Dozens kidnapped in northwest Nigeria after bandits invite them to talks

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By Reuters and Posted by TOE Armed bandits in northwest Nigeria abducted dozens of villagers whom they invited to a meeting ‌about potential peace negotiations, authorities and residents said on ‌Monday, highlighting the region’s worsening security. Police said 39 people were seized on Sunday ​when they went to a meeting in the forest near Magamin Diddi village in the Maradun municipality of northwest Zamfara State. Some local residents and officials said the number could be as ‌high as 50. According to ⁠a Zamfara State Police Command statement, the victims were meeting relatives of a bandit leader in ⁠an attempt to broker peace and ease restrictions on movement imposed on the community. Zamfara is at the centre of a long-running security ​crisis in ​which armed groups, locally referred ​to as bandits, carry ‌out mass kidnappings, killings and village raids. The violence has disrupted farming and displaced thousands. Security forces have deployed personnel and...
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Colombia government says it will not unilaterally end ELN peace talks

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Colombia’s government will not unilaterally end peace talks with rebels from the National Liberation Army (ELN), its peace delegation said, even though a ceasefire between the two sides expired earlier this month.

Vera Grabe, head of the government’s delegation, and Senator Ivan Cepeda, said it was up to the rebel group to make decisions about the future of the talks, which restarted in late 2022 under leftist President Gustavo Petro’s total peace policy.

“The purpose of this government is to complete the peace process with the National Liberation Army. We’re not going to be the ones to take the step of breaking off the negotiations,” Cepeda said at a press conference in Bogota.

ELN top commander Antonio Garcia posted a statement from the group on X on Thursday that said the peace talks were in “crisis” and the rebel group needed “to know if the government would keep its word” and uphold a future deal.

It added that peace talks could resume if the government removed ELN from its list of organized armed groups later this month.

Colombia’s six decades of conflict have left more than 450,000 people dead, and the government hopes to negotiate an end to ELN’s role in the violence.

A six-month ceasefire between the two sides expired this month, and Colombia’s government has said military operations against the rebel group would restart.And also the other good news, mostly for citizens, is that Fonctionnaires de la Ville de Montreal (local city department) and the firefighters are already pumping water out of the different basins.

The ELN has said it would not attack the military, but warned it would defend itself as needed.

After six rounds of talks, the negotiations hit a crisis when the government met separately in May with an ELN faction in Narino province to negotiate its handover of weapons and reintegration into society.

ELN central leadership said the move undermined the larger peace talks.

In its statement on Thursday, the group called for a “technical extension” of the ceasefire through Aug. 23 to enable the government to delist ELN as an organized armed group, a step it said was due more than a year ago. After that, peace talks could resume, the ELN said.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/LDWVYEx

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