A Syrian activist, Mazen Burhan, said on Sunday in Madaya (Syria), that residents have been reduced to eating grass and leaves in order to survive.

He said the situation has worsened with winter snowfalls.

Burhan reiterated that the situation was hopeless as people were also helpless and dying of famine in large numbers.

“We are waiting but people are dying and the more time, the more tragedies.’’

Madaya is one of the last rebel-held areas between Damascus and the Lebanese border.

Doctors without Borders said the besieged Syrian town of Madaya needed constant supply of aid, not just a single delivery.

The medical charity warned that as aid agencies waited to gain access to the rebel-held area, which had been besieged by government forces since July, residents were suffering from continuing starvation and shortages of medical supplies.

Tammam Aloudat, the organisation’s Deputy Medical Director, said there were 150 people severely ill, 10 of them in critical condition, in a local hospital supported by the organisation.

“A consistent supply of aid is needed, a single aid drop will not solve the problem.

“Twenty three people have died of starvation in the Madaya hospital since the beginning of December and 10 more will die if there is no medical treatment shortly,” he said.

Aloudat said it would also be necessary to evacuate people from Madaya, where the hospital was treating people wounded by gunfire and landmines as they tried to escape the town.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross has expressed the hope to deliver aid to Madaya and to two government-held villages besieged by rebels in northern Syria on Monday.

Hours after two massive explosions killed 51 people in the Ngomari area of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, the Boko Haram sect again went on rampage killing no fewer than 39 people in a rifle attack on Mainok, a village about 30 miles west of Maiduguri.
The attackers who were armed with rifles and grenade launchers arrived around midnight and after the shooting, the terrorists set the village ablaze.
An eyewitness disclosed that “they have AK 47, RPG launchers and so on. They just started shooting and burning every house in the village.They can kill anybody, including women and children. They kill anybody that can see them.”
Incidentally, with the state of emergency in Borno State, there is military presence around the state. The military claimed to have killed 13 terrorists in a raid last week while the Boko Haram sect seems undeterred and continues to unleash mayhem on the citizens.

Ukraine has put its armed forces on full combat alert and warned Moscow that military intervention will lead to war after the upper house of Russia’s parliament gave President Vladimir Putin the authority to invade.


After a more than three-hour meeting with security and defence chiefs, Oleksander Turchinov, Ukraine’s interim president, said there was no justification for what he called Russian aggression against his country.

Turchinov said that authorities had boosted security around the country’s nuclear facilities, airports and other “strategic facilities.”

Standing beside Turchinov, Arseny Yatseniuk, Ukraine’s prime minister, said he had urged Russia to return its troops to base in the Crimea region during a phone call with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s prime minister, and called for talks.

“I am convinced that Russia will not launch an intervention as this would mean war and the end of all relations between the two countries,” he said.

Putin and US President Barack Obama held a 90-minute telephone call on Saturday, in which the Russian president told his counterpart that Russia reserves the right to protect its interests and those of Russian speakers if there is violence in east Ukraine or Crimea, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to back a proposal by Putin to use “the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine until the normalisation of the socio-political situation in that country”.

Summit boycott

The developments come after Sergiy Aksyonov, the pro-Russian prime minister of the Crimea region, appealed to Putin for help to ensure peace in the semi-autonomous region where unidentified gunmen believed to be Russian are guarding state buildings, including the local parliament.

The region has a majority of ethnic Russians and its administration is defying the new Kiev government that ousted Moscow-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.

The 15-member UN Security Council held emergency talks in New York on Saturday to discuss the crisis.

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, said that Russia’s parliamentary approval was “as dangerous as it is destabilising” and accused Moscow of acting without legal basis.

“The message is pull back your forces. Let us engage in political dialogue, engage with the Ukrainian government which is reaching out to you for that dialogue.”

In a statement, US Secretary of State John Kerry said: “The United States condemns the Russian Federation’s invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory, and its violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity … This action is a threat to the peace and security of Ukraine, and the wider region.”

Washington has said it will suspend participation in preparatory meeting for the G8 summit in Sochi, Russia, planned for this summer, the Reuters news agency reported.

