标签： Africa

ABUJA, Nigeria – In a landmark operation described as unprecedented in the nation’s history, Nigerian security forces have rescued at least 308 people abducted in a series of separate attacks across the country’s northern region, President Bola Tinubu announced Wednesday in an official statement.

Among the freed hostages are 163 residents taken captive from the Woro community in Kaiama, Kwara State, during a mass kidnapping in February. An additional 145 people, most seized from neighboring Niger State, were also released in the coordinated mission. Tinubu confirmed that all hostages were extracted from a remote forest hideout where they had been held for months in captivity. Few operational details have been made public to protect ongoing security work, but the president noted that all rescued people are currently receiving on-site medical evaluations and care for their ordeal.

Tinubu labeled the mission the “largest rescue operation ever” conducted by Nigerian security forces in a single 24-hour period. He emphasized that the successful outcome was rooted in precise intelligence gathering and close inter-agency collaboration, a combination that has sharply boosted the effectiveness of the country’s security response to kidnapping threats. “The successful execution of this intelligence-led operation demonstrates the growing efficiency and collaboration among our security services,” Tinubu said. “I commend our gallant men and women in uniform for their bravery and unwavering commitment to safeguarding Nigerian lives.”

The large-scale rescue comes amid a years-long crisis of mass abductions and ransom kidnappings across northern Nigeria. Armed groups locally referred to as bandits have expanded their control of remote border and forest regions in northwest and north-central Nigeria, launching regular raids on rural communities and schools to seize hostages for ransom. Security analysts note that many of these bandit formations emerged from long-simmering resource conflicts between pastoral herder communities and sedentary farming groups, with many former herders turning to armed violence after repeated cycles of displacement and confrontation.

Mass school kidnappings have become a particularly common tactic for these groups, who use the public outrage over captive children to pressure the federal and state governments and extract large ransom payments. In addition to the bandit insurgency in the northwest and north-central regions, Nigeria has also grappled with a separate 13-year-old extremist insurgency in the country’s northeast that has displaced millions and left thousands dead. Recent United Nations security assessments have warned that armed kidnapping groups are increasingly expanding their operations southward, seizing more young hostages and extending their influence beyond northern strongholds.

Nigeria’s federal presidency has announced a landmark success for the country’s joint security forces: the rescue of more than 300 people kidnapped in separate attacks across two north-central states, marking what officials call the largest single-day hostage rescue operation in the nation’s modern history.

All 308 freed captives were pulled from hiding sites within Kainji Lake National Park, located in Niger State, during a coordinated mission that brought together personnel from the Nigerian military, national police, domestic intelligence units, and the National Counter-Terrorism Centre. Among those rescued were 163 residents of the Woro community in neighboring Kwara State, who were abducted during a brutal jihadist attack on the village in February that left dozens of residents dead. An additional 145 hostages kidnapped in separate incidents across Niger State were also freed in the same operation.

As of the presidency’s announcement, no information has been released confirming whether any suspect kidnapping perpetrators were detained during the mission. All rescued captives are currently receiving on-site medical assessments and care at a military facility, and are expected to be reunited with their family members in the coming days after completing necessary health screenings.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu warmly welcomes the successful rescue of 308 Nigerian citizens who were abducted in different attacks in Niger and Kwara states,” presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga confirmed in an official statement. Onanuga emphasized that the operation is unprecedented, noting it is “the largest rescue operation ever carried out” in a single day in Nigeria.

Tinubu framed the successful mission as clear evidence of improving inter-agency coordination between Nigeria’s multiple security bodies, a key policy priority of his administration as it works to address widespread insecurity across the country.

The February attack on the Woro community that left dozens dead and more than 160 abducted was one of the most high-profile mass kidnappings in Nigeria this year. Investigations and witness accounts show that the armed jihadist attackers demanded Woro residents renounce the Nigerian government and national constitution, and instead adhere to the group’s extreme ideological teachings. The assault was an explicit attempt to impose a parallel, extremist-led system of governance over the local area.

Post-attack forensic investigations compiled by Amnesty International documented gruesome details of the violence: many of the slain Woro residents were found with their hands and feet bound, with some killed by slit throats and others shot execution-style. The Nigerian government has officially blamed Boko Haram, the long-active extremist jihadist group based in the country’s northeast, for the February attack, though the group has not released any public statement claiming or denying responsibility for the assault to date.

This latest successful rescue comes just weeks after a separate month-long security operation ended with the release of 44 abducted pupils and teachers from a school in Oyo State, who had spent more than 50 days in captivity.

