In Cameroon, hundreds of women made widows by the country’s separatist conflict are protesting what they call the government’s lack of support. The widows say they have been left vulnerable to violence and abuse in the conflict, which has claimed more than 6,000 lives, and they are struggling to support their families.

The song “Veuve” in the French language, which translates to widow in English, by Cameroonian singer Giselle Otabela, blasts through speakers at a courtyard in the Yaounde 3rd district council in Cameroon’s capital.

Otabela sings that conflicts are increasing the number of poor and desperate widows in Cameroon.

The Cameroon Anglophone Crisis Widows Association says it organized a 1-kilometer peace walk to protest the Cameroon government’s neglect of widows.

Thirty-six-year-old Asu Ebangha is the president of the Widows Association and says several hundred widows agreed to come out and make their voices and grievances heard on International Widows Day on June 23.

“I am a widow, and I champion the course for widows. The widows are so poor, they are maltreated, they cannot take care of their children and it is a whole lot of trauma,” said Ebangha. “You will not be happy to see your children moving around from door to door, begging for food, begging for clothes. They can’t go to school and all of this.”

Ebangha said she lost her husband in 2019 during violent clashes between Cameroon government troops and separatist fighters in Menji, an English-speaking southwestern town. She says she escaped to Yaounde with her three children and was homeless for six months before the Catholic Women Association gave her a room for lodging.

Ebangha said several hundred displaced widows are homeless and hungry.

Since 2017 Cameroon’s military has been battling separatists fighting to carve out an independent, English-speaking state from Cameroon and its French-speaking majority.

The International Crisis Group estimates that six years of fighting has killed about 6,000 people and displaced more than 750,000.

Cameroon also is facing Boko Haram attacks that began in Nigeria’s Borno state in 2009 before spreading to neighboring countries, including Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.

The United Nations says the Islamist insurgency has left more than 36,000 people dead, mainly in Nigeria, and displaced 3 million.

The Global Fund for Widows, or GFW, says that because of the crises, several thousand of Cameroon’s estimated 800,000 widows are at an increased risk of violence, discrimination, ill health and rights abuses.

Marie Therese Abena Ondoua is Cameroon’s minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family. She says the government is assisting widows but state resources are limited.

“We should really do everything to improve their well-being. After the husband’s departure [death], she should not suffer,” said Ondoua. “When you have rampant poverty, things are even worse, but the widows should know that when they ask for help, our services do their best to give assistance to those widows, and we work with the civil society because the government cannot do it all [alone].”

Ondoua says civilians should stop disinheritance, discrimination and other .harmful

traditional practices targeting widows. He said harmful widowhood rites, including forcing women to sleep with the corpses of their late husbands and to drink water used in bathing the bodies as a sign they did not kill their spouses, should be stopped.

The GFW says the average Cameroonian widow registered with its local partner has three children, with some having as many as 12. The GWF says widows are in unthinkable situations because they face extreme poverty, starvation and a lack humanitarian aid.
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Residents of the city of Kadugli in southwestern Sudan began fleeing the city Thursday as tensions escalated between the army and a powerful rebel group, threatening to open another area of conflict in the country’s ongoing war, witnesses said.

Mobilization around Kadugli, capital of South Kordofan state, and an escalation of fighting in Darfur come after nearly 10 weeks of fighting focused in the capital, Khartoum, between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The United States and Saudi Arabia adjourned talks they had been facilitating in Jeddah, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee said at a congressional hearing in Washington.

“The format is not succeeding in the way that we want,” she said, after a series of violated ceasefire agreements.

Since mid-April the war has uprooted more than 2.5 million people from their homes and threatened to destabilize neighboring countries suffering from a combination of conflict, poverty and economic pressures.

In the fighting between the army and the RSF, army air strikes on Thursday morning hit areas of southern Khartoum and Omdurman, and the RSF responded with anti-aircraft weaponry, residents said.

Escalation in the west

The army on Wednesday accused the SPLM-N rebel group led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, which controls parts of South Kordofan state, of breaking a long-standing cease-fire agreement and attacking an army unit in the city. 

The army said it had fought back the incursion but sustained losses. 

South Kordofan has Sudan’s main oil fields and borders West Darfur State as well as South Sudan.  

