KANO: Three aid workers were confirmed killed in a Boko Haram attack in northeast Nigeria, the UN said on Friday, in the latest violence to underscore the militants’ enduring threat.
The world body and two security sources initially said four people were killed in the attack in the remote town of Rann on Thursday evening but later revised the death toll.
Rann is located some 175 km east of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, near the border with Cameroon and communications are difficult.
A UN spokeswoman in Abuja, Samantha Newport, said the attack happened “after dark” outside a camp housing some 55,000 people displaced by the conflict.
“Of the aid workers that were killed, two worked for the IOM (International Organization for Migration) in camp management; and one was a medical doctor working as a third party consultant for UNICEF,” the UN children’s agency, she added.
Three aid workers were injured and a female nurse was missing, feared abducted. All those killed, injured or missing were Nigerian.
The UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, said: “Aid workers put their lives on the line every single day to provide emergency assistance to vulnerable women, children and men.
“Our deepest condolences go to the families of the victims and our brave colleagues and we call on authorities to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice and account.”
There was no immediate confirmation of deaths or injuries among internally displaced people (IDP) but a civilian militia source in Rann and a senior military figure in Maiduguri said eight soldiers were killed.
Thursday’s attack in Rann comes nearly two weeks after Boko Haram kidnapped 110 schoolgirls from the town of Dapchi in neighboring Yobe state.
The government in Abuja said Friday the hunt for the missing students had been “extended to neighboring countries,” after reports some may have been taken into Niger.
The kidnapping and continued attacks in the region have raised questions about the extent of the Nigerian government’s claims to have virtually defeated Boko Haram.
Early on Friday, a female suicide bomber blew herself up near a mosque in Buni Yadi, Yobe state, civilian vigilante leader Ibrahim Liman told AFP from Maiduguri.
“From all indications it was a premature explosion... She died and she injured two worshippers who were heading to the mosque,” he said.
Buni Yadi is 45 km south of the Yobe state capital Damaturu. It was the scene of another Boko Haram school attack in February 2014, when at least 40 boys were killed.
The town was cleared of Boko Haram in March 2016.
Boko Haram’s quest to establish a hard-line Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has left at least 20,000 dead and made more than 2.6 million others homeless since 2009.
The military has regained the upper hand but the militants have increasingly turned to kidnapping for ransom as a way to finance their operations and win back key commanders in prisoner swaps with the Nigerian government.
In Rann, Boko Haram fighters “in large numbers” were said to have targeted troops protecting the IDP camp.
Boko Haram kills three aid workers in Nigeria
Boko Haram kills three aid workers in Nigeria
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
