Friday 20 Sep 2024 {HMC} Houses swept away to the very last brick. Inmates frantically fleeing the city’s main prison as its walls got washed away by water rising from an overflowing dam. Corpses of crocodiles and snakes floating among human bodies on what used to be main streets.

As torrential rains across Central and West Africa have unleashed the most catastrophic floods in decades, residents of Maiduguri, the capital of the fragile Nigerian state of Borno — which has been at the center of an Islamic extremists’ insurgency — said they have seen it all.

The floods, which have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands across the region this year, have worsened existing humanitarian crises in the countries which have been impacted the most: Chad, Nigeria, Mali and Niger. Over four million people have been affected by flooding so far this year in West Africa, a threefold increase from last year, according to the U.N.

With rescue operations still under way, it is impossible to get an accurate count of lives lost in the water. So far, at least 230 were reported dead in Nigeria, 265 in Niger, 487 in Chad and 55 in Mali, which has seen the most catastrophic flooding since the 1960s.

While Africa is responsible for a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is among the most vulnerable to extreme weather events, the World Meteorological Organization said earlier this month. In sub-Saharan Africa, the cost of adapting to extreme weather events is estimated at between $30 bilion-50 billion annually over the next decade, the report said. It warned that up to 118 million Africans could be impacted by extreme weather by 2030.

Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, has been under significant strain. Over the last decade, Borno has been hit by a constant string of attacks from Boko Haram militants, who want to install an Islamic state in Nigeria and have killed more than 35,000 people in the last decade.

Saleh Bukar, a 28-year-old from Maiduguri, said he was woken up last week around midnight by his neighbors.

“Water is flooding everywhere!” he recalled their frantic screams in a phone interview. “They were shouting, ’Everybody come out, everybody come out!'”

Older people and people with disabilities did not know what was going on, he said, and some were left behind. Those who did not wake up on time drowned right away.

Local authorities are overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster: more than 400,000 people in Nigeria have been displaced, and at least 240 people were killed.

Last week, floods killed about 80% of the animals at the Borno State Museum Park and an unspecified number of reptiles escaped.

The city’s main prison was so damaged that hundreds of inmates escaped. The water knocked down the walls of the local police station and some of the government’s offices.

The World Food Program has set up kitchens providing food to the displaced in Maiduguri as well as emergency food and cash assistance to people in the most hard-hit areas. USAID said Wednesday it has provided more than $3 million in humanitarian assistance to West and Central Africa, including $1 million provided in the immediate aftermath of the floods.

But many say they were left to fend for themselves.

Floods in mostly arid Niger have impacted over 841,000 people, killing hundreds and displacing more than 400,000.

Harira Adamou, a 50-year-old single mother of six, is one of them. She said the floods destroyed her mud hut in the northern city of Agadez.

“The rooms are destroyed; the walls fell down,” she said. “It’s a big risk to live in a mud hut but we don’t have the means to build concrete ones.”

Adamou, who is unemployed and lost her husband four years ago, said she has not received any support from the state and has not had the opportunity — or the means — to relocate. She and her children are living in a temporary shelter next to their shattered hut, and fret that the torrential rains might return.

“I understood there was a change in the weather,” she said. “I have never seen a big rain like this year here in Agadez.”

In Maiduguri, 15% of the city remains under water, according to local authorities. As forecasts predicted more rains across the region, Nigerian authorities warned earlier this week that more floods are expected.

Bukar said he kept going back to see whether the water that swallowed his home had receded, but that has not happened. He said he has not received any aid from authorities except for some food items handed out at the local school, where he is sheltering with 5,000 others.

He is trying to stay sane by helping others. Along with his friend, he helped recover 10 bodies and rescued 25 people, rowing down the streets in a canoe. He said he’s also helping out cooking meals for those that are sheltering with him.

“I am volunteering to help, but I am also a victim,” he said. “Our people need us. They need help.”

SOURCE VOA

Friday 20 Sep 2024 {HMC} An attack in the Malian capital, Bamako, targeting a military police training camp and airport left more than 70 people dead and 200 wounded, security sources said Thursday, one of the highest tolls suffered in recent years.