The SPLM-N, which has strong ties to South Sudan, also attacked the army in the South Kordofan city of al-Dalanj on Wednesday, as did the RSF, residents said. 

Residents of Kadugli said the army had redeployed forces to protect its positions in the city Thursday, while the SPLM-N was gathering in areas on the outskirts.  

There were electricity and communications outages as well as dwindling food and medical supplies, they said.  

The war has also brought an eruption of violence in Darfur, with the West Darfur city of El Geneina worst hit. 

In Al Fashir, capital of North Darfur, the army and the RSF clashed violently, including around the main market, after having deployed across the city Thursday, witnesses said.

Nyala, capital of South Darfur and one of Sudan’s largest cities, has also seen clashes between the army and RSF in recent days, amid electricity and communications blackouts. Both cities had been relatively calm after locally negotiated truces.
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With journalists covering the election campaign harassed and security concerns blocking some female reporters from covering events in Sierra Leone, media associations are calling for better protections and greater support. Senanu Tord reports from Freetown. Camera: Senanu Tord.
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Palorinya refugee settlement in Uganda is reporting high numbers of suicides and suicide attempts by the people who live there. Organizations and individuals who work with the refugees say denial of food and a failure to meet basic needs are the main causes. Halima Athumani reports from Obongi District, Uganda. Camera: Francis Mukasa
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At the home of James Tole Mwambela, the family says a prayer for their brother Nelson Kimbichi Mwambela. They say it is all they can do. It has been months since they saw him.

It all began when the family noticed he had stopped taking his children to school. His unusual behavior led them to wonder about his well-being, his brother James Mwambela said.

“By that time, people didn’t know about [Pastor Paul] Mackenzie’s teachings, many would assume, but my brother kept saying that the world is ending, and Jesus is coming back,” James said. “We all differed with him, including my mother and father.”

Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, offered doomsday warnings, calling life in the West “evil,” and medicine, education, food, sports and entertainment as “useless.”

Nelson then quit his job and secretly moved his wife and six children to the Shakahola farm owned by Mackenzie. His whereabouts were a mystery. Nelson’s mother, Janet Mwambela, noticed earlier that something was wrong.

“It seems like they started training the kids slowly on how to fast. At one point, I asked my son if he was eating — he had lost a lot of weight,” she told VOA.

Officials say Mackenzie told his followers to starve to death in order to meet Jesus. Investigators are still trying to determine how many people lost their lives while following the cult-like sect. As they continue to unearth shallow graves on the property, the death toll has risen to more than 300.

They also found personal belongings, including a Bible belonging to “Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Kimbichi Mwambela.” It is the only proof the family now has that Nelson and his family were in Shakahola. No remains have been identified as theirs.

Mackenzie is currently in police custody facing charges of preaching dangerous beliefs that led to the starvation deaths of hundreds of his followers. One of his aides, Joseph Juma Buyuka, died this week in police custody after a hunger strike.

Last month, Kenyan President William Ruto said his government took responsibility for the deaths.

When news broke about the discovery of mass graves in the town of Malindi in Shakahola forest, James made his way there to search for Nelson and his family. What he learned was shocking.

“One of the survivors told me about my niece Janet and [the survivor’s] brother called Sylvester, who was later baptized to be called Paul,” James said. “He said that this family was said to be living very close to Pastor Paul Mackenzie and unfortunately, all six children including, their mother, had died.”

VOA could not independently verify this claim.

Janet Mwambela said she misses her son.

“He was a very good boy. He was very quiet and very soft spoken. In fact, his younger brother was louder and more talkative, but not him,” she said.

The Mwambela family has relocated 182 kilometers from their home in Taita to Malindi to be closer to the investigation and give DNA samples to a government chemist to help identify the bodies. The number of missing people is still far greater than the recovered bodies, says Hassan Musa, regional manager of Kenya Red Cross.

“We have registered 618 missing people,” Musa told VOA. “These are people that have been reported by their family members that, in one way or another, they are either in Shakahola forest or at the Malindi sub county morgue.”

The Mwambelas say they just want answers.

