Christian Town of Chibok, Nigeria, Now Part of Islam

Boko Haram militants have seized the north-eastern Nigerian town of Chibok, the home of more than 200 schoolgirls the insurgents kidnapped in April, residents who fled have told the BBC.

The school in Chibok from where almost 300 girls were abducted in April

Militants attacked and took control of the town, in Borno state, on Thursday evening, residents said.

The militants have repeatedly targeted villages around Chibok over recent months.

Boko Haram says it is fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria.

A senator for Borno state, Ali Ndume, told the BBC Hausa service that security forces posted in the town ran away when the insurgents attacked. 

That's normal procedure for most Boko Haram attacks. Why can't adequate resources be assigned to protect these towns? One begins to suspect collusion between the military, the government, and Boko Haram; or, at the very least, complete indifference. In either case, major reforms are necessary in both Nigeria's military and government, but corruption is so all-pervasive it would require a major act of God to turn things around.

Residents told the Sahara Reporters news website that the militants headed to the centre of Chibok and declared that they were taking it over as part of their caliphate.

Abubakar Shekau - leader of Boko Haram

Changed tactics

Since the kidnapping people have complained that the area was not well protected and many residents of Chibok had already moved to safer parts of the country, fearing another attack.

The BBC's Will Ross reports from Nigeria that the military has repeatedly failed to defend towns and villages in the north-east, allowing Boko Haram to steadily expand the area they control.

The crisis in Nigeria is deepening every week, but politicians appear more focused on next year's elections, our correspondent says.

Boko Haram has changed tactics in recent months by holding on to territory rather than using hit-and-run attacks that have left thousands dead.

Last month, the group dismissed the government's claims to have agreed a ceasefire. The government had said the ceasefire would set the stage for the release of the Chibok schoolgirls.

Chibok is a relatively small, mainly Christian town.

Its seizure comes a day after a government helicopter came down in Yola, in north-east Adamawa State - the second military helicopter to go down in the area in a week.

Also on Thursday, officials and residents said the army had managed to recapture the town of Mubi, which was the biggest town under Boko Haram's control.

Nigerian Army Almost as Barbaric as Boko Haram

Nigeria's army has committed atrocities in the north-east in its fight against Islamist militants belonging to Boko Haram, Amnesty International says.

The campaign group said it had seen "gruesome footage" including alleged members of the military slitting the throats of detainees.

Boko Haram has been waging an insurgency in Nigeria since 2009.

Thousands of people have been killed in a series of bombings and assassinations in the north-east and in the capital, Abuja, this year alone.

Amnesty says footage obtained from multiple sources on a trip to Borno state, in the north, "includes horrific images of detainees having their throats slit one by one and dumped in mass graves".

The perpetrators "appear to be members of the Nigerian military and the "Civilian Joint Task Force" (CJTF), state-sponsored militias," the organisation adds.

"The ghastly images are backed up by the numerous testimonies we have gathered which suggest that extrajudicial executions are, in fact, regularly carried out by the Nigerian military and CJTF," says Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty.

The Nigerian authorities say they are "deeply concerned" about the footage in circulation, adding: "That level of barbarism and impunity has no place in the Nigerian military."

Screen grab taken on 13 July 2014 from Boko Haram
video showing its leader Abubakar Shekau

Boko Haram sparked international outrage by abducting more than 200 girls from a school in Borno in April.

The group often razes homes and shops to the ground in its attacks

A boy walks past burnt shops at Ngumborum central market on 11 May 2014 at Ngala in Gamboru Ngala district, Borno State.

The incident in question involved 16 young men and boys - nine who had their throats slit and five others who were shot dead - on the same day as a Boko Haram attack on a military detention centre near Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, on 14 March this year.

Senior officers and forensic experts will investigate the footage "in order to ascertain the veracity of the claims with a view to identifying those behind such acts", Nigeria's Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Chris Olukolade, said in a statement. The Nigerian military and government are chronic liars. They are liable to pick some poor soldier out of the crowd and shoot him, then claim justice has been done.

Officers of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) patrol in the northeastern Nigerian town of Maiduguri, Borno State, on 30 April 2013.

The Nigerian army has denied previous reports of human rights abuses

Amnesty says it also has footage showing the aftermath of a Boko Haram attack on a village, where militants killed almost 100 people and destroyed dozens of homes.

Boko Haram and other armed groups were responsible for "a huge number of heinous crimes - like the abduction of the schoolgirls in Chibok more than three months ago - but the military are supposed to defend people, not to carry out further abuses themselves," says Salil Shetty.

