Nigeria: Military says dozens of gang members killed – DW – 08/12/2025
The military in Nigeria said it killed more than 100 armed gang members, taking them out in a joint air and ground operation in the northwestern state of Zamfara.
The operation took place "in the early hours" of Sunday in the Bukkuyum local government area, the military said. The move came after more than 400 gang members were seen preparing to attack a village.
Armed groups — which are often called "bandits" by locals — have been terrorizing communities across the northwest and central Nigeria.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Nigerian Air Force spokesperson Air Commodore Ehimen Ejodame said that the airstrike killed "several notorious kingpins and scores of their footsoldiers."
He added that ground forces intercepted and killed others trying to flee the area in Makakkari Forest, where the operation took place.
The military's attack "may have occurred in response to consecutive banditry, especially kidnapping, in the state in the previous month", the French AFP news agency reported, citing a conflict monitoring report produced by the United Nations on the operation.
Bandits had been planning an attack on a farming village when the military operation started, the report added.
Apart from charging farmers and local miners taxes, the "bandits" are also known for kidnapping people and holding them hostage for months, often demanding ransom for their release.
The groups are often motivated by money, but they have lately been increasingly cooperating with jihadist groups in the area.
The Nigerian government has repeatedly launched military operations against such groups, including an operation in July, in which at least 95 gang members were killed in the northwestern state of Niger.
Military operations have nevertheless yet to succeed at quelling the violence, which has also exacerbated Nigeria's malnutrition crisis, especially in the northwest, as "bandits" continue to drive farmers away from their properties.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Int'l Business Times
5 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Inside Trump's 'Alligator Alcatraz': Detainees Allege Abuse In A Legal Black Hole
At US President Donald Trump's new migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, time has no discernible meaning. Prisoners are barely able to see sunlight in the windowless space, living under fluorescent lamps that are always on, with no clocks or anything else by which they might mark the days. Several detainees, their family members and lawyers have denounced appalling conditions at the facility, nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" by an administration that has likened undocumented migrants to "animals" and promised to deport millions. AFP spoke with several "Alligator Alcatraz" detainees by phone and obtained further information about conditions there from relatives, lawyers and legal documents. Detainees spoke of facilities covered in filth, a lack of medical care, mistreatment, and the violation of their legal rights. "They don't even treat animals like this. This is like torture," said Luis Gonzalez, a 25-year-old Cuban who called AFP from inside the center. Florida authorities built the facilities in eight days -- opening the center on July 2 at an abandoned airfield in the Everglades wetlands. Governed by Republican Ron DeSantis, the southeastern state signed an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain undocumented foreigners, a power that until now had been reserved for federal authorities. Now, the Trump administration wants to make this a model for other detention centers across the country. Gonzalez arrived in the United States in 2022 and settled in Florida after authorities released him while his asylum application was being reviewed. Last month, when an immigration judge dismissed his case, ICE agents arrested him and took him to "Alligator Alcatraz." They kept him chained by his hands, waist, and feet on a bus with other detainees for more than a day before taking him to one of the large tents that house eight cells each, he said. "I haven't seen sunlight in the 14 days I've been here," he said. "When they take us to the dining hall, they take us with our hands on our heads as if we were murderers." He lives in a cell with about 30 people, a space enclosed by chain-linked fencing that he compares to a chicken coop. It is hardly ever cleaned, he says, not even the three toilets that everyone shares. At the time of the call, Gonzalez had not showered for a week. The days are hot, with swarms of mosquitoes in the cells, and the nights are not much better. Gonzalez and other detainees have denounced the lack of medical care available at the site. Michael Borrego Fernandez, 35, complained of pain but was not treated until he began to bleed, according to his lawyers and legal documents. He underwent emergency surgery for hemorrhoids, only to have to be hospitalized again when he was not given antibiotics and his wounds became infected. Some prisoners, such as Marcos Puig, 31, have rebelled. Before a visit from officials, guards isolated him to prevent him from protesting, he said by phone from another Florida facility where he is now being held. Outraged, he broke a toilet in his new cell, prompting a dozen guards to enter, handcuff him, and punch and kick him all over his body. Afterward, he says, they left him kneeling for about 12 hours in a space without cameras or air conditioning before transferring him to another detention facility. "I arrived here broken. I was covered in bruises," he said. Another inmate, Gonzalo Almanza