This report originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.
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Giraffes are considered endangered, and in Kenya, the population of the world’s tallest animal is declining. Officials say four to five giraffes are being lost daily because of relentless poaching for meat and the harsh realities of climate change. Ahmed Hussein reports from Wajir County, Kenya.
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Nearly two-and-a-half months after deadly fighting between rival factions erupted in Sudan, ending tenuous moves toward democracy and shattering the hopes of millions for a brighter future, Sudan has descended into violence and chaos that threaten to engulf the entire region.

“It is heartbreaking to see that hope decimated,” said Volker Türk, U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

“This is a human rights and humanitarian crisis that is unfolding at an alarming rate, on a devastating scale and with a complexity not seen before in the country,” he said. “This is a crisis reverberating across an entire region. It is a powder keg.”

The high commissioner presented a grim assessment of the human rights situation in Sudan to participants of an interactive dialogue held at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday.

In his oral update on conditions in Sudan, he painted a bleak picture of a country that “has been plunged into chaos” since conflict erupted April 15 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

“The people of Sudan are suffering immeasurably,” he said. “The streets of Khartoum and its surrounding cities, of El Geneina and of El Obeid are stained with the blood of civilians.

“And millions are still in need of vital humanitarian assistance, which, in many places, has been all but impossible to deliver,” he said.

Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health reports more than 958 civilians have been killed and 6,083 injured, though the actual casualty numbers are believed to be much higher. The U.N. refugee agency says 1.42 million people are internally displaced and more than half-a-million have taken refuge in neighboring countries.

Türk said children were bearing the harrowing consequences of the war, “with more than 13 million across the country in urgent need of lifesaving humanitarian support.”

He said he was appalled by allegations of sexual violence, including rape, noting that his office had received credible reports of 18 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence against at least 53 women and girls.

“In almost all cases, the RSF has been identified as the perpetrator,” he said.

He called on authorities to conduct prompt, impartial investigations into alleged violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

He noted that “failure to pursue accountability for past grave violations has contributed to the current crisis.

“To break the cycle of violence, impunity must end,” he said.

Hassan Hamid Hassan, permanent representative of Sudan to the U.N. office in Geneva, blamed the rebel forces of breaching international human rights and humanitarian law.

He took umbrage at the United Nations, which he accused of holding the SAF and RSF equally responsible for the violence and widespread violations and abuse.

“After two months and five days, United Nations entities are still speaking the same grainy language, referring to two warring parties,” he said.

“The United Nations was still not calling a spade a spade,” he said. “The perpetrators were documenting their atrocities on social media,” he said, “while some United Nations entities were hiding behind gray language, instead of calling out the rebel forces to stop their behavior.”

Mohamed Belaiche, head of the African Union Liaison Office in Sudan, disagreed with the Sudanese ambassador’s criticism of the United Nations, maintaining that the ongoing dialogue “was a demonstration of support for Sudan.”

He said, “We are not here to judge; we are here to help.”

However, he warned that the “fratricidal clashes between two military entities,” resulting in a tragic humanitarian situation and destruction of civilian infrastructure posed “a real threat to peace and security throughout the Horn of Africa region.”

The Sudanese Armed Forces overthrew Sudan’s long-ruling president, Omar al-Bashir, from power April 11, 2019, following popular protests for his removal.

Belaiche reminded the Sudanese ambassador of the pivotal role played by the African Union as the architect of the transition to democracy in August 2019.

As such, he said the AU “firmly rejects the option of a military solution to this crisis, and advocates the search for a consensual political solution, through an inclusive and transparent political dialogue.”

Enass Muzamel is a human rights defender from Sudan and co-founder of Mandaniva, a group that supports the active participation of women and youth in their communities and in policymaking.

She said the war raging in Sudan was not a civil war but a war between two factions fighting to further their own interests.

“The war is a result of generals who put their interests over those of their citizens,” she said. “The Sudanese people have nothing to do with this war, except to pay the price. The Sudanese people have been standing up against the oppressive regime,” she said, “and now this bitter experience is what they have got.”

She called on the international community to apply the strongest pressure, including sanctions on the war generals and “to hold those accountable for their crimes against the Sudanese people.”
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Counterterrorism experts said Tuesday that Africa is now the world’s terrorism hot spot, with half of the victims killed last year in sub-Saharan Africa, though al-Qaida and Islamic State affiliates remain widespread, persistent and active elsewhere around the globe. 

