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Rebel forces advancing on the Central African Republic’s capital Bangui have been pushed back and the situation is “under control”, a spokesman for UN peacekeeping forces said Sunday, as tensions mount a week before key elections.

The government had alleged an attempted coup when three of the powerful armed groups that control most of the country’s territory began advancing towards the capital along critical main roads, ahead of presidential and legislative elections scheduled for December 27.

Earlier Sunday, the Coalition of the Democratic Opposition (COD-2020) called for the votes to be postponed “until the re-establishment of peace and security”.

Uniting the main parties and movements opposed to President Faustin-Archange Touadera, COD-2020 was until recently led by former president Francois Bozize, who the government said Saturday was at the head of rebel fighters massing not far from the capital.

Vladimir Monteiro, the spokesman for the UN’s MINUSCA peacekeeping force, told AFP Sunday that “the armed groups have left the town” of Yaloke, on one of the routes towards Bangui, and that they had given up ground in two other areas.

MINUSCA had “sent blue helmets to Mbaiki, where there were clashes on Saturday… to block the armed groups”.

Monteiro added: “The situation is under control”.

But security and humanitarian sources said that parts of the armed groups were still on the ground around Bossembele — around 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Bangui.

The government had said Saturday that former president Bozize was at Bossembele with fighters from three rebel groups which announced a coalition on Saturday called the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC).

They urged members to “scrupulously respect the integrity of the civilian population” and to allow vehicles belonging to the United Nations and humanitarian groups to circulate freely in the former French colony.

In a joint statement, a group is known as the G5+ — France, Russia, the US, the EU, and the World Bank — urged Bozize and allied armed groups to lay down their arms, calling for the elections to go ahead on December 27.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for calm and called on all sides to ensure credible elections and peace.

And the 11,000-strong MINUSCA force warned Saturday it would “use all means at its disposal including planes to prevent violence.”

Meanwhile, Bozize’s KNK party denied the former leader wanted to carry out a putsch.

“We categorically deny that Bozize is at the origin of anything,” Christian Guenebem, a spokesman for his KNK party, told AFP.

“The government has always wanted to undermine the physical and political integrity of Bozize.”

“Why take up arms against your countrymen?” Touadera asked at a rally in Bangui Saturday.

“The national election authority and Constitutional Court have guaranteed that the elections will be held as scheduled,” added the president, who is widely expected to win re-election.

Bozize, back after years in exile, has been barred from running in the election by the coup-prone country’s top court, as the CAR had sought him with an international arrest warrant on charges including murder, arbitrary arrest, and torture.

The 74-year-old, who came to power in a coup in 2003 before himself being overthrown in 2013, said last Tuesday that he accepted the court’s decision.

The CAR spiraled into conflict when Bozize, a Christian, was ousted as president by the Seleka, a rebel coalition drawn largely from the Muslim minority.

That coup triggered a bloodbath between the Seleka and so-called “anti-Balaka” self-defense forces, mainly Christian and animist.

France sent its army to intervene, and after a transitional period, elections were staged in 2016 and won by Touadera.

The residents of Abuja Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nigeria’s capital city, are under panic following the second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic in the country.

According to Dr. Mohammed Kawu, the acting secretary, Health and Human Services Secretariat of the FCT, while briefing newsmen, there is high panic in the Federal Capital Territory over the second wave of the pandemic, even as he said the apprehension is connected to the high number of new patients, whom he said are struggling for survival through oxygen at the University of Abuja Teaching hospital (UATH) Gwagwalada and Thisday Dome Isolation Center also in the FCT.

“There are palpable fears over the second wave of the pandemic, especially here in the FCT.

“This is understandable given that so many new cases are battling for breath and are under the oxygen at both the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital and the ThisDay Dome where they are quartered,” he said.
He,  however, warned that the second wave of COVID-19 has been confirmed by health experts to be more deadly than what was experienced before.

He confirmed that cases in the nation’s capital have hit 8,338 while efforts were on too gear to contain the spread. 

Kawu hinted that this figure was established after about 86,505 suspected cases were investigated and tested, warning that residents should not let down their guard regarding the pandemic.

He further explained that with a per capital testing rate of over 18,021 per million (1.8 percent population), FCT remains the only state to attain and surpass the COVID-19 testing target of one percent population set by the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 (PTF)

A 32-year-old Nigerian man from Delta State, South-South part of the country, Ifie Jonathan has been paraded by the state police command after he killed his 12 years old daughter when he accused her of being a witch.
Jonathan, from Okpe Local Government Area of Delta State, fled after committing the crime by drowning his daughter in River Mereje in the same local government area.

The state Commissioner of Police, Hafiz Inuwa, revealed that one of the children, 8-year old was rescued by community members while the body of the deceased was found days after the incident.

While giving reasons for his actions, the suspect, Jonathan, said: “My name is Ifie Jonathan, I hail from Okpe Local Government Area of Delta State. “I killed my child that I why I am here. She was twelve years old before I killed her. My mother inlaw came to me several years ago for me to give her my child because she does not have anyone with her.

“I gave her my daughter because my wife is her only child and people were mocking her that she had no grandchild.