Amnesty has called for an investigation into what it calls "the pattern of serious and systematic violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by all sides".

Boko Haram was launched in Maiduguri in 2009, with the aim of setting up an Islamic state.

In May 2013, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in the northern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, vowing to crush the insurgency.

However the militants have stepped up attacks, killing more than 2,000 civilians this year, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Why are there still people living in northern Nigeria? They are getting slaughtered from both sides. You would think they would just leave. They could go to southern Nigeria or Abuja or emigrate. Let Boko Haram have the land with no-one left in it.

Does anyone remember the 200+ Christian girls who were kidnapped 3 and a half months ago? Does anyone have any hope they will ever be rescued? If these were American or English girls, they would have been home months ago. Please pray for a miracle for these girls.

The World has Forgotten the Nigerian Girls

Mohammed Adam, The Ottawa Citizen

How easily the world forgets. It has been only three months, but it feels like a lifetime since more than 200 Nigerian girls were snatched from their school in the dead of night by the brutal Boko Haram. Vigils and marches around the world marked the girls’ 100 days in captivity, and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan managed to emerge from his cocoon to finally meet the parents of the abducted girls. I guess we should thank God for his small mercies. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in his role as a UN global ambassador, tried to keep up hope for the girls’ return on the bleak anniversary, but his words had a hollow ring.

“The world has not forgotten these girls. Not in a 100 days. Not for one day,” Brown wrote.

Nigerian campaigner Maryam Uwais presses for the release of the abducted
Chibok schoolgirls during a rally to mark 100 days since 276 girls were taken

Yes it has. The universal outrage that greeted the abduction, and the massive effort to mobilize the global community to confront the terrorists and rescue the girls, has dissipated. Western governments talked tough, promised big, but in the end, did precious little to help save the girls. A world-wide Bring Back Our Girls campaign led by politicians, religious leaders and celebrities swept across continents and energized people. There was hope, but it was only fleeting.

Once the sad faces that tugged at our heartstrings disappeared from our TV screens, the outrage faded, and governments moved on to the next crisis in the headlines, promises forgotten. People returned to their busy lives, and the Bring Back Our Girls campaign fizzled. More than 200 girls are brazenly abducted, and what the world does is to shed a little tear, then shrug its shoulders and move on. It is hard to imagine the horror that confronts these girls every waking moment. The terror, the helplessness and the feeling of abandonment must be excruciating.

But concerned and dismayed as people around the world are, we all can’t just march into the Nigerian rainforest and snatch the girls back. That is the responsibility of the government, and the failure rests entirely with what passes for government in Nigeria. And this failure raises the fundamental issue of what use government really is, in many parts of Africa.

Dictators, politicians win elections, rig them or seize power all in the name of the people, but once in, look out for only themselves. Some of them plunder the kitty, leaving the vast majority of people impoverished. Others siphon proceeds from vast natural resources such as oil, gold and timber into personal bank accounts. And still others turn their countries into police states, jailing, torturing and killing their own kind. Now we have a government that shows little regard for the safety of its children.

It is inconceivable that a child would go missing in Canada or say Germany, and the government machinery would not go into overdrive to find this one human being (example: Madeleine McCann). Yet more than 200 girls go missing for three months and the Nigerian president doesn’t even bother to meet the grieving parents, until Pakistani teenager and child advocate Malala Yousafzai prods him.

Nigeria has the largest military in West Africa, and an equally large police and security force. Yet vast stretches of the northeastern part of the country have become no-go areas for government forces. Boko Haram has scared off the military and security forces, leaving towns and villages at the mercy of the heartless thugs. Since the abduction, dozens, including the fathers of seven of the kidnapped girls, have been killed by the terrorists. When villagers under threat ask for help, their government ignores them. Corruption is rampant, and the soldiers, poorly armed, poorly paid and motivated, have little or no inclination to put their lives at risk.

What’s happening in Nigeria is symptomatic of government in many parts of Africa: self-serving, uncaring and clueless. It is no surprise citizens are in despair. As for the girls, sadly the nightmare continues. All the rest of us can do is to keep praying for a miracle.

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa, Canada writer.

Indeed! Please join me in praying for a miracle for the rescue of these girls. Because the government and military of Nigeria are what they are, it will take an act of God to save them. Fortunately, God still answers prayers.

