At least 6,000 people and 2,000 cattle fleeing conflict in Nigeria’s Taraba state have been trapped under difficult humanitarian conditions in Cameroonian border villages. Dozens of the refugees are reported to have died and Cameroon medical staff are calling for assistance to care for the survivors.

Twenty refugees have just arrived at the Atta Catholic health center. They look tired, hungry and thirsty after travelling long distances on foot from Nigeria’s Taraba state. Their spokesman, 53-year old Bello Dewa Oumarou, said they are fleeing violent conflicts between the Mambilas and Fulani Muslim herdsmen.

“Most of my people have ran off to Cameroon. The Mambila people wanted to wipe out the Fulani in the whole of Jos plateau. We tried to calm our people. We didn’t think this thing would escalate to this extent. We didn’t think Mambila people, people that we have stayed with for hundred years, we don’t think these people would hurt us to that extent and say they will wipe us out completely,” he said.

A majority of those arriving are women and children. Jean Marie Koue, medical officer of the health center, said they no longer have enough space and medication to treat the wounded.

He said many of the refugees come in with wounds inflicted during fighting while others suffer memory loss because they saw entire families being killed. He says many women delivered babies while escaping from Nigeria and some others delivered the same day they arrived in Cameroon and need urgent medical attention.

The Cameroon Red Cross has deployed its local staff to the border area. Moise Noursam Lemy is its representative in Atta.

He said the Cameroon Red Cross is doing a head count of the refugees from Nigeria and educating the local population and traditional rulers not to be hostile towards them. He said the refugees need help because many of them have lost their parents, their houses and their cattle. He said they do not have the means to reach out to the 3,847 refugees in Atta and surrounding villages who need help.

Justin Mounchili, the most senior Cameroon government official in the area, said while waiting for support from humanitarian agencies and the government of Cameroon, he has taken steps to assure the people’s safety.

He said he has given instructions for schools at the border regions to be opened for the refugees and asked all traditional rulers to welcome them for humanitarian purposes. He said he has asked all hospitals and health centers to treat the sick and inoculate children against polio. He said he has asked livestock officials to make sure that the two thousand three hundred and twelve cattle the refugees came with are vaccinated and kept in secure environments where they cannot destroy crops.

Nigeria’s Taraba state has more than 80 ethnic groups, both Muslim and Christian. It is a permanent hotspot of ethno-religious conflict characterized by genocidal attacks, maiming and killings.

The government of Nigeria said the attacks had nothing to do with religious conflicts, but tensions between farmers and cattle ranchers over land.
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In the past five years, terrorist attacks have killed nearly 20,000 people across Africa. Two groups, Boko Haram and al-Shabab, accounted for 71 percent of reported incidents and 91 percent of fatalities.

But, while these and other militant groups remain active, fatal terrorist attacks across the continent are on pace to fall for a second straight year, and the total number of attacks is running far below 2012 highs.

These findings are part of VOA’s original analysis of data from ACLED, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. ACLED tracks political violence, protests and terrorist events across Africa. Their reports include attacks since 1997 based on data collected from local news media, government statements, non-governmental organizations and published research.

Review of incidents

To conduct its review, VOA analyzed a portion of the full ACLED dataset by comparing the primary perpetrator of each attack to a list of 34 terrorist organizations. Those groups are named on the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Terrorist Exclusion lists, or in a separate analysis conducted by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. All known aliases were included, accounting for more than 100 group names.

Since ACLED doesn’t identify terrorist attacks or groups, this step was necessary to remove other kinds of violence from the analysis.

According to the data, the number of terrorism deaths in Africa reached an all-time high in 2015, when Boko Haram killed more than 8,000 people across Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

No group has inflicted more death and destruction on the continent than Boko Haram, which has accounted for one-third of terrorism deaths in Africa in the past 20 years.

Since 2015, the number of terrorism deaths has dropped, in no small part because of military campaigns to weaken the radical Islamist group carried out by the Nigerian army and a multinational task force.

In 2016, the fewest number of terrorism-related deaths in nine years was recorded, and 2017 is on pace to continue that trend, with 893 deaths reported as of June 24.

Attacks peaked in 2012

The number of terrorist attacks peaked in 2012, not only because of Boko Haram and al-Shabab, but also because of militant groups in Mali, where al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and allied groups briefly took control of the north.

Since then, attacks have gradually declined. However, if current trends hold, overall attacks in 2017 will pass last year’s total, but will still fall far short of the 2012 high.

Twenty-three African countries have not experienced a terrorism-related death since 2013, and 17 countries have not had a terrorism attack at all. Another six countries have experienced fewer than 10 deaths each.

But even in countries without reported attacks, terrorist groups can still gain a foothold, said Hussein Solomon, a political science professor at the University of the Free State in South Africa.

