Deaths and violence have been taking place in Nigeria amidst religious tension and a national fuel crisis that has so far lasted 2 days. While the Islamist group Boko Haram remains hostile towards Christians, the country’s situation has been worsened by the removal of fuel subsidies. With gas costs rising, a general strike and demonstrations have put the country on hold making peace an even more challenging prospect.

A doctor in the North, near the recent violence in a town called Potiskum, told Al-Jazeera that on Tuesday eight people were brought in to the mortuary.  They were killed when a group of gunmen stormed a pub. Among the dead was a 10-year-old girl.

In Benin, to the south, Al-Jazeera reported that a mosque was set ablaze and an Islamic school nearby had been burnt down.

Nigeria is Africa’s top oil producer. On Monday during protests against rising fuel prices and religious conflict, a group separated from the demonstration and terrorized a Hausa neighborhood - the Hausa community being a predominantly Muslim ethnicity.

Al-Jazeera reports that President Goodluck Jonathan claimed Boko Haram sympathizers were in various branches of the Nigerian government. He said, “The situation we have in our hands is even worse than the civil war that we fought” in the late 1960’s.

The country is divided between the mainly Muslim north, and the mainly Christian south.

*link to Al-Jazeera article*

(AFP Photo)

fyeahafrica:

People who have fled the drought in Somalia to camps near the capital Mogadishu have now been hit by days of heavy rain.

Aid workers say five people, including three children, had died of exposure. A doctor told the BBC that people could not find shelter from the cold rain.

The victims have been displaced by a drought that has devastated large parts of the Horn of Africa.

Some 10 million people are said to be affected across the region.

Osman Duflay, a Mogadishu doctor, told the BBC’s World Update programme that camp residents were facing “disaster”.

“Especially the under-fives and the pregnant women, they’re suffering from malnutrition and communicable disease like the measles, diarrhoea and pneumonia,” he said.

Earlier this week Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian affairs co-ordinator for Somalia, told the BBC that the country was close to famine.

“The next few months are critical,” he said.

Last week Somalia’s al-Shabab Islamist militia - which has been fighting the Mogadishu government - said it was lifting its ban on foreign aid agencies provided they did not show a “hidden agenda”.

The drought is said to be the worst affecting by the Horn of Africa’s in 60 years.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is reporting a dramatic rise in malnutrition rates even in the part of Somalia normally considered to be the breadbasket of the country.

Somalia, wracked by 20 years of conflict, is worst affected.

Some 3,000 people flee each day for neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya which are struggling to cope.

Again, not directly a human rights story, but indeed a humanitarian disaster. Please see my previous post to find out how you can help (the one with all the links)

inothernews:

Ratko Mladic, above, in 1993.  Via the New York Times:

Ratko Mladic, the fugitive accused of masterminding the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, had been captured but refused to give details.

Mr. Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb general, was one of the world’s most wanted criminals, evading capture for more than 15 years despite an increasing international effort to hunt him down. Serbian news reports said that he was living under the name of Milorad Komadic and was captured after a tip that he had identification documents for Mladic and appeared physically similar.

Mr. Mladic was blamed for the worst ethnically motivated mass murder on the Continent since World War II that resulted in the massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys from the Bosnian town of Srebrenica.

Mr. Mladic had become the main obstacle to Serbia’s candidacy to join the European Union. He had been in hiding since 1995, widely believed to be protected by allies in the Serbian military and intelligence.

(Photo: Petar Kujundzic / Reuters via the New York Times)

I studied Srebrenica for a class about genocide a few semesters back. That class changed my life and made me interested in putting an end to political violence against all humans. Violence against humans in general, really. So this is good for me to see, that this prick is finally busted. Hope he gets what he deserves. It was a disgusting massacre.

(via pantslessprogressive)