THE BOR GLOBE NETWORK

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Up to seven people died when Nigeria's army repelled an attack on Sunday by suspected Boko Haram fighters on a village near a northern state capital, residents and military sources said. Gunfire and explosions could be heard in the evening outside Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and birthplace of Boko Haram's insurgency to establish an Islamic state in the northeast of Africa's most populous nation. Soldiers stopped suspected Boko Haram fighters in … [Read more...]

COTONOU (Reuters) - Benin's Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou walked away unharmed after the helicopter he was travelling in crash-landed in the north of the West African nation on Saturday, his daughter said. It was not immediately known why Zinsou's helicopter made the forced landing in the town of Djougou, where he had been due to meet local people. "My father is fine. There were no victims in the helicopter accident in Djougou," Marie-Cecile Zinsou, who is also a member of her father's … [Read more...]

ADDIS ABABA | By Aaron Maasho Reuters Ethiopian police have arrested two senior opposition members on suspicion of inciting weeks of protests against government plans to set up a new economic zone near the capital that would displace farmers, their party leader said on Friday. The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) says 87 protesters have been killed by police since demonstrations broke out this month in Oromiya region, in the country's worst civil unrest for a decade. On Dec. 15, a … [Read more...]

Reuters MOGADISHU The government of Somalia has issued a ban on Christmas and New Year's celebrations in the Muslim country, saying the festivities "have nothing to do with Islam." "We warn against celebration of Christmas, which is only for Christians," Sheikh Mohamed Kheyrow, director of Somalia’s ministry of religion, said on state radio. "This is a matter of faith. The Christmas holiday and its drum beatings have nothing to with Islam." He said the ministry has sent letters to the … [Read more...]

The former governor of Western Equatoria state in South Sudan, Joseph Bangasi Bakosoro, has been reportedly arrested by National Security Services. One of his family members said Wednesday that Mr. Bakosoro is being held since Tuesday. According to family sources, Bakosoro had been at the NSS headquarters in Jebel area for a meeting on Tuesday afternoon, and as he was leaving after the meeting finished, NSS agents stopped his car at the gate and called him back to them. The agents ordered … [Read more...]

All photos courtesy of Nonviolent Peace force An ongoing civil war has claimed thousands of lives in Africa's youngest state, but the Women Peacekeeping Teams are paving the way for a route out of conflict. by Lucy Draper, Broadly   Mary Nyakhan Makuei is 38 years old and has seven children. She lives in Juba, the capital of South Sudan—the world's youngest country and one that has been struggling with a brutal civil war since 2013, just two years after it was first … [Read more...]

Editor’s Note: This blog post was written by Enough Project Intern Amanda Schmitt. On December 10, 2015, Enough Project Founding Director John Prendergast testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, assembling for a session on “Independent South Sudan: A Failure of Leadership.” Expert witnesses included Ambassador Donald Booth, Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan; Bob Leavitt, Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian … [Read more...]