“All 54 African countries [are] at risk, especially when we see linkages between groups,” he said, citing reports that Boko Haram and al-Shabab have shared terrorist tactics. “There is not a single country which is unaffected by this, including my own.”
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Voice of America’s Somali service hosted a town hall Saturday in Minnesota, home to a large Somali-American population, to discuss a recent outbreak of measles in the state, and address rumors in the community surrounding childhood vaccines and autism.

The northern U.S. state of Minnesota is struggling with the biggest outbreak of measles in the state since 1990. Seventy-eight people caught the disease, mostly Somali-Americans, and nearly a third were hospitalized.

The panel, gathered to address concerns of parents, consisted of four Minnesota health officials, two of whom have children who have been diagnosed with autism. The town hall event, called Vaccine and Autism: Myths and Facts, was broadcast from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. It could be watched on VOA Somali’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Three audience members who addressed the panel raised questions regarding what they saw as a link between having their children vaccinated and those children later being diagnosed as autistic.

‘Powerful coincidence’

Panelist Dr. Mark Schleiss, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota Medical School, addressed one parent’s concerns by saying the link is a “powerful coincidence.”

“One of the challenges we have faced for many, many years is one of these disorders [autism] becomes apparent to parents about the time we give the vaccine to children,” Schleiss said.

He called it a “powerful coincidence” that the signs of autism start to appear about the same age as when children receive some of their vaccinations. And “parents say there must be some timing to this,” he added.

One Somali father said he took his child, whom he described as developing normally for his age, to receive his childhood vaccinations in 2004. He said the child had a seizure after the vaccination and months later was diagnosed with autism.

“It was the first time I heard the word,” the father said.

Panelist Deeqa-Ifrah Hussein, the mother of an autistic child, is the founder of Parent’s Autism Educational Resources. She said both of her children have received vaccinations. It was when she took her younger child, a son, for an 18-month checkup that she began to see the signs of autistic behavior. She told the audience that she did not relate the developmental signs to the child’s vaccinations.

WATCH: Deeqa-Ifrah Hussein, founder of Parents Autism Educational Resources, discusses autism

At one time, Minnesota’s Somali-American community — about 25,000 who live in Minneapolis and St. Paul and other surrounding cities — had the highest rates of vaccinations against measles, more than any other group in the state.

Patsy Stinchfield, a nurse in Minnesota, said she blamed the state’s measles outbreak on anti-vaccination groups.

Anti-vaccination groups believe that vaccines expose children to health risks and can cause harm, and have said that autism is caused by vaccinating children younger than 3.

“I would say almost exclusively the whole responsibility lands on the anti-vaccine movement,” she said to VOA via Skype, “and the reason is misinformation and myths spread about a link between MMR and autism, of which there is none, and science has proven that not to be true.”

So while Somali-American parents continued getting their children vaccinated for other diseases, officials said the rates for receiving the MMR vaccine dropped dramatically.

Public outreach, community involvement

Once the outbreak began, the Minnesota Department of Health began working with members of the Somali community, such as imams, and began an outreach program to inform parents of the benefits of vaccinations and also to educate about the importance of early detection of the signs of autism.

Panelist Kristen Ehresmann, director of infectious diseases with the Minnesota Department of Health, said Somali-American parents quickly complied with public health requests, such as keeping children exposed to the measles virus from public interactions.

Ehresmann, who also has a son diagnosed with autism, said other communities have asked questions about the safety of vaccines, but the Somali-American community interaction has been more intense because of concerns about autism.

WATCH: Minnesota Dr. Afgarshe on research on vaccines, autism

Panelist Dr. Mohamud Dahir Afgarshe, director of the Gargar Clinic and Urgent Care in Minneapolis, said, “Somalis are coming from an entirely different culture. Coming to America and having kids with autism is a double burden for them. It is very hard for them to cope with it [autism]. It is very hard for them to learn how to cope with it. And it is very hard for them to get all the resources they need to cope with it.”

Afgarshe said as a doctor, he reads research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as in the New England Journal of Medicine. In all the studies he has read, “they have found no correlation between vaccination and autism,” he said.

Research needed

At the start of the town hall forum, Victor Makori, host of the VOA news program Africa 54, showed a video that discussed new autism research. He asked panelists for their views of the video.

Schleiss, the medical school professor, said, “We need more research on the causes of autism spectrum disorders. We need to understand why this is happening.

“One thing we worry about when we talk about vaccines — all of the resources and efforts and time and money that goes into proving what we already know to be true — that vaccines don’t cause autism — those are dollars and resources that could be used for these kinds of studies that give us novel, new information,” he said.

WATCH: Dr. Mark Schleiss on no correlation between vaccines, autism

Since Minnesota public health officials began their outreach into the Somali-American community, officials noted, more parents have been attending clinics to get their children vaccinated.

Stinchfield, the Minnesota nurse, said measles took the Somali-Americas by surprise.