In a statement issued after an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday, Canada’s prime minister said he had also suspended his country’s participation.

Stephen Harper said: “Canada has suspended its engagement in preparations for the G-8 Summit, currently planned for Sochi, and the Canadian ambassador in Moscow is being recalled for consultations.”

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO’s secretary general, said NATO ambassadors will meet in Brussels on Sunday to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Rasmussen tweeted on Saturday: “North Atlantic Council will meet tomorrow followed by NATO-Ukraine Commission.”

A Kremlin statement quoted by RIA said that Putin has not yet taken a decision on sending troops to Ukraine.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Russia to refrain from deploying its armed forces in Ukraine and to abide by international law.

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for the immediate restoration of calm in Ukraine as the Security Council held emergency talks on the escalating crisis.

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops took over the strategic Crimean peninsula Saturday without firing a shot. The newly installed government in Kiev was powerless to react, and despite calls by U.S. President Barack Obama for Russia to pull back its forces, Western governments had few options to counter Russia's military moves.

Putin sought and quickly got his parliament's approval to use its military to protect Russia's interests across Ukraine. But while sometimes-violent pro-Russian protests broke out Saturday in a number of Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine, Moscow's immediate focus appeared to be Crimea.

Tensions increased when Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, made a late night announcement that he had ordered the country's armed forces to be at full readiness because of the threat of "potential aggression."

Speaking live on Ukrainian TV, Turchynov said he had also ordered stepped up security at nuclear power plants, airports and other strategic infrastructure.

Ignoring President Barack Obama's warning Friday that "there will be costs" if Russia intervenes militarily, Putin sharply raised the stakes in the conflict over Ukraine's future evoking memories of Cold War brinkmanship.

After Russia's parliament approved Putin's motion, U.S. officials held a high-level meeting at the White House to review Russia's military moves in Ukraine. The White House said President Barack Obama spoke with Putin by telephone for 90 minutes and expressed his "deep concern" about "Russia's clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity."

The White House said Obama told Putin that the United States is calling on Russia "to de-escalate tensions by withdrawing its forces back to bases in Crimea and to refrain from any interference elsewhere in Ukraine."

A statement from the Kremlin said Putin emphasized to Obama the existence of "real threats" to the life and health of Russian citizens and compatriots who are in Ukrainian territory. The statement indicated that Russia might send its troops not only to the Crimea but also to predominantly ethnic Russian regions of eastern Ukraine.

"Vladimir Putin emphasized that, in the case of a further spread in violence in eastern regions (of Ukraine) and Crimea, Russia maintains the right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population that lives there," the Kremlin statement said.

Obama told Putin that he would support sending international monitors to Ukraine to help protect ethnic Russians. He said the U.S. will suspend its participation in preparatory meetings for June's G-8 summit in Sochi, Russia, the site of the recently concluded Winter Olympics, warning that Russia's "continued violation of international law will lead to greater political and economic isolation."

NATO announced a meeting for Sunday of the North Atlantic Council, the alliance's political decision-making body, as well as a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission. NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the allies will "coordinate closely" on the situation in Ukraine, which he termed "grave."

The U.N. Security Council met in an open, televised session for about a half hour on Saturday afternoon after closed-door consultations, despite initial objections from Russia to an open session. The council heard speeches from a U.N. deputy secretary-general and several ambassadors, but did not take any action.

Ukraine's Ambassador to the U.N. Yuriy Sergeyev asked the Security Council "to do everything possible now" to stop what he called Russian "aggression." Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said the government in Kiev needs to get away from "radicals" and warned, "such actions they're taking could lead to very difficult developments, which the Russian Federation is trying to avoid." He said Russia was intervening at the request of pro-Russian authorities in the autonomous Crimea region that is part of Ukraine.

Calling the situation in Ukraine "as dangerous as it is destabilizing," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power said, "It is time for the Russian military intervention in Ukraine to end." She warned that "Russia's provocative actions could easily push the situation beyond the breaking point." She asked that Russia directly engage the Ukraine government and called for international monitors to be sent to Ukraine to observe the situation.