Valdes, reported seeing guards "beat up" detainees, according to a recorded phone call with his wife. Desperation has pushed some to the limit. On Sunday, Sonia Bichara called her partner, detainee Rafael Collado. Through the speakerphone, the 63-year-old man said: "I have tried to kill myself twice, I have cut my veins." When contacted by AFP, Florida authorities denied allegations of abuse. Activists and lawyers are demanding the closure of the facilities, which are facing two lawsuits. The first alleges that migrants' right to due process is not being respected. "There are people who have been there since they arrived and have still not seen a judge. And that cannot be, it is completely illegal," said Magdalena Cuprys, Gonzalez's lawyer. She said detainees were unable to request bail or a case review because the courts that should be hearing the cases are not doing so, claiming they have no jurisdiction over the state-operated center. The second lawsuit alleges that the facility threatens the Everglades ecosystem. Last week, a federal judge ordered a 14-day suspension of all new construction at the center while she reviews the case. US President Donald Trump has lauded the facility, part of his wide-scale crackdown on undocumented migrants that rights groups say has violated victims' rights AFP US President President Donald Trump (L), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (2nd-R), and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (2nd-L) toured the migrant detention center on July 1, 2025 AFP Activists, lawyers and political opponents are demanding the closure of these facilities, which are facing two lawsuits AFP
Int'l Business Times
11 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Colombia Buries Assassinated Presidential Candidate
Colombia held a funeral service for murdered presidential candidate Miguel Uribe on Wednesday, with his widow tearfully warning that the country must shake its dark and long history of political violence. The 39-year-old conservative senator was shot in June while campaigning in the capital, Bogota, and died this week of his injuries. "Our country is going through the darkest, saddest, and most painful days," Maria Claudia Tarazona told a packed cathedral funeral service as she prepared to bury her husband. Police have blamed Uribe's murder on dissident left-wing guerrillas. For most Colombians, the assassination represented a shocking spasm of political violence after years of relative peace. Four presidential candidates were assassinated during the 1980s and 1990s, as cocaine cartels and various armed groups terrorized the country. Uribe's own mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in a botched 1991 police operation to free her from cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel. On Wednesday Uribe's father, Miguel Uribe Londono, remembered the day 34 years ago when she was killed. "With all the pain in my soul, I had to tell a little boy of barely four years old the horrendous news of his mother's murder," he said at the service. "In this same holy cathedral, I carried Miguel in one arm and the coffin of his mother, Diana, in the other." "Today, 34 years later, this senseless violence also takes from me that same little boy," he said. Uribe's wife vowed that his death at the hands of a suspected 15-year-old hitman would not be in vain, and that his young son and stepdaughters would live a life filled with love. "Miguel, I will love you every day of my life until my time comes to meet you in heaven," she said. "I promise to give Alejandro and the girls a life full of love and happiness, without hatred and without resentment". Colombia will hold elections in 2026 to replace incumbent leftist leader Gustavo Petro, who is constitutionally barred from running again. Petro, himself a former guerrilla, said he chose not to attend Wednesday's funeral at the family's request. "We're not going, not because we didn't want to," he posted on social media. "We simply respect the family and we avoid the funeral of Senator Miguel Uribe from being taken over by supporters of hate". It was expected that some of those marking their respects may have booed the president, who has taken a conciliatory approach to armed groups. Former presidents Juan Manuel Santos and Cesar Gaviria attended the funeral. Members of the Presidential Guard escort the coffin carrying the body of late Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe AFP Uribe's window, Maria Claudia Tarazona, prays with her son during the funeral mass AFP The son of the late presidential hopeful and senator Miguel Uribe stands in front of his coffin AFP
Int'l Business Times
12 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Bukele Critics Face Long Exile From El Salvador Homeland
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has tightened his grip on power and made life ever-more difficult for critics -- now a growing number face the prospect of a long and painful exile. At 44 years old, the self-styled world's "coolest dictator" has been in power for six years, and has just scrapped constitutional term limits, raising the prospect he could rule for many more. For good measure, he and his allies also passed a "foreign agents" law, similar to those used to crush dissent in Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Against this backdrop, about 80 human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and environmentalists have left El Salvador in the last four months, according to an AFP tally, fleeing what they call "escalating repression" and the risk of imprisonment. AFP spoke to several of those in exile. Here are the stories of