Former President of Nigeria Says Schoolgirls Kidnapped by Boko Haram 'May Never Return'

Some of the schoolgirls abducted by militant group Boko Haram may never return home, according to Nigeria's influential former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

Mr Obasanjo said president Goodluck Jonathan's administration had taken too long to respond to the April mass abduction, in what were some of the most pessimistic comments yet on the fate of the girls from a member of the country's elite.

Once Mr Jonathan's mentor and one of his strongest political allies, Mr Obasanjo turned against him last December.

"I believe that some of them will never return. We will still be hearing about them many years from now," Mr Obasanjo told the BBC's Hausa-language radio service on Thursday, in comments echoed in an interview with Nigeria's Premium Times website.

The girls were snatched from a school in the north-eastern village of Chibok, near the Cameroon border, on April 14.

The warning from Mr Obasanjo, who stepped down in 2007 and nurtured Mr Jonathan's own rise to power, will dismay parents who have now waited 60 days for any news of their daughters.

Mr Obasanjo's criticisms underline divisions within his and Mr Jonathan's ruling People's Democratic Party, heightened by the failure of the government and army to rescue the girls and by political jostling ahead of presidential elections due in 2015.

"If you get all of them back, I will consider it a near-miracle ... Do you think they [Boko Haram] will hold all of them together up [until] now? The logistics for them to do that, holding over 200 girls together, is too much," Mr Obasanjo said, according to Premium Times. He's correct, of course, then to take 20 more girls last week would just exacerbate the logistics problem if the girls had not been split up into manageable groups,  or some of them having been sold.

"If the administration had acted quickly, we could have rescued them," he said.

President under pressure to find more than 200 girls still missing

Boko Haram, which wants to set up an Islamist caliphate in Africa's largest economy, has fought back against an army offensive and killed thousands in bomb and gun attacks, striking as far afield as the central city of Jos and the capital Abuja.

"As these events get reported, it's bringing far more publicity for their [Boko Haram's] cause and it's putting pressure on the Nigerian government," Martin Roberts, a senior Africa analyst at research firm IHS, said.

What is Boko Haram?
Boko Haram became active in 2003 and is concentrated in northern Nigeria.
Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sinful", is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
The group considers all who do not follow its strict ideology as infidels, whether they are Christian or Muslim.
It demands the adoption of Sharia law in all of Nigeria.

Activists have staged regular street protests demanding that Mr Jonathan step up efforts to free the girls.

The president has also faced hostile media coverage and a vociferous global #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign.

Mr Jonathan has traded accusations over the failure to crush Boko Haram with the main opposition party, which runs local authorities in the north-eastern regions at the heart of the five-year-old revolt.

Mr Obasanjo, twice president and a powerful political godfather, has progressively fallen out with Mr Jonathan.

In a letter leaked in December, he said any decision by Mr Jonathan to seek a second term in the 2015 poll would be "morally flawed".

Mr Jonathan has not confirmed he will run again, but campaign-style posters and banners bearing his image have sprung up around the capital.

His assumed ambition to seek re-election is a thorny issue in religiously mixed Nigeria, where alternating the presidency between the majority Christian south and the mostly Muslim north has been considered an unwritten rule.

Mr Jonathan, a southern Christian, (Christian in name only - there is nothing of Christ that I can see in that man) was vice president and came to power when president Umaru Yar'Adua, a northern Muslim, died in May 2010 - three years into his first term.

Underlining the growing pressure for more action on Boko Haram, Nigeria's defence ministry said on Thursday it was studying the military tactics used by Sri Lanka to crush the island nation's rebel Tamil Tigers. I can explain it to you in one word - massacre! 

Portuguese Police Slam Madeleine McCann Search: 'Digging is a Waste of Time'

PORTUGUESE police think a British effort to solve the Madeleine McCann mystery is a waste of time.

Detectives from Scotland Yard want to dig up land in the Algarve resort where Madeleine vanished seven years ago.

The Brits fear she was abducted by an Algarve sex fiend who had targeted foreign girls before.

But local detectives are now said to believe that her disappearance was “unique” and nothing to do with the pervert behind the assaults.

A Portuguese cold case review team persuaded bosses to reopen their archived Madeleine inquiry last year after discovering similarities between her case and five sex attacks by a mystery man.

They looked into the background of a now dead immigrant burglar, still thought to be among their suspects.

But Portuguese officers told a local paper yesterday that evidence gathered over the last six months had weakened the possibility of a connection.

They suspect a foreigner who has now left the ­ country snatched Madeleine.

They fear she was killed and her body smuggled out of the country. Help me with this - why would someone smuggle a dead body across international boundaries?

