Clashes and reports of gunfire caused chaotic scenes, interfered with economic activities and disrupted Christmas celebrations in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state, like reported by sudantribune.com .

Several aid workers and local officials told that Christmas celebrations were disrupted by armed clashes which occurred 24 December, as most people stayed indoors.

A humanitarian worker confirmed that there were clashes near Doro camp in Maban county on Sunday night, and that 8-10 people suffered injuries, some of whom were reportedly killed in their houses.

He said people living in the same compound where he resides were terrified and panicked after a scuffle was followed by loud explosion.

Photos and video clips on social media showed heavily armed government soldiers in the area responding to the incident as residents reportedly either fled or sought sanctuary in nearby bushes.

A similar incident reportedly unfolded in Yei where armed opposition forces clashes with the government troops, resulting in the death of at least five government soldiers, with several others wounded.

Local officials and lawmakers told Sudan Tribune that there were calls made for shots fired at youths fighting in Yei town on Sunday.

It is, however, unclear if the two incidents were in any way connected.

The clashes come barely a month after South Sudan President Salva Kiir announced a national dialogue involving a bottom-top approach to address local grievances and political issues affecting the young nation.

He single-handedly formed a committee to lead the dialogue, a move his critics claim could derail the process.

“The National Dialogue we have initiated shall go down in the history books as that turning point where South Sudan shocked the world in achieving total peace and unity on its own. Peace and prosperity are within our reach and I challenge all of you to unite and work together to return the good days of South Sudan,” Kiir told the state-owned SSBC.

“This country shall emerge stronger, united and prosperous and we shall be the envy of the world”, he further stressed.

The committee is yet to announce a start date for the dialogue process.

Thirty-one Boko Haram fighters have surrendered to authorities in Niger, the West African country’s interior minister Bazoum Mohamed announced

Boko Haram’s seven-year insurgency began in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria but has since spread beyond its borders to Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

The 31 fighters gave up their arms in Diffa, a southeast region, Mohamed said on Twitter, the first time Niger authorities have reported such surrenders.

Boko Haram has been carrying out murderous attacks in Niger since February 2015.

“They came one by one and are currently held in a secure centre,” a security source based in Diffa told AFP, adding that they would return to their families after undergoing a “de-radicalisation” programme.

In January 2015, a senior official in Diffa, said many young people were “increasingly attracted by the offers of Boko Haram”, citing sums of up to 500 euros ($520) per month.

Niger, Chad and Nigeria launched simultaneous “sweep operations” against Boko Haram strongholds in July.

In October, the government in Niamey declared the “operations had given decisive results in liberating several localities formerly occupied by Boko Haram.”

Nigeria’s military will turn the Sambisa forest, a former bastion of militant Islamist group Boko Haram, into a training centre for its troops, the army chief has said to bbc.com

This would prevent the militants from rebuilding a presence in the area, Gen Tukur Buratai added.

The military overran the militants’ last camp in Sambisa on Friday.

It had become their main base after they lost control of urban strongholds in north-eastern Borno state in 2015.

Many of the militants are thought to have fled to areas closer to the border with Niger and Chad before the camp fell, says BBC Hausa service editor Jimeh Saleh.

In an address to troops in Damasak town in Borno state, Gen Buratai said that troops were conducting a “mop-up operation” against Boko Haram in the forest, a former colonial game reserve.

“We are opening up roads in Sambisa forest to site a base. It is going to be one of our training centres in the country as well as ground for testing acquired equipment before putting them into operation,” he added.

There has been speculation that some of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 were being held in the forest, after it was named by a small number of girls who escaped.

On Saturday, President Muhammadu Buhari said that efforts to find the remaining girls would be intensified.

He congratulated the armed forces on the Sambisa operation, calling the apparent success “long-awaited and most gratifying”.

The militant group, which is linked to the so-called Islamic State, still stages suicide bombings in the north-east and in neighbouring Niger and Cameroon.

More than 15,000 people have been killed and two million left homeless during the seven-year insurgency in the region.

Some Dutch soldiers serving with UN peacekeepers in Mali are unable to go on patrol because of a shortage of equipment, the Algemeen Dagblad said on Tuesday.

The shortages affect soldiers who have arrived relatively recently in the troubled west African country. In particular, there are not enough night vision binoculars and equipment to jam roadside bombs, the AD said.

There is also a shortage of new, lighter bullet-proof vests. The AD sent a journalist to spend the Christmas break with Dutch soldiers in Mali and said the shortage of equipment is leading to major frustration among some soldiers.

The 11th air assault brigade has recently taken over the role in Mali done previously by special forces. Now there are more people in the camp, ‘we have to make choices and can deliver less than we would like to,’ commander Ron Sensen told the paper.

The army hopes to have the problem solved by mid January, the AD said.