Interpol, the international criminal police agency, also reported during a panel discussion at the U.N. that terrorism linked to extreme right-wing ideology increased an estimated 50-fold over the past decade, particularly in Europe, North America and parts of the Asia-Pacific. 

The experts see other trends: Deteriorating global security is making the terrorism threat “more complex and decentralized.” Extremists are increasingly using sophisticated technology, and drones and artificial intelligence have opened new ways to plan and carry out attacks. 

The United Nations this week is hosting its third high-level conference of heads of counterterrorism agencies. Tuesday’s panel on assessing current and emerging terrorist trends and threats brought together experts from the U.N., Interpol, Russia, the United States and Qatar, and Google’s senior manager for strategic intelligence. 

The overall theme for the week is addressing terrorism through reinvigorated international cooperation. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said during Monday’s opening session the key is to unite not only in foiling attacks but also critically to focus on preventing terrorism by tackling poverty, discrimination, poor infrastructure, gross human rights violations and other underlying drivers. 

Africa ‘key battleground’

At Tuesday’s session, it was Africa that took the spotlight. 

“Africa has emerged as the key battleground for terrorism, with a major increase in the number of active groups operating on the continent,” U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari said, noting that local political, economic and social “fractures,” porous borders, and “identity-based mobilization” had fueled the emergence of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS. 

Several areas of the continent, from Burkina Faso and the Sahel and more broadly to Chad and Sudan, still face the consequences of the flow of weapons and foreign fighters from Libya, Khiari said. 

Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. After the Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate was defeated in Iraq in 2017, many of its foreign fighters fled to the North African nation. 

Colonel General Igor Sirotkin, deputy director of Russia’s Federal Security Service and head of its National Anti-Terrorism Committee, told the meeting that West Africa, especially the Maghreb and the Sahel, “are becoming the epicenter of the Islamist terrorist threat, with the armed terrorist groups expanding their influence, and we see the danger of ISIS being reincarnated as an African caliphate.” 

Qatar’s special envoy for counterterrorism, Mutiaq Al-Qahtani, who said half the victims of terrorist acts last year were in sub-Saharan Africa, called for counterterrorism efforts to focus on the continent. 

Justin Hustwitt, the coordinator of experts monitoring U.N. sanctions against the Islamic State and al-Qaida, said the situation in West Africa continues to deteriorate and IS “seems to be trying to position itself as a political actor.” 

He said IS in the greater Sahara is taking advantage of the lack of counterterrorism operations, especially in the tri-border area of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, and there are “growing concerns” about IS and al-Qaida taking advantage of any opportunity in Congo. 

‘Aftershocks’ from wars

Elsewhere, the U.N.’s Khiari said the Middle East also continues to suffer “aftershocks” from the wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. 

Interpol’s counterterrorism director, Gregory Hinds, said al-Qaida- and IS-related groups continue to inspire and carry out attacks in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, North America, Europe “and now across Africa and Asia at alarming pace.” 

Hinds said the 50-fold increase in terrorism linked to extreme right-wing ideology “is being influenced by global events and global agenda.” 

Secretary-General Guterres also said “neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements are fast becoming the primary internal security threats in a number of countries.” 

Number of conflicts growing

On the significant deterioration of global security in the last few years, the U.N.’s Khiari said the number of conflicts globally is on the rise again after two decades of consistent decline, and their nature has changed. 

“Civil wars that start off locally are more likely to become internationalized, and conflict parties are increasingly fragmented,” he said. “Civil wars aggravate grievances and foment regional international instabilities creating a fertile ground for non-state armed groups, including terrorist groups, to proliferate.” 

On a more positive note, Gregory LoGerfo, the U.S. State Department’s deputy coordinator for counterterrorism, said IS has not only been defeated in Iraq and Syria but its leadership has been “taken out or captured,” large-scale attacks have been prevented, and billions have been invested in stabilizing the region. 

“But for all of our progress, we’re not done yet,” he said, expressing concern at increasingly frequent attacks by al-Qaida affiliates and expanding IS branches that are “ravaging” West Africa. 

The U.N.’s Hustwitt echoed that Daesh’s leadership has suffered serious attrition, adding that “the group’s resources are depleting, and they are very focused on revenue generation.” 

