Kenya: Female Officer Shoots Herself At JKIA

A female police officer attached to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on Wednesday morning shot herself dead while at work.

The officer shot herself in the head in a toilet at around 7a.m, according to the Kenya Airport Police Unit Deputy Commandant Rono Bunei.

"She has been on leave and resumed work today (Wednesday). She had been interacting well with her colleagues and did not show any signs of being frustrated. In fact, she was very jovial," Mr Bunei said.

He said the officer, who was a corporal, removed her beret and swagger-cane and placed them on a table at the Control Room before going to the toilet.

"All we heard was a gunshot and we found her seated on the toilet seat, dead, with an official Jericho Pistol in her hand," Mr Bunei said.

The body of the officer who is a mother of one, was taken to the City Mortuary.

The incident comes just three weeks after an officer attached to the traffic department in Kisumu shot himself dead.

Police Constable Alfred Ndalana, a rider, shot himself using a colleague's rifle after expressing fear about the vetting exercise.

Mali: Djeba - My Child Marriage Nightmare

In her family’s house in a rural village in the municipality of Baroueli, located in the Segou region of Mali, 20-year-old Djeba gives a broad smile as she sits her son on her lap. But behind the smile are memories of pain and trauma.

Djeba was a brilliant student who had big ambitions for her future. But at 14, her dreams of a successful academic career were shattered when her family married her off to a man 17 years older.

With no understanding of the implications being married would bring, she moved to the next village to serve as the man’s child bride.

Six years later, Djeba now has 2 children - a boy, 2 and a girl, 4.

Marrying off girls while they are still children is a very common tradition in the conservative area of Baroueli. According to research, over 20% of marriages in Baroueli involve children under 15. These early marriages leave the girls with physical and psychological impacts.

Child marriage trauma

Recounting her ordeal, Djeba compares her life to hell, "I’m suffering a lot”, she says.
During each of her pregnancies, she fell ill and could not even stand. But her mother-in-law wasn’t moved by this.

“She used to tell me that I’m lazy. I want to end the marriage. It’s a nightmare for me", she says.

Such treatment is common for child brides across Mali. Often girls suffer complications
during pregnancy as their bodies are too immature to cope with childbirth. In some cases, they have died while giving birth. Most do not go to hospital to seek treatment for post childbirth complications which, if left untreated, can develop into more serious conditions.

Plan International is working in partnership with the local non-governmental organisation ERAD (Studies, Research and Action for Sustainable Development) and has implemented a campaign to reduce early marriages in 26 villages in Baroueli.

Speaking out and changing lives

Through her involvement with this NGO, Djeba now goes into her community to speak about the issue of child marriage. She has become an active social campaigner, going from door to door and inviting people to participate in open discussions.

Using initiatives like these, community leaders, traditional communicators, local officials and religious leaders are beginning to understand the negative consequences of early marriage.

Imam El Hadj Koke Coulibaly, thinks that behavioural change is imminent. "We understand that this tradition has harmful consequences for girls. It weakens couples and does not allow girls to realise their full potential. Most probably, we will open discussions on it in the mosques.”

For Djeba, her only hope of ending her suffering is by ending her marriage. To do this she
will need the support of the village chief and Iman, who is the only authority empowered to end a marriage.

A proud advocate of preventing child marriage in the village, Iman Koke has ended 15 child marriages over the past year.

Photos of Bride Running From Her Wedding Go Viral

The bride running and followed by family and friends

Over the weekend, photos of a Nigerian bride seemingly making a run for her life went viral on social media, leaving a lot of questions unanswered about where she was running to and why.

Lindaikeji.com reports that the bride in Eket, Akwa Ibom state, was actually running away from her wedding because she discovered her husband-to-be had lied to her about who he really was.

According to the report, the bride was made to believe the groom was an employee of Chevron. His Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Badoo accounts said he was a staff of the multinational oil and gas company but the bride later found out that this was false.

She therefore decided to abandon the wedding that morning by making a run for her life.

However, a few people believed to be involved in the marriage caught up to her and tried to convince her to go ahead with the wedding.

Nigeria: Parents of Chibok Girls 'Wounded' After Watching Boko Haram Video

Parents of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram more than two years ago said on Monday they felt wounded after watching a video posted by the Islamist militants that showed dozens of the girls.

In the video published by the militants on social media on Sunday, a masked man stands behind a group of the girls, and says some of them have been killed in air strikes.

Many of the girls' parents in the northeastern town of Chibok said they tried to watch the video straight away, but were unable to see it due to the poor internet connection.