The attacks Tuesday in Bamako were the first of their kind in years and dealt a forceful blow to the ruling junta, experts said.

The death toll has put scrutiny on the junta’s military strategy and its claims that the security situation is under control despite militants roaming the region for years.

The operation claimed by the al-Qaida-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has prompted widespread shock and condemnation within the West African country.

Many Malians have taken to social media to demand accountability for what they consider a security lapse.

Higher reported tolls

A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that 77 people had been killed and 255 wounded in Tuesday’s attacks.

An authenticated confidential official document put the toll at around 100 and identified 81 victims.

The general staff acknowledged late Tuesday that “some human lives were lost,” notably personnel at the military police center.

Mali’s military-led authorities have so far given no indication of any future measures in response to the attacks, which were not mentioned in the minutes of Wednesday’s cabinet meeting.

JNIM claimed that a few dozen of its fighters had killed and wounded hundreds from the opposing ranks, including members of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.

The attack came a day after junta-led Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso marked a year since the creation of their breakaway grouping, the Alliance of Sahel States.

The three countries, which have been under military rule following a string of coups since 2020, have broken ties with former colonial ruler France and turned militarily and politically toward other partners, including Russia.

Bamako is normally spared the sort of attacks that occur almost daily in some parts of Mali.

The West African country has been ravaged since 2012 by different factions affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

Volleys of gunfire interspersed with explosions broke out in Bamako around 5 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) on Tuesday.

JNIM fighters attacked a military police school and stormed part of the nearby airport complex, where a military facility adjoins the civilian one.

The militant group broadcast images showing fighters strolling around and firing randomly into the windows of the presidential hangar and destroying aircraft.

Condemnation, condolences

Condemnation poured in on Thursday, including from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Mali’s neighbor Senegal, African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat and the U.K. Embassy.

The French Embassy in Bamako offered its “condolences to the government of Mali.”

Jean-Herve Jezequel, Sahel project director at the International Crisis Group, told AFP that one hypothesis could be that “the jihadists are trying to send a message to the Malian authorities that they can hit them anywhere and therefore that the big cities must also be protected.”

He said the aim could be to force the government to concentrate its resources in populated areas and have fewer troops in rural areas “where these jihadist groups have established their strongholds.”

Against a backdrop of severe restrictions on freedom of expression under the governing junta, virtually no public figures in Mali have spoken out against the alleged security lapse.

The daily Nouvel Horizon, a rare dissenting voice, wrote on its front page that it was “time to apportion blame at all levels.”

SOURCE VOA

Friday 20 Sep 2024 {HMC} Morocco has arrested 152 people, who will now face trial on accusations they used social media to incite an attempt at mass illegal migration into the adjacent Spanish enclave of Ceuta, a government spokesperson said.

In recent days, thousands of mostly young Moroccan men rushed to the northern city of Fnideq, bordering Ceuta, to attempt a crossing. Their efforts were thwarted by the heaviest security deployment ever seen the city, according to human rights activists there.

“All attempts have been foiled,” spokesman Mustapha Baitas said at a news conference late on Thursday.

“Some 3000 people attempted illegal migration,” he said, in a first official comment days after the crossing attempt.

Spain’s two enclaves on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, Ceuta and Melilla, share the only land borders between the European Union and Africa. They sporadically experience waves of attempted crossings by migrants trying to reach Europe.

Morocco and Spain have strengthened their cooperation in addressing illegal migration since Madrid backed a Moroccan autonomy plan for disputed Western Sahara in 2022.

Videos shared by local media showed young people throwing stones at security forces as they were prevented from getting near the Ceuta border.

“No deaths have been reported,” Baitas said, adding authorities acted in respect for the law.

In the first eight months this year, Morocco stopped 45,015 people from illegally migrating to Europe, according to interior ministry figures.

Last month, hundreds of migrants took advantage of a thick mist to swim to Ceuta, Spanish police said.

Tighter surveillance of Morocco’s northern borders has prompted an increasing number of migrants to try the riskier and longer Atlantic route to the Canary Islands.

SOURCE BBC