"Russia and the West find themselves on the brink of a confrontation far worse than in 2008 over Georgia," Dmitri Trenin, the director of Carnegie Moscow Center, said in a commentary posted on its website. In Georgia, Russian troops quickly routed the Georgian military after they tried to regain control over the separatist province of South Ossetia that has close ties with Moscow.

The latest moves followed days of scripted, bloodless turmoil on the peninsula, the scene of centuries of wars and seen by Moscow as a crown jewel of the Russian and Soviet empires. What began Thursday with the early-morning takeover of the regional parliament building by mysterious troops continued Saturday afternoon as dozens of those soldiers — almost certainly Russian — moved into the streets around the parliamentary complex and seized control of regional airports, amid street protests by pro-Russian Crimeans calling for Moscow's protection from the new government in Kiev.

That government came to power last week in the wake of months of pro-democracy protests against the now-fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his decision to turn Ukraine toward Russia, its longtime patron, instead of the European Union. Despite the calls for Moscow's help, there has been no sign of ethnic Russians facing attacks in Crimea or elsewhere in Ukraine.

Obama on Friday called on Russia to respect the independence and territory of Ukraine and not try to take advantage of its neighbor's political upheaval.

He said such action by Russia would represent a "profound interference" in matters he said should be decided by the Ukrainian people. He has not said, however, how the U.S. could pressure Moscow to step back from its intervention.

The Russian parliament urged that Moscow recall its ambassador in Washington in response to Obama's speech.

On Friday, Ukraine accused Russia of a "military invasion and occupation" in the Crimea, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk called on Moscow "to recall their forces, and to return them to their stations," according to the Interfax news agency. "Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine."

Ukraine's population of 46 million is divided in loyalties between Russia and Europe, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the European Union while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support. Crimea, a semi-autonomous region that Russia gave to Ukraine in the 1950s, is mainly Russian-speaking.

In his address to parliament, Putin said the "extraordinary situation in Ukraine" was putting at risk the lives of Russian citizens and military personnel stationed at the Crimean naval base that Moscow has maintained since the Soviet collapse.

Despite Putin's sharp move, there were possible signs Saturday that the Russian leader could soften his approach. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was freed a week ago after more than 2 ½ years in prison, was reported to be heading to Moscow for a meeting with Putin on Monday, though her spokeswoman denied that. Putin has had good ties with Tymoshenko in the past, and he may look to her for a possible compromise.

In a statement posted on her party's web site, Tymoshenko urged the U.N. Security Council to meet in Kiev and asked the EU leaders to convene a meeting in Crimea. She urged the West to help protect Ukraine's territorial integrity, asked Ukrainians to remain calm and voiced hope that diplomacy will succeed.

Putin's parliamentary motion loosely refers to the "territory of Ukraine" rather than specifically to Crimea, raising the possibility that Moscow could use military force in other Russian-speaking areas in eastern and southern Ukraine, where many detest the new authorities in Kiev.

But in a note of restraint, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said the motion doesn't mean the president would immediately send additional troops to Ukraine. "There is no talk about it yet," he said.

Pro-Russian protests were reported Saturday in the eastern cities of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern port of Odessa. In Kharkiv, 97 people were injured in clashes between pro-Russia demonstrators who flushed supporters of the new Ukrainian government out of the regional government building and hoisted the Russian flag on top of it, according to the Interfax news agency.

Trenin, of Moscow's Carnegie office, said that Putin could be seeking to "include Crimea within the Russian Federation and eastern and southern regions of Ukraine forming a separate entity integrated with Russia economically and aligned with it politically."

"It is not clear at this point whether Kiev will be left to build a rump Ukraine with the western regions or whether it will be swayed to join the eastern regions," he wrote.

In Crimea, the new pro-Russian prime minister — who came to power after the gunmen swept into parliament on Thursday — claimed control of the military and police and asked Putin for help in keeping peace. There was no visible presence of Ukrainian troops Saturday.

The deputy premier in the Crimean government told Russian news agency RIA Novsti that Ukrainian troops were disarmed and others joined the Crimean people to help patrol the territory. The report couldn't immediately be confirmed.