Somali farmers say al-Shabab is targeting them and stealing their livestock, according to voanews.com

Farmers in the Jubbaland and Galmudug regions said al-Shabab militants are systematically confiscating livestock from certain clans. The group is accused of driving clans they view as hostile to their administration into poverty.

For a second week, fighting is taking place in the rural areas west of Kismayo where shepherds are trying to keep ownership of their animals. More than 20 people were killed since last week, according to regional officials and locals.

Six herders killed

Clan elder Mohamud Shureyn, who is in Yaqbisharo, told VOA that Monday’s clashes claimed the lives of six herders. He accused al-Shabab of executing the victims, all of them men, at a water reservoir.

“The locals are no match for al-Shabab,” he said.

Mohaned Abdi Omar was an al-Shabab member until last week when he defected and handed himself over to Jubbaland regional authorities. He said he decided to abandon the group because they are targeting his clansmen.

Al-Shabab has said some of the livestock is being taken as zakat, an annual payment made on certain types of property under Islamic law.

Attacks are political

But Omar said some of the people whose livestock was seized had already paid their zakat.

He said the group is attacking his clansmen for political reasons because al-Shabab believes that they are collaborating with the Jubbaland regional administration.

Last week, Jubbaland regional forces supporting the herders clashed with al-Shabab in an area between Berhani and Abdi Birole, west of Kismayo. At least 10 deaths were reported on both sides, according to sources in the region. In subsequent raids, herders said al-Shabab stole about 1,800 camels in a region where livestock is the primary economic pillar.

Hope to recover camels

The African Union Mission in Somalia said in a Twitter message that it will work with the locals to recover the camels.

Abdirahman Sahal Yusuf, director of the Irshad Center for Religious Extremism and Terrorism, says the fact that al-Shabab is taking away livestock at a difficult time when droughts are ravaging the country is troubling.

“People who depend on livestock need leniency, they need support, this is the most important thing they have,” Yusuf said. “They need medical care for the livestock which survived the drought, they don’t need power to be used against them.”

An Islamic suicide bomber in the northern Cameroon town of Mora killed a young student and a woman in an attack on a market full of Christmas shoppers, an aide to the governor of Far North region said to Reuters.

Suicide bombers suspected of belonging to the Islamist militant group Boko Haram have launched attacks in Mora, about 30 km (20 miles) from the Nigerian border, several times before. The bomb also killed the attacker and wounded five other people, said the aide to Governor Midjiyawa Bakary.

“The suicide bomber was pretending to be a beggar and was walking towards the market which was full because of Christmas. Members of a vigilance committee spotted him before he could penetrate the market,” a Cameroonian soldier told Reuters.

“He was stopped and in panic he detonated his explosives. If he hadn’t been spotted the death toll would have been higher,” he said.

Fighters from Boko Haram have killed thousands in their campaign to carve out an Islamist state in their base in northeast Nigeria and have also launched attacks in neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

The group has frequently used female bombers and children to hit targets.

Similar attacks used to happen on an almost daily basis in Cameroon, but the International Crisis Group reported this month that the frequency had fallen since September, leading analysts to believe Boko Haram was weakening there.

The Nigerian army has driven Boko Haram militants from the last camp in their Sambisa forest stronghold, President Muhammadu Buhari has said to bbc.com.

“The terrorists are on the run and no longer have a place to hide,” Mr Buhari said in a statement.

The Islamists’ camp fell at 13:35 local time (12:35 GMT) on Friday, he added.

The army has been engaged for the last few weeks in a major offensive in the forest, a huge former colonial game reserve in north-eastern Borno state.

It has recaptured significant areas of territory previously controlled by Boko Haram.

The group still stages suicide bombings in the northeast and in neighbouring Niger and Cameroon.

It promotes a version of Islam that forbids Muslims from taking part in any political or social activity associated with Western society, and has been fighting to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state.

Its leader has pledged allegiance to so-called Islamic State.

thedailybeast.com

At least three people were killed and two others injured after fighting between locals and Al-Shabaab militants near Kismayo town in lower Jubba region, southern Somalia, officials said Wednesday.

Deputy Governor of Kismayo town, Abdullahi Mohamed told reporters that an unidentified number of Al-Shabaab fighters were killed during the confrontation.

“Al-Shabaab terrorists killed three local pastoralists and wounded two others after facing resistance from the locals northwest of Kismayo, there are casualties on terrorist side, but we did not gather the information,” Mohamed said.

He said Jubbaland State forces are backing the locals in the fight against Al-Shabaab in the region and there is possible war with terrorists any time.

“Our forces went to the area to back the locals and fight Al-Shabaab militants who are taking illegal taxes (Zakawat) from residents who are in a very hard situation at the moment”, the deputy governor added.

This is the second clash between Al-Shabaab militants and locals in lower Jubba region in southern Somalia since start of the week.

xinhuanet.com