Tobias Peyeri, Google’s senior manager for strategic intelligence who formerly worked for the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism, said the company bans content produced by or supporting designated terrorist organizations, and is committed to fighting “the hatred and extremism that leads to terrorist violence.” 

But he said bad actors, such as extremist groups, “continue to become more savvy in evading detection,” citing as examples their use of coded communications, complex narratives and conspiracy theories, and their modifications of existing popular computer games. 

To counter these efforts, he said Google relies on expertise in local markets, “advanced AI-driven visual matching technologies,” special detection technologies, and other measures. 
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An increasing number of Sudanese civilians fleeing El Geneina, a city in Darfur hit by repeated militia attacks, have been killed or shot at as they tried to escape by foot to Chad since last week, witnesses said. 

The violence in El Geneina over the past two months has been driven by militias from Arab nomadic tribes along with members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a military faction engaged in a power struggle with Sudan’s army in the capital, Khartoum, witnesses and activists said. 

A large number of people tried to seek protection near the army headquarters in El Geneina on June 14 but were blocked, said Ibrahim, a resident who made it to the Chadian town of Adre, about 27 kilometers (17 miles) from El Geneina. 

“All of a sudden, the militias came out and sprayed people with gunfire,” he said by phone, asking to use only his first name. “We got surprised by thousands of people running back. People were killed. They were trampled.” 

Reuters spoke to three witnesses who sustained gunshot wounds as they tried to flee El Geneina and to more than a dozen witnesses who said they had seen violence on the route from the city. It was not clear how many people had been killed in recent days. 

Medical charity MSF said on Monday that some 15,000 people had fled West Darfur over the previous four days, and it said many arrivals reported seeing people shot and killed as they tried to escape El Geneina. MSF also reported rapes. 

“It was a collective decision of the people of El Geneina to leave,” one resident told MSF from Chad. “Most of them fled on foot heading northeast of El Geneina, but many of them were killed on this route.” 

People decided to flee when the state governor of West Darfur was killed on June 14, hours after he accused the RSF and allied militias of “genocide” in a TV interview, said Ibrahim. 

Ibrahim later found out that eight of his family members had been killed, including his grandmother, and that his mother had been beaten. 

The war that erupted in April has uprooted more than 2.5 million people, according to United Nations estimates, mainly from the capital and from Darfur, which was already suffering from two decades of conflict and mass displacement. Nearly 600,000 people have crossed into neighboring countries, including more than 155,000 who have fled Darfur for Chad. 

A 72-hour cease-fire, brokered by Saudi Arabia and the United States and due to expire early on Wednesday morning, has brought a lull in fighting in Khartoum, though residents report looting has spread, and the army said the RSF had caused a huge fire at the intelligence headquarters late on Tuesday. 

The United States will give about $172 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Sudan and neighboring countries, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. International donors have made total pledges of close to $1.5 billion for Sudan and the surrounding region. 

‘Systematic’ killing 

The violence in Darfur has increased and taken on a more overtly ethnic nature, with assailants targeting non-Arab residents by their skin color, witnesses said. 

There are warning signs of a repeat of the atrocities perpetrated in Darfur after 2003, when Janjaweed militias from which the RSF was formed helped the government crush a rebellion by mainly non-Arab groups in Darfur. 

More than 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced, according to U.N. estimates. 

RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, said on Tuesday his force would investigate events in El Geneina. He accused the army of fomenting violence by arming tribes, while the army has blamed the RSF for the governor’s death and other violence in the region.  

Sultan Saad Bahreldin, leader of the Masalit tribe, the largest bloc of El Geneina residents, said there had been “systematic” killing in recent days.  

“The road between El Geneina and Adre has a lot of bodies. No one can count them,” he told Al Hadath TV. 

One activist who left El Geneina on Sunday told Reuters that Arab militias and the RSF had reinforced their presence in the city since the governor’s killing, adding that Arab groups controlled the route to Chad. 

Eyewitnesses had reported cases of rape, murder and enforced disappearance along the route, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fears for his safety.  

Competition for land has long been a driver of conflict in Darfur. Villages on the road from El Geneina to Adre used to be Masalit, but had been settled by Arab tribes since 2003, Ibrahim said.  

Several witnesses from El Geneina, largely cut off from phone networks for weeks, said darker skinned non-Arabs were being targeted, especially the Masalit. 