Crimean Tatars, the historic hosts of the land who make up 12 percent of the island's population and stand strongly for Crimea remaining part of Ukraine, didn't put up any visible resistance Saturday.

"The last two or three days have turned around the life of all the people in Crimea," said Refat Chubarov, a Crimean Tatar leader. "They've taken over military bases and civil institutions. That's why Crimean society is filled with fear. People are afraid of everyone and everything."

Crimea only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality when both Ukraine and Russia were part of the Soviet Union. The Soviet breakup in 1991 meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt summed the situation up simply: "What's happening in Crimea is a Russian takeover. There is no doubt about that," he told Swedish Radio. "Russian military forces are involved and there has been a local takeover of power."

Russia put pressure on Ukraine from another direction when a spokesman for state gas company Gazprom said that Ukraine owed $1.59 billion in overdue bills for imported gas. Sergei Kuprianov said in a statement carried by Russian news wires that the gas arrears would endanger a recent discount granted by Russia.

The Russian payment demand and loss of the discount would accelerate Ukraine's financial crisis. The country is almost broke and seeking emergency credit from the International Monetary Fund.

The tensions barely touched everyday life in Simferopol, the regional capital of Crimea, or anywhere on the peninsula. Children played on swings a few blocks from the parliament building, and most of the city's stores were open. Couples walked hand-in-hand through parks. Crimea's airports — civilian and military — were closed to air traffic, but trains and cars were moving to and from the Ukrainian mainland. The civilian airport in Simferopol was reopened late Saturday night.

"Things are normal," said Olga Saldovskaia, who was walking through town with her son and grandson. While she doesn't like having gunmen in the streets, like many people in this overwhelmingly ethnic Russian city, she also found their presence reassuring.

"If anyone tries to hurt the people here, they will protect us," said Saldovskaia. She said she sympathized with the pro-democracy protesters in Kiev, but also worries that turmoil in the capital could lead to violence against ethnic Russians. She added, though, that she definitely doesn't want Crimea to become part of Russia.

"Russia is not just all flowers and candy," she said.

Moscow has remained silent on claims that Russian troops are already in control of much of the peninsula, saying any troop movements are within agreed-upon rules governing the semi-autonomous Ukrainian region.

Meanwhile, flights remained halted at Simferopol's airport. Dozens of armed men in military uniforms without markings patrolled the area. They didn't stop or search people leaving or entering the airport, and refused to talk to journalists.

AP journalists crossing into Crimea from mainland Ukraine were briefly stopped at a checkpoint manned by troops in unmarked camouflage uniforms as well as officers in uniforms of the Berkut, the feared riot police that cracked down on anti-Yanukovych protesters before he fled the capital a week ago.

___

Vladimir Isachenkov reported from Moscow. AP reporters Karl Ritter and David McHugh in Kiev, Julia Subbotovska in Simferopol, and Cara Anna at the United Nations contributed to this report.

 by: THEWILL_
U.S. President Barack Obama has warned Russia against any military intervention in Ukraine after the country’s new leaders accused Moscow of deploying forces in the Crimea region.

A week after Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted in Kiev, armed men took control of two airports in Crimea on Friday in what Kiev described as an invasion and occupation by Moscow’s forces in a region with an ethnic Russian majority.

Acting President Oleksander Turchinov said Russia, which has a naval base in Crimea, was following a scenario like the one before it went to war with fellow former Soviet republic Georgia in 2008 over two breakaway regions.

The crisis, which began after Yanukovich triggered protests by spurning a political and trade deal with the European Union, is stoking tensions in a geopolitical battle between East and West that has echoes of the Cold War.

“We are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine,” Obama told reporters in Washington.

“The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.”

Any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be “deeply destabilizing,” he said.

Obama and European leaders would consider skipping a G8 summit this summer in the Russian city of Sochi if Moscow intervened militarily, a senior U.S. official said.

The G8 includes the world’s seven leading industrial nations and Russia, and Russian President Vladimir Putin considers hosting such events as a way to show how far Russia has come since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Washington’s relations with Moscow are already cool because of differences over the conflict in Syria, Putin’s record on human rights and Russia’s decision to harbor former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, dismissed the criticism, saying any movements of its forces in Crimea were in line with agreements with Ukraine.