“After some time, I did not have work so I had to return to back to Edo State. In 2018, I was called back to work.

“During that period, my children returned back from their grandmother’s house. It was then I began to suspect that they have been possessed by evil spirits.

“Due to their witchcraft, I was banished from three different communities after daughters confessed to being witches. It was then I decided to kill them so I will be free of their enchantment.”

Al-Shabaab militants on Friday claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack that killed at least six people and injured several others outside a stadium in Galkaayo, Galmudug State in central Somalia.

The suicide bomber blew himself up at the gate of a football stadium where Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble was expected to address a crowd.

Those who died in the attack include Gen Qooje Dagaare, the Central Commander of the Danab Brigade, Special Forces of the Somali National Army that is trained by the US.

A local government administrator and another junior commander of Danab forces also died in the attack that left several other soldiers and civilians were wounded.

Officials said that the attack may have targeted Mr. Roble, who has been on a tour of central Somalia since Thursday.

“I strongly condemn the abominable act of terror that targeted our brave soldiers and innocent civilians in Galkayo today,” Roble said of the attack on Friday night.

“Our heroes gave their lives protecting our citizens. I pray for the martyrs and condole their families. Terror and its evil have no place in our country,” the PM said.

The attack may have been Al-Shabaab’s statement against the government whose installations it routinely attacks in Somalia. But it also came as factions of Al-Shabaab allied with ISIS openly declared war on Al-Shabaab affiliated with al-Qaeda terror group.

Somalia is this month expected to hold parliamentary elections but the threat of Shabaab and frequent attacks have added to the challenge of ensuring a smooth vote.

The UN in Somalia also condemned the attack and called for those responsible to be brought to justice.

The Commandant General, Nigeria Security, and Civil Defence Corps, Abdullahi Gana Mohammadu on Friday in his office received Covid 19 testing equipment (Polymerase chain reaction CPR machines) and personal protective equipment which he ordered, to help fight novel coronavirus.  The equipment which will provide results within a short period of time the samples arriving in the hospital’s Lab.

It is not news that Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps has a well-equipped hospital and laboratory equipment within its National Headquarters in Abuja which has been serving both staff and the general public in full capacity.

The installation of the equipment is currently ongoing at the special laboratory of the Corps and kits shall be distributed to health workers and staff accordingly, Gana said.

The CG disclosed that the Corps will invite NCDC (National Centre for Disease Control) for accreditation of the facility for the use of the general public as a testing centre.

It is not a coincidence that this equipment is coming on stream at this time when the Coronavirus disease is ravaging the whole world.

Since we find ourselves in this situation, more effort will be made to support the government and general public as part of the national response plan, Gana stated.

Local vigilantes rescued dozens of schoolchildren abducted by bandits in the northern Nigerian state of Katsina after a gun battle, police said Sunday.

Gunmen had abducted about 80 children on Saturday as they returned to Mahuta village after having attended a religious ceremony, said police spokesman Gambo Isah, of Katsina state police.

The incident came barely 48 hours after the release of 344 schoolboys kidnapped from a boarding school by bandits and held for six days.

According to local people, the number of children rescued following Saturday’s attack came to 113.

When the news spread across Mahuta, residents, and vigilantes mobilised and went after the kidnappers, said Abdullahi Sada leader of a local vigilante group.

They set off in pursuit of the gunmen, who had been identified as Fulani herders.

“We laid siege on the area we knew they were holding the children and also took some Fulani settlements in the area hostage, warning that if anything happened to our children no Fulani would live in the area henceforth,” said Sada.

“They released 60 children around 3:00 am and this morning they called and said they had released the remaining 53 who are now being ferried from the bush,” he said.

The children, from various Islamic seminaries in the town, had been travelling in the company of their teachers when they were kidnapped, said one of the teachers who gave his first name Tijjani.

Sudan and Ethiopia will hold negotiations next week to delineate their shared border, a statement from Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s office said Sunday.

The talks will be held on Tuesday, a week after Ethiopian forces reportedly ambushed and killed Sudanese troops along the border.

“Hamdok and his Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed on Sunday discussed the meeting of the committee for delineating the borders which will be held on December 22,” the statement said.

The two leaders met on the margins of a summit underway Sunday in Djibouti of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East African regional bloc comprising eight countries.

The last border talks were held in May in Addis Ababa but another meeting scheduled for the following month was cancelled.

Sudan and Ethiopia share a 1,600-kilometer-long (nearly 1,000 miles) long border.

In 1902, a deal to draw up the frontier was struck between Great Britain, the colonial power in Sudan at the time, and Ethiopia but the agreement lacked clear demarcation lines.

Sudanese state media reported Saturday that Khartoum had deployed soldiers to the eastern Al-Fashaqa border region, the site of sporadic clashes, where Ethiopian farmers cultivate fertile land on territory claimed by Sudan.

The area also borders Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region, where fighting broke out last month, causing tens of thousands of Ethiopians fleeing the conflict to cross into Sudan.

Sudan’s army said troops were attacked on Tuesday evening in an “ambush by Ethiopian forces and militias inside Sudanese territories”.