One resident who arrived in Chad on June 15, Abdel Nasser Abdullah, said his house was one of many in his neighborhood that was stormed, and that his cousin was killed while he hid on the roof. 

“They are not only looking for the Masalit but anyone Black,” he said, adding that the streets of the city were strewn with bodies, including those of women and children. 
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Aden Abdulahi overcame many challenges growing up in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, where he fled after declining a call to join the al-Shabab militant group in Somalia. Today he is a journalist, working with the UNHCR-supported refugee community radio station Radio Gargaar. As the world marks Refugee Day, Juma Majanga spoke with Abdulahi about his work and his dreams.
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World Refugee Day, which falls each year on June 20, celebrates the strength, perseverance, and courage of millions of people, who flee from their home country to escape conflict or persecution.

One young former refugee and entrepreneur has sought to turn the refugees’ stories into something inspiring that empowers others who have fled their homes.

Mohamed Malim, a 27-year-old former Somali refugee turned social entrepreneur, is the director of the fashion apparel brand Epimonia, a small Minnesota-based company that he founded in 2018.

The company collects life jackets that refugees have worn, and the remains of flimsy build-it-yourself rafts from Greek beaches, and turns these pieces of the refugee journey into something more tangible.

“We take life jackets that refugees have worn crossing the Mediterranean Sea and turn them into fashion pieces to bring awareness of the global refugee crisis, and to support refugees’ arts, and designers,” Malim told VOA Somali.

The signature of Epimonia’s products is a vibrant orange bracelet manufactured out of the scraps of discarded life jackets that refugees used on their trip.

Malim says bracelets have been finding their way onto the wrists of young people in the U.S, especially in Minnesota, generating profit that partially goes back to the refugees.

“We support refugees through providing employment, spreading awareness, and donating 50% of our profit to U.S. organizations that support refugees with opportunities for education and advancement,” said Malim.

Over the weekend, at a small space in Washington D.C., Malim used a pile of life jackets and boat materials to celebrate this year’s World Refugee Day.

“It is something that I am very passionate [about],” said Malim. “Something that I am very inspired [about]. “It is an ability that God gave me to use my talent to make an impact in the life lives of the refugees through a unique medium: fashion.”

A former refugee, Malim was born in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. He was 4 years old when his family immigrated to the U.S. in 1999.

“We first settled in Texas and then moved to Minnesota, where my personal journeys inspired me to make a difference in the world, especially for other refugees,” he said. “I am really very grateful to be in this position where I can help my fellow refugees achieve their dreams and materialize their hopes.”

During the Washington event where Malim showcased his latest art exhibit, a young Somali-American poet, Elias Yabarow, better known as ALAKKUU, gave a live performance of an original piece reflecting the Story of Deeja, a fictional young Somali girl who risked her life to migrate from Mogadishu to Europe.

“The idea behind the story of Deejah is basically about the migration of young people, and the message elaborates the factors that force these young people to venture out on hazardous journeys to escape unbearable situations in their countries of origin,” Yabarow told VOA.

“Even though, the story does not feature if Deeja survived or not, this is the story of how a young woman crossed the coast, this is a story of hundred million people who were all in a same boat,” said Yabarow.

Elias Yabarow is the son of VOA Somali chief Abdi Yabarow, who was not involved in reporting this story.
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Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu made sweeping changes to the defense forces Monday, forcing out the security chiefs and the head of police less than a month after taking office.

Tinubu, who was sworn in May 29, has made security one of his major priorities and promised reforms to the sector, including recruitment of more soldiers and police officers, while paying and equipping them better.

Nigeria’s military is stretched — fighting a long-running Islamist insurgency in the northeast and banditry and kidnappings for ransom in the northwest as insecurity has spread to most parts of the country.

It is not unusual for a new Nigerian president to send security chiefs into early retirement upon taking office, as Tinubu did Monday.

He picked Nuhu Ribadu, a former senior police officer and ex-head of the country’s economic and financial crimes agency, as his National Security Adviser.

Major General Christopher Musa, who until last year was leading the army’s fight against the insurgency, takes over as the new Chief of Defense Staff from Lucky Irabor.

Tinubu also named new commanders for the army, navy and air force as well as a new head of the Nigeria Customs Service with immediate effect.
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