YANUKOVICH DEFIANT

Gunmen have taken over the regional parliament in Crimea, and control the main international airport and a military airfield on the strategic Black Sea peninsula.

A representative of Acting President Turchinov said 13 Russian aircraft had landed with 150 personnel on each plane. The Ukrainian leadership also said more than 10 Russian military helicopters flew over Crimea, and Russian servicemen blockaded a unit of the Ukrainian border guard near the port city of Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

A local television station reported that another military aerodrome had been taken over by armed men overnight, but the report was not independently confirmed.

Phone lines have been severed in some areas and witnesses say they have seen armored personnel carriers on the move.

There has been no bloodshed and no military clashes despite a warning by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry that “radical forces” planned to disarm Ukrainian military units in Crimea.

Ukraine’s leaders say about 100 people were killed, some of them by police snipers, during protests in the Ukrainian capital Kiev that began last November.

Yanukovich, 63, resurfaced in southern Russia on Friday after a week on the run, defiantly telling a packed room of journalists that he was still leader of the sprawling former Soviet republic of 46 million.

He said he had not ordered police to open fire on the protesters in Kiev and that Russia should use all means at its disposal to stop what he described as chaos in Ukraine.

“Russia cannot be indifferent, cannot be a bystander watching the fate of as close a partner as Ukraine,” Yanukovich told a news conference. “Russia must use all means at its disposal to end the chaos and terror gripping Ukraine.”

He said he had not seen Putin since fleeing to Russia but had spoken to him by telephone and was surprised the Russian leader was not more vocal on the crisis.

Putin has said nothing in public about the crisis since Yanukovich was ousted a week ago.

A Kremlin statement offered conciliatory remarks about international cooperation over heavily indebted Ukraine but Russian officials have blamed the crisis on the West and accused it of meddling in what Moscow considers its back yard. Loss of influence in Ukraine is a bitter blow for Putin.

COOPERATION OVER FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

The Russian Foreign ministry said on its Facebook page that Russia’s Consulate General in Crimea would hand out Russian passports to the servicemen of Ukraine’s now-disbanded Berkut riot police. Protesters had accused the Berkut of firing the live bullets that killed dozens of protesters in Kiev.

Moscow has also promised to defend the interests of its citizens in Ukraine. It has said it will not intervene by force, but its rhetoric has echoed the run-up to its war in Georgia, where it said ethnic Russians in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia needed protection.

Any armed confrontation in Crimea would have major global repercussions.

Moves are under way, however, to prop up Ukraine’s faltering economy. The new Ukrainian leadership has said the country needs about $35 billion over the next two years to stave off bankruptcy. It said on Friday it hoped to get financial aid soon and was prepared to fulfill the reform criteria of the International Monetary Fund, which will visit Kiev next week.

The fate of a $15-billion Russian bailout package is unclear, with only about $3 billion of it released so far.

REUTERS

The names of the students who lost their lives in the Tuesday attack on Federal Government College, FGC, Bunu Yadi, Yobe State by Boko Haram militants have been revealed.
43 students were killed. Hostels, classrooms and more than 40 houses were burnt during the attack.
The attackers reportedly hurled explosives into student hostels, sprayed gunfire into rooms and hacked some students to death. Others were burned alive.
Adamu Garba, who teaches at a secondary school attached to the college, said the attackers first set ablaze the college administrative block and then moved to the hostels, where they locked students in and started firebombing the buildings.
At one hostel, he said, “students were trying to climb out of the windows and they were slaughtered like sheep by the terrorists who slit their throats. Others who ran were gunned down”. He said students who could not escape were burned alive.
Many of the students are still unaccounted for. Below are the names of 24 students confirmed dead.
Sale Mamiski, Musa Muhammad, Sani A. Audu, Usman Faltu, Garba Jibo, Hussani Mari, Mailam Ali, Goni Ali Babamai, Ali Ayuba, Peter John, Abba Mohammed, Aliyu Yala, Abba Adam, Hamidu Bala, Suleiman Lawan Guji, Abbas Ibrahim, Inusa Ali, Rukaya Gaji, Usman Saleh Idris, Auwal Adam, Usman Abba Kaku, Musa Yalti Buba, Sadisu Dauda, Aisha Audu Goni

By Ifreke Inyang
Barely 24 hours after gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram sect killed over 43 students in Yobe State, the dreaded insurgents Thursday killed no fewer than 37 persons in three separate attacks in Adamawa State.