“They did not think that measles would be in the United States,” she said, “and so the level of fear was greater for autism. This has now shifted, because the level of fear … for measles is great because these families know measles. They’ve had loved ones die of measles in Somalia.”

Measles was wiped out in the U.S. 17 years ago, but outbreaks still happen when someone carries the virus back from a country where measles still circulates.

Fortunately, no one who caught measles in Minnesota has had any serious complications, and state officials are hoping to declare the outbreak over by the end of July.

VOA’s Carol Pearson contributed to this article.
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The United States on Saturday announced more than $630 million in aid for Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria, where conflict has helped to cause what the United Nations calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis in more than 70 years.

“This is truly a life-saving gift,” said David Beasley, the new American director of the U.N.’s World Food Program.

While the United States is the world’s largest humanitarian donor, U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed deep cuts to foreign aid — more than 30 percent — have caused widespread concern. The announcement came as he attended the Group of 20 summit in Germany. 

Millions of people at risk

“We welcome President Trump’s attention to the global humanitarian crisis, but he was announcing aid that Congress approved months ago and that his administration has delayed,” Rev. David Beckmann, president of the Washington-based Christian organization Bread for the World, said in a statement.

The total U.S. humanitarian assistance to the four countries is now more than $1.8 billion this fiscal year, the U.S. Agency for International Development said.

Tens of millions of people in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria face hunger amid conflict. Yemen has the world’s largest cholera outbreak, while half of drought-hit Somalia’s 12 million people need aid. South Sudan’s civil war and Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgency have contributed to severe hunger.

The WFP said via Twitter that the new U.S. donation “comes just as families face the time of year when food stocks run out.” The U.N. agency earlier this year warned that food aid could be cut for more than a million hungry Nigerians if promised funding from the international community didn’t arrive.

In May, Trump announced $329 million in “anti-famine” aid to the four countries.

Trump budget ends program

While the Trump administration’s 2018 spending plan does not eliminate money for emergency food aid, it ends a critical program by consolidating it into a broader account that covers all international disaster assistance. Doing so reduces the amount of money the U.S. dedicates to fighting famine to $1.5 billion next year, from $2.6 billion in 2016.

Trump officials say the proposed changes will streamline U.S. aid programs, eliminate redundancies and increase efficiency. Relief organizations fear less U.S. money will mean an increase in famine and hunger-related deaths, particularly in Africa, if Congress approves the budget.
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Al-Shabab extremists from neighboring Somalia beheaded nine civilians in an attack on a village in Kenya’s southeast early Saturday, officials said, adding to growing concerns the Islamic militant group has taken up a bloody new strategy.

The attack occurred in Jima village in Lamu County, said James Ole Serian, who leads a task force of security agencies combating the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab.

Beheadings by al-Shabab have been rare in Kenya, even as the group has carried out dozens of deadly attacks over the years. Beheadings are not uncommon in Somalia, where the extremists carry them out on people who are believed to be enemies and to terrorize local populations.

This East Africa country has seen an increase in attacks claimed by al-Shabab in recent weeks, posing a security threat ahead of next month’s presidential election.

Al-Shabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for sending troops in 2011 to Somalia to fight the group, which last year became the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa.

Saturday’s attack occurred in the Pandaguo area, where al-Shabab fighters engaged security agencies in a daylong battle three days earlier. A police report said about 15 al-Shabab fighters attacked Jima village and seized men, killing them with knives.

Al-Shabab in recent months has increased attacks in Kenya with homemade bombs, killing at least 46 people in Lamu and Mandera counties.

The increase in attacks presents a huge problem for Kenya’s security agencies ahead of the August 8 presidential election, said Andrew Franklin, a former U.S. Marine who is a security analyst. On election day, security agencies will be strained while attempting to stop any possible violence, and al-Shabab could take advantage, he said.

There was no immediate government comment on the latest attack.

Acting Interior Minister Fred Matiangi issued a dusk-to-dawn curfew for parts of Garissa, Tana River and Lamu counties. Mandera County already was under a curfew following earlier al-Shabab attacks. All are close to the Somali border.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has not issued any statement on the recent surge in al-Shabab attacks.

Kenya is among five countries contributing troops to an African Union force that is bolstering Somalia’s fragile central government against al-Shabab’s insurgency. Of the troop-contributing countries, Kenya has borne the brunt of retaliatory attacks from al-Shabab.
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Joseph Nkaissery, Kenya’s interior minister and a retired general, has died in a hospital a month before the African country’s general election. He was 67.

 

Nkaissery died Saturday at a Nairobi hospital a few hours after being admitted for a check-up, according to Joseph Kinyua, who is President Uhuru Kenyatta’s chief of staff. Kinyua said that Nkaissery died of natural causes.

 

Nkaissery dropped out of college and joined the military where he rose to the rank of general. He later became involved in politics.

 

The European Union observer mission has said there is concern that the election may spark violence. It has been a decade since more than 1,000 people died in post-election violence in Kenya.
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