The string of mass abduction attacks across north-central and parts of southern Nigeria in recent months has sparked growing concern among analysts and residents that insecurity is spreading beyond the country’s traditional conflict zones in the northeast, where Boko Haram and related extremist groups have waged an insurgency for more than 15 years.

In a bold, unprecedented experiment for sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo embarked on an ambitious plan to beat crippling urban gridlock: a purpose-built cable car system designed to lift thousands of daily commuters over the city’s notorious traffic jams. Today, the empty cable lines stretch unused across the Antananarivo skyline, leaving what is widely seen as a $170 million misstep for one of the world’s poorest nations.

The project was the flagship infrastructure initiative of former Madagascan President Andry Rajoelina, who inaugurated the system ahead of his ousting in a military-led coup late last year. Rajoelina rose to power amid widespread youth-led protests that accused his administration of systemic failure across core public services, and he was removed from office shortly after the cable car’s launch.

Rajoelina had framed the cable car as the only viable solution to Antananarivo’s growing transit crisis. The capital, originally designed to house just 300,000 residents, now is home to more than 3 million people, a surge driven by rapid rural-to-urban migration. For decades, the city has relied on aging, severely overcrowded minibus taxis, which create multi-hour traffic snarls that disrupt daily life for commuters. Light rail, Rajoelina argued, was unworkable due to the region’s widespread marshy terrain, calling the cable car system a transformative project on par with France’s iconic Eiffel Tower at its 2024 unveiling.

Planners projected the system would carry up to 75,000 commuters daily, remove 2,000 private cars from city roads, and cut one-way commutes that often stretched to three hours down to just 10 to 30 minutes, depending on a rider’s route. But after the fanfare of the opening, when Rajoelina and his cabinet took the first ceremonial ride over the city’s steep hills and tightly packed informal neighborhoods, very few ordinary Madagascans stepped on board.

Built over three years with nearly $173 million in French development loans, the cable car project failed at its first hurdle: affordability for local residents. Project officials set a per-trip fare between 70 and 90 U.S. cents – six to eight times the cost of a ride on a traditional minibus. For most Antananarivo residents, that price point is insurmountable: a 2022 World Bank report puts the average monthly commuter salary in Madagascar at just $72, with roughly 75% of the country’s 30 million total residents living below the poverty line.

Pieter Onderwater, a public transport planning consultant and guest lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s Center for Transport Studies, explained that both the Madagascan government and the French development consortium behind the project overlooked a critical reality for low-income communities across the continent: cost prioritizes far over convenience for most people.

“Obviously people will not use it because money is far more key than time,” Onderwater noted. “The price is six times higher than a conventional minibus taxi? Well then, we just sit in traffic because we know better things to do with that money.”

Beyond the issue of cost, the project sparked widespread public anger from residents who have long struggled with a lack of basic core services, including reliable running water and consistent electricity. Many questioned why the government poured hundreds of millions into a luxury transit project instead of addressing these unmet fundamental needs first.

Residents also raised widespread safety concerns, particularly around the capital’s frequent power outages that already forced the cable car to stop operating repeatedly during its short trial run. “In a city where they cannot even fix the roads, how can we trust being more than 65 feet above the ground when there is a power cut?” asked Erica, a local shop owner who shared only her first name. “And if something goes wrong, how long would it take them to fix it?”

Tensions boiled over during the coup that removed Rajoelina from power, when demonstrators angry at the administration’s disconnect from public needs burned and damaged multiple cable car stations across the city. Since the coup, a transitional government led by former army colonel Michael Randrianirina has taken control of the country, but officials have not released any public plans for the abandoned cable car system. The transitional government did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the Associated Press.

A French firm part of the construction consortium confirmed that the partnership completed an inspection of the idle system in March and submitted its findings to Madagascan authorities, leaving the government to “decide on the next steps.”

The failure of the Antananarivo cable car project underscores a broader challenge facing the African continent as rapid urbanization outpaces infrastructure development. Antananarivo’s population has grown more than tenfold since the 1960s, mirroring a regional trend: the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development projects Africa’s total urban population will double from its current 700 million to 1.4 billion by 2050, creating massive unmet demand for public transit, housing, healthcare, education, water, and electricity.

Despite having some of the fastest urbanization rates globally, Africa also has some of the world’s least developed formal public transport systems, according to research institution Transport Africa. Onderwater explained that most African governments have largely left transit development to the private sector, which has organically built the widespread network of affordable private minibus taxis – known as kombis in South Africa, matatus in Kenya, and danfo in Nigeria – that carry the vast majority of working commuters across the continent.