Chairman of the Madagali local government Area of Adamawa state, Maina Ularamu confirmed the sad incident. He said, “a large number of militants carried out three separate attacks on Shuwa and Kirchinga in my local government area and on Michika in neighbouring Michika (district)”.
“The gunmen divided themselves into three groups and separately attacked the three locations,” he told AFP.

It was gathered that in Shuwa, several buildings were razed, including a Christian theological college and a section of a secondary school.

A local resident, Kwaje Bitrus, told newsmen that three bodies were recovered from the seminary and a total of 20 were killed in and around the village.

In Kirchinga, a resident who gave his name as Samuel Garba said the gunmen were all dressed in military uniform.

“The gunmen killed eight people in our village and burnt many houses,” he added.

“Four people have so far been confirmed dead in Michika,” another Abdul Kassim, a resident of the area said.

In a statement, the military confirmed the attacks on multiple communities in the state, but said that only one soldier and three civilians were killed. Troops repelling the raids also killed six suspected Islamists, according to the statement.

The military further claimed that the militants, “in desperation for money and food, looted and burnt banks (and) shops”, and were trying to escape across the Cameroon border.

by: THEWILL

BEVERLY HILLS, February 25, (THEWILL) -  Borno State Students, under the umbrella of the National Union of Borno State Students (NUBOSS), Tuesday called on President Goodluck Jonathan to stop blaming the state governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, for the escalation of the Boko Haram insurgency in the state.

Calling on the President to pay a visit to the state in order  to appreciate what the people are going through, the students said

the president would only understand the frustration of Governor Shettima “if he pays a visit to Bama, Gwoza, Konduga or any other parts of the state where the insurgents have wreaked wanton havoc.”

Making the call at a media briefing  in Maiduguri, the state capital, the National Chairman of NUBOSS. Comrade Isah Mohammed Biu, said though President Jonathan  has denied the rumour of a plan to replace Shettima with a military administrator, there won’t be such call in the first instance President Jonathan had  visited the affected parts of the state.

The students therefore said the Federal Government, rather than Governor Shettima, should take responsibility for the escalation of the crisis,  saying with the declaration of emergency rule in the state, “ the security of the state automatically shifted to the Federal Government.”

by: foluso

In the early hours of Tuesday, Boko Haram militants stormed the Federal Government College in Buni Yadi, Gujba LGA of Yobe State, killing 29 students.


The police and military have confirmed the incident.

According to some reports, the militants did not use guns in order not to alert the security guards, but instead have slain the victims before burning the school to the ground.

“Some of the students bodies were burned to ashes,” said police commissioner Sanusi Rufai, adding 24 staff quarters, including the adminisstrative block of the college, were razed by the fire.

The exact number of casualties is yet unclear, but some sources say there are no less than 29 bodies of male victims.

Military spokesman in Yobe State Eli Lazarus disclosed that suspected Boko Haram insurgents attacked a students’ hostel at the Federal Government College in the town of Buni Yadi around 2:00 a.m.

The latest attack is the fourth recorded on schools in Yobe State. GSS Damaturu, GSS Mamudo and College of Agriculture, Gujba were attacked last year.

More details soon.



Source: Reuters

Israeli jets have carried out air strikes in eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria, Lebanon’s state news agency says.
Israel’s military has not commented although an Israeli security source quoted by Reuters said there had been “air force activity in the north”.
Lebanon’s national news agency said the air raids took place near the village of Nabi Sheet in the Bekaa Valley.
The Lebanese militant Hezbollah group has a strong presence in the valley.
Correspondents say Lebanon’s eastern border is frequently used by smugglers and Israeli planes have targeted the area several times in the past two years.
Security sources say the targets may have been trucks of weapons from Syria destined for Hezbollah.

