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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Russia attacks Kyiv with waves of drones, missiles

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Waves of Russian drones and missiles struck districts across the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Tuesday, damaging an apartment building, sparking fires and injuring up to 16 people, city officials said.

Reuters witnesses said drones swarmed over the capital and they heard what appeared to be missiles overhead. An air raid alert remained in effect more than seven hours after it had been proclaimed.

Other parts of the country also came under attack, including areas outside the capital and the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, where the regional governor reported at least four strikes.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that most of the 16 injured were in Solomianskyi district, near the city centre, where a drone damaged the top floor of an apartment building and other non-residential areas.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, noted 12 strikes in five districts. Among the targets was a kindergarten in the city’s eastern edge.

“The capital is coming under a combined attack,” Tkachenko wrote. “The Russians are deploying missiles and strike drones. There are fires in different districts and emergency crews are at work.”

Waves of drones had attacked Solomianskyi district, he said. “This is a very difficult night,” he wrote, adding that there had been power cuts in some areas.

Both Ukraine and Russia have launched mass drone attacks in recent weeks as the two sides have held two sessions of direct talks on ending the more than three-year-old war. The talks have produced agreements on freeing prisoners of war and returning the bodies of fallen soldiers, but little more.

“More strikes by Russian drones on residential buildings in Kyiv,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram. “Russia is continuing its war on civilians.”

Klitschko reported that a 62-year-old U.S. citizen had died in a dwelling opposite a site where medics were providing assistance. He gave no further details and it was not clear how the man had died.

In Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russian air defence units had repelled an attack on the city by two Ukrainian drones. The city’s airports were briefly closed.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/rEm60Ia

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