four. Bukele's government did not respond to requests for comment. But the president -- popular with Salvadorans for his "war" on gangs that once ravaged the country -- accuses his critics of "distorting" and "manipulating" the truth. Ingrid Escobar's left arm is bandaged. Shortly after fleeing her homeland with her nine- and 11-year-old children, she underwent surgery for a tumor, leaving a wound that has yet to heal. "I prioritized my health, my freedom, and my children," says the director of Socorro Juridico (Legal Aid), which assists prisoners' families. Now in Mexico, the 43-year-old recalls how police patrolled near her home "twice a week." She lived in that shadow until a friend from the prosecutor's office warned her that she was on a list of 11 people about to be arrested. "I had no choice" but to leave she said. "Because of the intimidation and fear of dying in prison without medical treatment." "I grabbed some clothes and left when I could," she said. The prospect of being jailed in El Salvador is not far-fetched. Escobar has been a staunch critic of Bukele's state of emergency, which was imposed in 2022 and has led to about 88,000 people being detained. The government accuses them all of being gang members. But with scant evidence or due process, no one knows for sure. Escobar insists that among the prisoners are "thousands of innocents." An estimated 433 have died in prison, although the true figure may never be known. Her organization continues to operate in El Salvador, but they are at "high risk," Escobar laments. "Consolidating the dictatorship involves imprisoning human rights defenders to silence them," she claimed. "There is no such thing as a 'cool dictatorship.'" Ruth Lopez was already in pyjamas when police arrived to arrest her on the night of May 18. The lawyer, who led the anti-corruption unit of the humanitarian NGO Cristosal, was herself was accused of illicit enrichment by a Bukele-aligned prosecutor. Her high-profile arrest marked a turning point. A month later, her colleague Rene Valiente, head of investigations, went into exile along with 20 other Cristosal activists. "There were attacks on social networks, stigmatization of our work, surveillance by security forces," recounts the 39-year-old lawyer from Cristosal's office in Guatemala. A constitutional lawyer and an environmental lawyer were also arrested in May and June, and the "foreign agents law" stipulated strict new laws for NGOs, including a 30 percent tax on their income. Amid all this, the US administration of President Donald Trump has been notably muted in its condemnation. Valiente and Lopez continue to advise the families of the 252 Venezuelans deported from the United States and who spent four months in the mega-prison Bukele built for gang members. "He exercises repression because he has the validation of the United States and has undermined democratic checks and balances" said Valiente. "We will continue working from here for a country that doesn't have to choose between security, or rights," he said. When the Bukele-controlled Congress lifted the ban on metal mining last December, many Salvadorans took to the streets to protest. An environmental leader with a decade's standing, Amalia Lopez could not be absent. But after helping file a legal challenge against the new rules the 45-year-old was forced to retreat from the fight and leave her country in April. "I felt watched. I thought about protecting myself, letting the pressure subside, and returning, but I am no longer safe there," she told AFP from Costa Rica. In May, an environmental defender and a community leader protesting with farmers near Bukele's residence were detained. "With such overwhelming military and political power, we can't do much," said Lopez, who also defends communities' rights to water and land threatened by "powerful economic groups." All her work and affections "were left there" she said. "With indefinite re-election, an early return is impossible. Now it's an increasingly distant reality." Jorge Beltran still has his suitcases packed because he's seeking asylum in another country. The 55-year-old left El Salvador for Guatemala on June 14 "totally devastated," without his wife and children. "I am emotionally unwell. But in El Salvador, practicing free and critical journalism is no longer safe," he said from his small rented room. A journalist for 23 years, Beltran is one of 47 reporters who have gone into exile in recent months, according to the professional association APES. Working for El Diario de Hoy, he denounced what he called "corrupt Bukele officials and human rights violations." It was no easy task, Beltran said, as the government "closed access to public documents." He decided to leave when people close to power warned him he was being targeted by the police. "It's a very bitter pill," he said. Now the prospect of Bukele's indefinite re-election "erases the hope of returning in just a few years." Although he is currently unemployed, Beltran plans to create a website to report from abroad on what is happening in El Salvador. "I will be far away, but I will not be silent," he insisted. Ingrid Escobar has been a staunch critic of Bukele's state of emergency, which was imposed in 2022 and has led to about 88,000 people being detained AFP Jorge Beltran, who like others has fled to neighboring Guatemala, said 'practicing free and critical journalism is no longer safe' in El Salvador AFP Rene Valiente went into exile in June along with 20 other members of the Cristosal NGO after a colleague was arrested AFP Environmental leader Amalia Lopez fled El Salvador after helping file a legal challenge to new mining rules AFP