While some Antananarivo commuters say they are intrigued by the idea of skipping over daily traffic jams, most have been grounded by practical concerns over cost, reliability, safety during severe seasonal storms and cyclones, and poor route planning. Hery Ratsimbazafy, a local office worker, summed up a common critique: the cable car lines do not even reach the city’s central business district, leaving it unable to serve the daily commute needs of most workers. “It doesn’t help me get where I need to go,” he said.

FNIDEQ, Morocco — Along the sunbaked Moroccan side of the border fence separating the country from Spain’s North African enclave Ceuta, crowds of anxious relatives gather every day. Mothers clutch crumpled printed photos, fathers scan every approaching returnee’s face, and siblings lean against the barrier, calling out names of loved ones who crossed into Ceuta during last week’s unprecedented mass migration surge. Each returning traveler is stopped with the same urgent question: Have you seen my son? My daughter? My brother?

In what has become one of the most high-profile migration crises to shake Europe in recent years, more than 72,000 Moroccan migrants flooded across the border into Ceuta in a matter of days. The sudden surge was triggered by a toxic mix of widespread economic desperation and unfounded online rumors claiming the border had been permanently opened, drawing thousands of young people hoping to start new lives in the European Union. Today, authorities confirm that all but roughly 2,000 migrants have returned to Morocco — but hundreds of families are still without any word of where their relatives are.

The human cost of the crossing has already been devastating. Official counts put the death toll at more than 80, with migrants drowning while attempting to swim across border waters or suffering fatal injuries while scaling the heavily fortified border fence. It remains unclear if all bodies have been recovered and repatriated; a morgue source in Tetouan, Morocco’s largest city near the border, told the Associated Press that more than a dozen fatalities have already been brought to the facility, though journalists have not been granted access to confirm the count.

As survivors trickled back across the border in recent days, the AP witnessed first-hand the agony of families waiting for news. Many returnees lost or abandoned their mobile phones during the chaotic crossing, so they borrowed devices from strangers to call anxious family members waiting at home. For those whose loved ones have not come home, the border has become a site of endless, heart-wrenching waiting.

“I have been looking for my son for five days now,” said Ibtissam Chari, whose 19-year-old son Rayan crossed into Ceuta with a group of friends after seeing the viral rumors of an open border online. “He called me when he arrived, and since then I haven’t heard anything from him.”

Another woman, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her children, spoke to reporters while staring silently toward the Ceuta side of the border. Her 12-year-old son crossed the border with his older brother; only the older boy made it back to Morocco. “I have nothing else to do but come here and wait,” she said. “I spend all my days here. I will come back tomorrow again.”

Of the migrants still unaccounted for, an estimated 1,000 are minors remaining in Ceuta. Under Spanish law, security forces lack the authority to expel unaccompanied minor migrants, leaving their long-term fate uncertain. Moroccan authorities have already welded shut the small opening in the border fence that was temporarily opened to allow returning migrants to cross back into Morocco, closing off the main passage for returnees.

The same social media groups that helped coordinate the mass crossing — sharing tips on where to swim and how to avoid patrols — have now pivoted to serve as clearinghouses for missing person posts. Families flood the groups with photos and descriptions of their unaccounted-for relatives, begging any migrants still in Ceuta for information. “If anyone has seen this girl in Ceuta or Castillejos, please let us know. Her family is going crazy,” user Hiba Nakaax wrote in the popular Facebook group Fnideq Bab Sebta, one of the main hubs for crossing coordination.

For many young Moroccans, attempting the crossing to Europe is a decades-long common aspiration, rooted in persistent economic inequality across the country. While coastal tourist regions have seen steady economic growth in recent years, inland areas continue to grapple with crippling poverty and youth unemployment that tops 30%. Last year’s widespread youth-led Gen Z protests across Morocco laid bare the deep public frustration over limited economic opportunity and underfunded public services, driving many young people to see migration to Europe as their only shot at stability.

That desperation is so deeply rooted that even after the deadly chaos of the Ceuta surge, some parents still urge their children to find another way to cross. After 17-year-old Mohamed Chakor from the inland city of Taounate returned home traumatized from the failed attempt, he called his father to share the news. Instead of urging him to abandon the plan, his father asked him to start looking for another route to Europe.

Twenty-six-year-old Othmane El Merzoug, who returned barefoot and hungry after being turned away from Ceuta, called his father in Salé from a reporter’s phone. “Dad, I’ve returned from Ceuta. They didn’t allow me to stay,” he said over the speakerphone. His father immediately promised to send money so he could make the trip back home — and left unsaid what many here already know: for many young Moroccans, the next attempt to cross will come soon.