Sudanese media said four soldiers were killed and 27 wounded, although the army did not confirm the reports.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who heads the armed forces and the Sovereign Council, Sudan’s highest executive body, visited the area this week.

Addis Ababa was keen to downplay the importance of the incident, saying it did not threaten the relationship between the two countries.

A foreign ministry spokesman in Addis Ababa told AFP Ethiopian security forces had “repelled a group of (Sudanese) low-ranking officers and farmers, who had encroached on Ethiopian territory”.

In what is a sustained attack by bandits and Fulani herdsmen in the northern region of Nigeria, four residents of the Angbabde community in Makurdi Local Government Area of Benue State in North Central Nigeria have been killed in a midnight attack on early Saturday.
The attack also left seven other persons seriously wounded.
Those who lost their lives were the head of the Akwa household, Emberga; his son, Terhemba, brother Innocent, and a visitor to the family, who could not be ascertained at press time.

Seven other persons among them, Decor Akwa, was seriously wounded in the attack, seven-year-old son, Fanen Akwa, was left with minor injuries, while five others with various degrees of injuries are receiving treatment at the Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) Makurdi.
It could be recalled that two persons, a man his wife, were earlier killed by herdsmen at Tse Tyohemba two weeks ago.

Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State, who disclosed this while speaking to newsmen after being briefed about the attack by security agencies in the state, also paid a visit to victims of the attack at the BSUTH.
Flanked by the state commissioner of police and representatives of Operation Whirl Stroke (OPWS), an anti-banditry security formation, the governor said the state government would foot the bills of the victims and also bury the dead.

Earlier, Ortom explained that the herdsmen had tricked security operatives at Angbande, diverted their attention to another area, and attacked the community.
According to him, the herdsmen went to a nearby community, feigned an attack on the area and as soon as the attention of the security forces was diverted towards the said community, the herdsmen returned and laid siege on Angbande.

Governor Ortom lamented that the attackers were inhuman and had no respect for lives, even the lives of children.
He commended President Muhammadu Buhari for the directives to deal decisively with criminal elements.

Fifty-four male students of Government Science Secondary School in the Katsina home state of Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari were late Friday night abducted by bandits.

The bandits, it was reported, invaded the school around 11 pm and shot repeatedly and sporadically into the air.

The bandits attacked the school even as the Nigerian President is on a one week rest in his Daura home.

The incident has forced the remaining students, who survived the invasion, to vacate the school in the night.

Sources revealed that the school had 884 students but 54 are missing after the invasion by the bandits who were riding on motorcycles. 

One of the police officers manning the school gate is currently receiving treatment at Kankara General Hospital. 

The bandits are reported to have also invaded the staff quarters and abducted an elderly woman. 

Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State, who visited the school on Saturday ordered for the immediate closure of all boarding secondary schools in the state. 

The governor met with the school officials, some parents, traditional and religious leaders as well as security personnel in the area. 

Masari pleaded for patience while giving an assurance that the government will do everything possible to secure the release of all the abducted students. 

He said already, security forces, comprising the military, the police, and the Department of State Security have swung into action and are on the trail of the abductors. 

The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of Katsina state police command, Mr. Gambo Isah, confirmed the incident but explained that the attack was repelled. 

“Yesterday, at about 9:40 pm, bandits in their numbers, shooting sporadically with AK 47 rifles, attacked GSSS Kankara, Kankara Local Government Area. 

“The policemen on duty responded to the attack and engaged the attackers in a gunfight which gave the students the opportunity to scale the fence of the school and run for safety. 

“The DPO Kankara reinforced the policemen on duty with Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) which forced the hoodlums to retreat into the forest,” Isah said. 

The PPRO said that the police command was working with other security agencies and the school authorities to ascertain if students were missing following the attack. 

Isah said that more than 200 students who ran into the town for their safety during the attack had returned to the school on Saturday morning. 

He revealed that a police Inspector sustained a gunshot wound during the incident, and was taken to the hospital where he is responding well to treatment.

Abdalla Hamdok, the prime minister of Sudan, arrived Sunday in Addis Ababa at a time when his country is hosting some 50,000 refugees who have fled fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

The influx comes as Sudan faces a political transition since last year’s ouster of strongman president Omar al-Bashir and an economic crisis marked by rapid inflation and rising poverty.

“Arrived at Addis Ababa today to meet with PM @AbiyAhmedAli”, the Sudanese premier wrote on his Twitter account, referring to his Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed.

“I look forward to having productive discussions on political, humanitarian, and security matters of common concern that serve the future of peace, stability, and prosperity for our two sisterly nations and the region.”

Abiy in turn tweeted pictures of him meeting Hamdok at the airport.

The Sudanese prime minister, who was to stay in Ethiopia for two days, was accompanied by a large military and security delegation.

When fighting in Tigray broke out more than a month ago, Hamdok called on his Ethiopian counterpart to engage in negotiations with his opponents, and for African mediation to resolve the conflict.

Thousands have been killed, according to the International Crisis Group, and around 50,000 people have fled to refugee camps across the border in Sudan.