International
The kidnappers of more than 280 students and teachers in Nigeria ask for a ransom of 567,000 euros
The kidnappers of more than 280 students and teachers captured last Thursday in the center-north of Nigeria, in a town in the state of Kaduna, asked the families for a rescue of one billion nairas (about 567,000 euros), two leaders of local civil society confirmed to EFE on Wednesday.
“They have contacted us, they have asked us for a billion nairas to free the students and teachers. They threatened to kill all the captives if they do not receive the money by the end of this month,” Abdullahi Umar, a community leader in the town of Kuriga, where the events happened, told EFE by phone.
Umar stressed that it is “a huge amount of money” and that they do not know how to get it and explained that the parents of the kidnapped minors and the neighbors of the area have tried to raise the funds since the kidnappers contacted them last weekend.
“But we haven’t gathered much. We ask the Government and well-intentioned people to help us. They say that the payment of ransoms is illegal but we can’t let our children die,” Umar added.
The kidnapping, which has shocked the whole country and the international community, occurred early in the morning of March 7 at the primary school of the Local Educational Authority in Kuriga, when the attackers – about a hundred, according to EFE then a resident – surrounded a group of students and teachers and pushed them into the forest, where some managed to flee.
The request for the rescue was also confirmed to EFE by the undersecretary of the regional office of the Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA), Farouk Alhassan.
“It’s outrageous. We receive information that the bandits demand a billion nairas (…) The Government should try to guarantee the safe return of children and teachers,” Alhassan said.
EFE did not get a response when it tried to contact the state commissioner for Internal Security and Interior of Kaduna, Samuel Aruwan.
The Nigerian authorities have ruled out the payment of a ransom to get the release of the captives.
Speaking to the press this Wednesday in the country’s capital, Abuya, the Nigerian Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, assured that the president of the country, Bola Tinubu, “has ordered the Government not to pay any ransom to any of these criminal elements.”
“Security agencies are working day and night. These children and these people who have been kidnapped by criminals will be safe again very soon,” he said.
For his part, the human rights activist and former legislator Shehu Sani, who in the past represented the state of Kaduna in the Senate (High Chamber) of Nigeria, pointed out through the social network X that “the negotiations with the bandits who kidnapped Kaduna’s students are fine as long as they do not involve large payments.”
According to Sani, “it would have to be a negotiation where cents are not mentioned” because “this information about his ransom demands is a scandalous madness.”
Some states of Nigeria – especially in the center and northwest of the country – suffer incessant attacks by “bandits”, a term used in the country to name criminal gangs that commit assaults and mass kidnappings to ask for large ransoms.
The attacks are repeated despite the repeated promises to end the violence by the Nigerian Government, which has reinforced the deployment of security forces.
To this insecurity is added that caused since 2009 by the activity of the jihadist group Boko Haram in the northeast of the country and, from 2016, also by its splinterion, the Islamic State in the Province of West Africa (ISWAP).
International
China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”
The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.
That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”
“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.
Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”
In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”
This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.
The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.
Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.
For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.
International
Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants
The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.
According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.
The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”
The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.
The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”
These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.
International
Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”
“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.
The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.
“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.
Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.
“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.
The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.
Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.
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