The theory signals Portuguese police think excavations near the Praia da Luz complex will be a waste of time. The Portuguese Police's criticism of Scotland Yard seems to be exactly what the Portuguese fear that Scotland Yard will do to them. 

Field near Ocean Club where a man was seen carrying a small child

Local residents also think the digs are futile. One elderly British expat believed the Met police were “trying to prove a point” and “keep their jobs”.

She added: “I wonder what the British taxpayer thinks? After all, they are paying for it!”

The woman said locals were “mad” and “feel it (the digging)could ruin our tourism”.

She said: “The resort was busy over Easter and although it’s quietened down we’re heading into the main holiday season.

“I can’t imagine any family with young children would want to see officers digging up the ground.” Perhaps those people should have pressured the police into solving the McCann case years ago?

Madeleine, who disappeared from Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007, would be due to celebrate her 11th birthday tomorrow.

Her parents are clinging to the hope that the new probes lead to her being found alive.

Mum Kate has pledged: “We love you and we’re waiting for you and we’re never going to give up.”

Kate and Gerry McCann - 7 Year Nightmare

Tomorrow Kate and husband Gerry, along with their nine-year-old twins Sean and Amelie, will join family members and friends for a low-key party at their home in Rothley, Leics.

They will say prayers and light candles wishing for Madeleine’s safe return.

Former GP Kate, 46, and heart doctor Gerry, 45, will also lay gifts in their daughter’s bedroom which has remained unchanged since she disappeared.

Kate paid tribute to her ­daughter to mark last week’s seventh anniversary, saying: “We miss you every day, as we did that very first day.”

She added: “I can’t believe it! It’s a long time. You think – 11, she’s due to start big school in September.”

Last week a team of Met ­detectives, led by Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, inset, visited Praia da Luz and are now studying aerial photos taken from an air force helicopter ahead of any digging.

No date has been set for the digs, which are expected to be preceded by searches involving ground-penetrating radar and sniffer dogs.

Please pray for the McCanns in this very difficult time. Also pray for a miracle for Madeleine to be found alive and well. God is still in the miracle business.

Police Charge Man in the Curious Case Chloe Campbell's Disappearance

Police have charged a man over the abduction of a three-year-old girl from her home at Childers in south-east Queensland.

This is good, but there are a lot of questions to be answered regarding Chloe's disappearance, some of them, I fear, may be troubling. Please pray for the Campbell's children.

Her parents raised the alarm last Thursday morning after waking to find their child had been taken from the family home during the night.

The girl's disappearance sparked a major air-and-land search and desperate appeals for public help from her distraught mother and father.

Police called it a miracle when the little girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, (it's a bit late for that) was found by officers wandering alone in the town's showgrounds near her home in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Police have taken DNA samples from more than 20 people, including friends and family, as the hunt for Chloe Campbell's abductor continued.

Det Insp Bruce McNab confirmed police have also taken fingerprints and footprint samples. He stressed all the samples had been given voluntarily.

Earlier it was reported, Chloe has described her apparent abductor as "daddy's friends".

The three-year-old used the words when answering family and friends about her mysterious two-day disappearance.

Det Insp McNab told The Courier-Mail the little girl had provided police with “information (they) can use”.

He said Chloe’s secrets had led police to pursue a particular line of inquiry, but detectives were keeping an open mind and pursuing several leads.

But Insp McNab said Chloe had not referred to “daddy’s friends” when questioned by specialist police investigators who have spoken to her several times.

“At no time has she made that reference (about daddy’s friends”) to police,” he said. “Chloe has obviously spoken to family but they've never told us about daddy’s friends.”

Chloe and parents

Police were yesterday taking statements and interviews following The Courier-Mail’s revelations Chloe’s apparent kidnapping could be payback.

The Courier-Mail’s own investigations have further uncovered Chloe’s parents’ association with known drug dealers in Childers.

A family friend said the couple was friends with a drug-dealing family, one of whom was said to have threatened Mr Campbell nine weeks ago.

The Courier-Mail can reveal Mr Campbell was seen on a street near his house the morning Chloe was reported missing, about 20 minutes before police received the call.

It was also about 20 minutes before security footage shows two men and a child passing along the railway line behind Pioneer Park, only a few hundred metres from Chloe’s house on the same morning she vanished.

Locals say the girl and her parents regularly walk that same route from their house on the way to town.

Last week The Courier Mail reported that the video appeared to indicate a child leading the way - as though it knew where it was going - followed by two men.

The family told the public and police that an intruder may have used an unlocked lounge room window to get into the house.

