by the fall of the city of Tikrit, located 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad. The control of Tikrit was later retaken by the Iraqi army.

The ISIL terrorists have been committing heinous crimes in the captured areas, including the mass execution of civilians and Iraqi security forces.

Soldiers of the Iraqi army have been engaged in heavy fighting with the militants on different fronts and have so far been able to push back militants in several areas.

NT/MAM/AS

Somalia faces fresh drought threats: UN

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The United Nations and the Somali government have issued fresh drought warnings in southern parts of the African state.

The southern Somali town of Baidoa is one of the regions in danger and the humanitarian crisis is threatening to cause deaths and displacement.

For the past seven months, hundreds of people have left their homes in the Bakool region of southern Somalia to take shelter at a camp in Baidoa.

Most of them walked all the way to the camp from the town of Hudur, which was captured six months ago by Ethiopian troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

“It’s seventh month now since we came to this camp, we have received no help at all; we have no food, no canned water and no proper shelter. Rain and wind continue to affect us here in this camp,” a displaced woman told Press TV. 

Farming is the lifeline for people in Bakool, but drought and famine have displaced more than half a million people and claimed the lives of approximately a quarter of a million others.

The displaced people at the camp in Baidoa accuse the government and aid agencies of negligence.

The displaced people told Press TV that they lost everything in the famine and they now demand immediate humanitarian assistance.

Somali Agriculture Minister Abdi Ahmed Mohamed told Press TV that “by starting to intervene as early as possible we might prevent the situation to develop to a level we have witnessed back in 2011. This is the time for action, if we do not act now, things might deteriorate…and that is what we want to actually avoid.”

DB/HSN/SS

Hundreds of Americans trained by ISIL

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A US lawmaker has revealed that there are hundreds of Americans, who have links with ISIL militants and can return to the US with their American passports.

“I’m very concerned because we don’t know every single person that has an American passport that has gone and trained and learned how to fight,” Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday.

Rogers noted that these American citizens have at least once traveled, participated and trained with the terrorists and that US intelligence service is currently tracking them.

If these Americans have helped ISIL, they should be charged under laws, which prohibit US citizens from helping terrorists, he opined.

“ISIL would like to have a Western-style attack to continue this notion that they are the leading jihadist group in the world,” Rogers said.

President Barack Obama said in a statement Thursday that the US lacked a strategy to address the growing threat of ISIL. Obama said he was not planning to significantly expand the military action against ISIL anytime soon.

His remarks were greeted with intense criticism on Capitol Hill.

The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee says Obama has been “too cautious” in dealing with the ISIL terrorist group.

Also, in a New York Times op-ed published Friday, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham dismissed Obama’s limited airstrikes against the terrorist group in Iraq as “tactical and reactive half-measures.”

The terrorist organization commands a vast stretch of territory from central Syria to the environs of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad.

AT/AGB

Syria militants hit hard in Jobar

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The Syrian army has advanced on the Damascus neighborhood of Jobar, inflicting heavy losses on foreign-backed militants.

Government forces on Sunday closed in on the militants after heavy clashes. A large number of militants were killed.

“We, soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army in Jobar, are determined to continue our national duty in ending armed terrorist groups and cleaning the territories of Syrian Arab Republic from those terrorist mercenaries,” a Syrian officer said.

Syrian fighter jets and artillery also targeted militant positions, destroying their hideouts and tunnels.

The Syrian army also released a video showing smoke rising from buildings in Jobar and clashes between the soldiers and militants.

The army said the operation was launched to flush the militants out of the strategic area, which had been used as a launch pad for many attacks on the capital, Damascus.

Over the past months, the Syrian army has made major gains in its battle against Takfiri groups across the country.

According to estimates by the United Nations, over 190,000 people have been killed and millions of others displaced due to the turmoil fueled by the Western-backed militants in Syria since March 2011.

Since November 2012, CIA operatives and US Special Operations forces have been secretly providing the militants with training on the use of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons in a secret base in Jordan, according to several reports.

Analysts believe the crisis in Syria will backfire on the West as militants are now returning to the countries they came from, including those in Europe.

DB/HSN