AP – Christian militiamen killed at least 70 people in the remote southwest of Central African Republic, at one point ordering a group of Muslims to lie on the ground and shooting them one by one, witnesses said Monday.
The militiamen, known as the anti-Balaka, slaughtered the Muslims in the village of Guen earlier this month, a Catholic priest, the Rev. Rigobert Dolongo, who helped bury the bodies, told The Associated Press. At least 27 people were slain in the first day of the attack, while 43 others were killed on the second day, he said.
Ibrahim Aboubakar, 22, said the anti-Balaka stormed Guen and killed his two older brothers after they were heard speaking in Arabic.
“Later that day they rounded up dozens of people and forced them all to lie down on their stomachs. Then they shot them one by one,” he said from the refuge of a Catholic church in Carnot, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) away, where he is among 800 seeking shelter from attack.
At least two other families who survived the attack are here now, including Gisma Ahmed, who is now a widow at 18 with two young children. Sitting in the shade breastfeeding a 4-month-old while her 3-year-old daughter played nearby, she could only weep when asked about the killings. Relatives said that her husband was shot while trying to flee.
Hundreds of Muslims remain in Guen, hiding in the town’s Catholic church and also at the imam’s home.
Those Muslims still in Guen appealed by telephone for African peacekeepers in Carnot to rescue them, according to two Muslim residents who insisted on anonymity because they feared for their lives. They also confirmed that heavily armed anti-Balaka were still in control of the village Tuesday. The local commander for the peacekeeping mission said he needed permission from his supervisors in the capital, Bangui, to go to Guen.
Like much of the violence in Central African Republic, the true toll from the attack on Guen may never be known. Most survivors fled deep into the rural bush, hiking to safety in towns further west.
News of the massacre came nearly three months after Central African Republic’s political crisis erupted into violence between the country’s Christian and Muslim communities, leaving more than 1,000 dead in Bangui alone in a matter of days. Many hoped the crisis would stabilize after the Muslim rebel president agreed to step down and go into exile, clearing the way for elections by early next year.
However, both Muslim rebels and the Christian fighters are implicated in a growing number of attacks fanning out far from the capital all the way to the country’s southwest near the border with Cameroon. Human rights groups have documented hundreds of deaths since early January, when the Muslim rebel government crumbled and Christian fighters sought to avenge the regime’s abuses. Tens of thousands have fled for their lives to neighboring countries, leaving some towns in Central African Republic without any Muslim residents. Before the outbreak of violence Muslim’s made up about 15 percent of the country’s 4.6 million people.

The Federal Government has once again called on members of the Boko Haram sect to lay down their arms and engage government in a constructive manner to address their grievances.
President Goodluck Jonathan made the call at an international seminar on the Imperatives of Observance of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Norms in Internal Security holding at the National Defence College, Abuja.
The president also recalled the directives to the service chiefs to ensure that relevant human rights are emphasised in the training of members of the armed forces in the fight against insurgency.
He however expressed regret that the Boko Haram sect does not feel obliged to basic tenets of human rights, describing them as “brutal and removed from modern civilization,” killing innocent citizens at will.
He said the military was called in to support and restore normalcy but regretted that sometimes such engagements have had negative effects.
He however said that government will do all it can to ensure that any allegation of human rights abuse on the part of security operatives will be appropriately addressed.

  by: Channels Television

An Abuja High Court has ordered the federal government to pay the sum of ten million naira only as compensation to nine suspected members of the Islamic deadly sect, boko haram for detaining them illegally.

‎They are Abimel Ibrahim, Isah Kano, Yambali Umaru, Danga Wilfred, Jimmy Oba, Ilita Mark, Sadebo Ali Amatig, Michael Manu and Yakubu Douglas
The court also ordered that the applicants should be released from detention and should not be rearrested or detained on the same facts.
Justice Peter Affen, in a judgment delivered on February 5, 2014, found merit in an application for an order of the enforcement of fundamental rights of the nine applicants, ThisDay Live has reported.