Three of the parents on Monday drove two hours to the nearby town of Mubi, where they used a computer in a church to watch the video - hoping to see their daughters alive.

"I couldn't identify my daughter among the girls," Yana Galang, the women's leader of the Association of Parents of the Abducted Girls from Chibok, said after watching the video.

"It wounded my heart," Galang told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone, describing how she broke down in tears and found herself unable to watch the whole video.

Boko Haram kidnapped 219 girls from their school in Chibok, in April 2014, as part of a seven-year-old insurgency to set up an Islamic state in the north that has killed some 15,000 people and displaced more than two million.

Some girls escaped in the melee but parents of those still missing accused former President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria's then leader, of not doing enough to find their daughters, whose disappearance sparked a global campaign #bringbackourgirls.

In the video, one veiled girl could be seen holding a baby, while unidentified bodies could be seen on the ground.

"Some of the girls, about 40 of them with God's permission have been married, some of them have died as a result of bombing by the infidels," said the masked man in the video.

The two other parents, who travelled with Galang to Mubi, were able to identify their daughters in the video.

"This thing has become a wound for us," said Zannah Lawan.

"We are praying ... that we can one day see our daughters. If not, there is nothing you can say now," Lawan added.

One of the Chibok girls, Amina Ali, was rescued from Boko Haram in May by soldiers and a civilian vigilante group.

She told her mother earlier this month that the girls were starved and resorted to eating raw beans and maize, and that some had died in captivity, suffered broken legs or gone deaf after being too close to explosions.

Nigeria: Mother of Nigerian Schoolgirl Rescued From Boko Haram Fears for Her Future

Abuja — "Before she was kidnapped, she wanted to further her education. But now she is afraid of schooling"

Held for months by the Nigerian government and confined to a house in the capital for the foreseeable future, Amina Ali, a schoolgirl who was rescued after two years in Boko Haram captivity, may never be the girl she once was, her mother fears.

Amina, one of more than 200 girls abducted from a school in Chibok in April 2014, and her four-month-old baby were rescued in May near Damboa in the remote northeast, by soldiers working together with a civilian vigilante group.

After a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, in the hope she would shed light on the fate of the other kidnapped girls, Amina has since been held in a house in the capital Abuja for what the Nigerian government has called a "restoration process".

But her mother, Binta Ali, who has spent the last two months in the house, is concerned about Amina's welfare and future.

"Before she was kidnapped, she wanted to further her education," Binta told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Chibok, having briefly returned there to seek medical treatment.

"But now she is afraid of schooling, and she wants to be close to me at home," said Binta, adding that Amina wants a sewing machine so that she can start a business making clothes.

Binta said she was also worried that her daughter was being pressured into following Islam, having been forced to convert from Christianity to Islam by Boko Haram militants during her captivity.

"Amina herself does not want to remain a Muslim," Binta said, explaining how an Islamic teacher had visited the house several times and told her daughter to maintain her new faith.

"She did not want to see him," Binta said, adding that the teacher had stopped visiting after she complained about him.

Garba Shehu, Buhari's spokesman, said that Amina's confinement in the house had nothing to do with religion.

NO LONGER AFRAID"

Boko Haram kidnapped 219 girls from their school in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, in April 2014, as part of their seven-year-old insurgency to set up an Islamic state in the north that has killed some 15,000 people and displaced more than 2 million.

Some girls escaped in the melee but parents of those still missing accused former President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria's then leader, of not doing enough to find their daughters, whose disappearance sparked a global campaign #bringbackourgirls.

Binta said she was shocked to hear about the hardships faced by her daughter as a captive of the Islamist group.

Amina and the other girls, starving and with nothing to cook with, resorted to eating an entire bag of beans and maize raw.

"I cannot imagine how a human being can eat raw maize and beans like a goat," Binta said.

Amina also told her mother how some of the kidnapped girls had died in captivity, while others suffered broken legs or went deaf after being too close to explosions. But she pleaded with her mother not to break the news to the families in Chibok.

"Other parents have been coming to visit me since I returned," Binta said. "But I have not told them anything, even though I know some of those whose daughters have died."

Despite her fears over Amina's religion and education, and uncertainty over when she will be allowed to return home, Binta said she still had reason to be positive about her daughter.

"She used to be very afraid," Binta said, explaining how Amina would talk to herself during the night prior to her kidnap.

"But now she sleeps soundly. She is no longer afraid."

- Reporting by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Writing by Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Ros Russell