With police tape no longer blocking the street, it can be seen that a number of smashed and open windows could give an intruder access to the home.

Police say a 45-year-old man from South Isis was charged with abduction, break and enter, and deprivation of liberty late last night.

He is due to appear in the Bundaberg Magistrates Court this morning.

Three Year-old Chloe Campbell was Crying for 'Mummy' but Unharmed

Police said Chloe Campbell suddenly “appeared” at a showground near her home in the dark early hours and was heard calling out “Mummy”. 

She was reunited with her parents at their remote rural home in south-east Queensland after being checked for injuries at a hospital at about 1am. She is apparently unharmed. 

Her mother Tammy O’Donnell said she was “overjoyed”. “I don’t think I will ever whinge about little things in my life after what’s happened.”

Her father, Garth, said: “It’s just the best feeling. I’m on top of the world now. I have never felt so happy.”

Inspector Kevin Guthridge, from Queensland police, said: “It is an absolute miracle she has returned to us.” A miracle that many of us prayed for. God answers prayer - miracles do happen! Thank You, Lord, for hearing our prayers!

It also emerged that family friends believe Chloe’s disappearance was linked to a threat made against her father two months ago. 

One, Melissa Small, said “They have done this to scare Garth.” 

A huge manhunt was launched after it appeared Chloe had been abducted from her parents’ home in the farming town of Childers as she slept.

The case attracted immediate comparisons to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, who was also three when she vanished from a holiday villa in Portugal in 2007.

Chloe’s father was convinced she had been taken by someone who knew his family and the layout of their house, as she and her two older sisters, Janae, eight, and Britney, five, all slept in the lounge last Wednesday. Fighting back tears he told a press conference earlier: “It’s got to be someone who knows me... they knew she was sleeping in front of the TV. “I don’t think there’s any possible way she’s wandered off.”

Dozens of police and emergency volunteers scoured farmland and dams surrounding the town, which has a population of just 1,500.

Air and sea ports were told to be on the lookout and a child abduction alert was broadcast on radio stations every 15 minutes.

Police are reported to be examining CCTV footage showing two people leading a young child through the streets of Childers at 6.20am on Thursday.

The grainy footage, filmed by a resident’s security camera, then captured the same people walking back across a carpark 20 minutes later but without the child.

God Answers Prayer

Almost exactly one year ago, my wife, Patricia, had knee replacement surgery. After the surgery she developed pulmonary embolisms (blood clots in the lungs). Over the summer this turned into pulmonary hypertension – a significant increase in the blood pressure as it flows from the lungs to the heart. This causes damage to the left ventricle of the heart, and, if left untreated, will usually kill you in 2 to 3 years.

Pat was diagnosed in October, last year, and as fall turned into winter and winter ever-so-reluctantly into spring, the symptoms worsened. In late winter, I had to take her to emergency because of atrial fibrillation.

In early spring we were in Edmonton. We were invited to a senior’s function at the church we had attended a few years ago. Several days before the function, I felt God impress on me that we should attend and ask some of the seniors to pray for Pat.

On the day of the event Pat was having a very difficult time breathing. As we got ready to go, it was a question of whether we go to the event or to emergency. We decided to go to emergency. As we headed to the truck I was questioning God, "Didn't You want me to take her to the event so to have people pray for her? If you do, then You will have to make it happen, otherwise, we are going to emergency." Immediately, Pat announced that the fresh air seemed to help a lot. So, we went to the seniors function instead, promising to go to emerg if she has trouble breathing again.

Pat was fine through the event but as it was ending the breathing difficulty returned. I asked the remaining seniors to pray for my wife. A half dozen of us, all very good friends and very committed Christians laid hands on her and prayed fervent, heart-felt prayers. During the prayer, Pat felt something in her chest, as though she was doing an interior sit-up. Immediately, she could breathe much better.

What had God done? She suffered very little in the way of breathing problems since but still had considerable fatigue and some other symptoms. So, she went through another battery of tests with a new Respirologist here in Abbotsford. Yesterday, we got the results: Pulmonary Hypertension is completely gone! The symptoms she is still feeling are probably from the medication she is on. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.

God answers prayers, sometimes in spectacular ways. Prayer should be our first resort. Your prayers can make the world a better place. Please pray.

The sign on our shirts says: 'Pray PHor a Cure'! We did and Pat was cured, instantly. Thank You, Lord. 

Please pray for the many other men, women and children who suffer from this debilitating disease. Nothing short of a lung transplant can cure it, except for a miracle-working God.