The government announces the closing of all government offices and schools as weather conditions grow worse.
Published On 28 Nov 202528 Nov 2025
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Sri Lanka has closed government offices and schools as the death toll from floods and landslides across the country has risen to 56, with more than 600 houses damaged, according to officials.
Sri Lanka began grappling with severe weather last week, and the conditions worsened on Thursday with heavy downpours that flooded homes, fields and roads, and triggered landslides across the country.
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More than 25 people were killed on Thursday in landslides in the central mountainous tea-growing regions of Badulla and Nuwara Eliya, which is about 300km (186 miles) east of the capital, Colombo.
Another 21 people were missing and 14 were injured in the Badulla and Nuwara Eliya areas, according to the government’s disaster management centre, quoted by The Associated Press news agency.
Others died in landslides in different parts of the country.
Daily life heavily impacted
As the weather conditions grew worse, the government announced the closing of all government offices and schools on Friday.
Due to heavy rains, most reservoirs and rivers have overflowed, blocking roads. Authorities stopped passenger trains and closed roads in many parts of the country after rocks, mud and trees fell on roads and railway tracks, which were also flooded in some areas.
Local television showed an air force helicopter rescuing three people stranded on the roof of a house surrounded by floods on Thursday, while the navy and police used boats to transport residents.
Footage on Thursday also showed a car being swept away by floodwaters near the eastern town of Ampara, leaving three passengers dead.
The FA credited the Lionesses’ home success at Euro 2022 as key in “shaping government discussions and driving forward policy change”.
Sarina Wiegman’s winning side signed an open letter to then Conservative party leadership candidates Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, asking for “every young girl” to be able to play football at school.
The FA says 90% of schools now offer girls equal access to football through PE lessons at Key Stages 2 (aged 7-11) and 3 (aged 11-14).
“This was never about girls becoming the next Lionesses, it was about normalising girls playing football, just like boys do. It’s about equality,” said former England and Arsenal striker Ian Wright, who is an ambassador for Barclays Football.
After winning the Euros at Wembley in 2022, England reached the Women’s World Cup final the following year, losing to Spain. But they then beat Spain to retain their European crown in July.
“No girl should ever face barriers to playing football in school,” said Stacey Mullock, the head of development at the FA.
“That belief drove us to set ambitious targets and push for a cultural shift where girls have the same access and opportunities as boys.”
However, the FA said there is “more work to be done” for Key Stage 4 (aged 14-16), where “many teenage girls stop participating in team sports due to barriers like confidence, body image, and negative perceptions”.
The governing body also aims to increase the amount of schools offering equal opportunities through extra-curricular clubs from 83% to 90% by 2028.
The tourist boats that typically navigate Kenya’s renowned Lake Naivasha have recently taken on a new role: rescuing hundreds from inundated homes.
Though the lake’s water level has been increasing for more than a decade with repeated flooding, residents of the modest Kihoto district are stunned by this year’s unprecedented scale.
“It hasn’t happened like this before,” said resident Rose Alero.
According to local officials, the Rift Valley lake has advanced an unprecedented 1.5km (about 1 mile) inland.
“People are suffering,” said Alero, a 51-year-old grandmother, noting that many neighbours have fallen ill.
In her home, water reaches waist height, while throughout the district, toilets are overflowing.
“People are stuck … they have nowhere to go.”
The devastation is widespread: hundreds of homes are completely underwater, churches are destroyed, and police stations are submerged, surrounded by floating vegetation.
During one sudden water surge, children evacuated a school on improvised rafts.
Joyce Cheche, Nakuru County’s disaster risk management head, estimates 7,000 people have been displaced by the rising waters, which also impact wildlife and threaten tourism and commerce.
The county has provided transport assistance and implemented health measures, Cheche said, though financial compensation has not been offered yet.
Workers in the crucial flower export sector are avoiding work, fearing cholera and landslides.
She also highlighted the danger of encounters with the lake’s numerous hippos.
“We didn’t see it coming,” Cheche admitted.
At the lake’s edge, bare acacia trunks that were once lush now stand submerged in waters advancing about 1 metre (3.3 feet) daily.
This phenomenon affects other Rift Valley lakes and has displaced hundreds of thousands.
Numerous studies primarily attribute this to increased rainfall driven by climate change.
However, Kenyan geologist John Lagat, regional manager at the state-owned Geothermal Development Corporation, points to tectonics as the main cause, noting the lakes’ position along a major geological fault.
When English settlers arrived in the late 19th century, the lake was even larger before shifting tectonic plates reduced it to just 1km (0.6 miles) in diameter by 1921.
Subsequent tectonic movements increasingly sealed underground outflows, trapping water, Lagat explained, though he acknowledged that increased rainfall and land degradation from population growth also play a “substantial” role in flooding.
“We are very worried,” said Alero from her flooded home, dreading the upcoming rainy season.
Nov. 19 (UPI) — A federal judge in Texas has ordered state schools to take down displayed posters of the Ten Commandments in supposed violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton directed schools across the Lone Star State to display the Ten Commandments less than a week after a federal court ruled in favor of 11 school districts that fought against the religious exhibition in classrooms.
On Tuesday, federal Judge Orlando L. Garcia issued a preliminary injunction that instructed the state’s districts to remove the display in violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause in the First Amendment.
“It is impractical, if not impossible, to prevent plaintiffs from being subjected to unwelcome religious displays without enjoining defendants from enforcing Senate Bill 10 across their districts,” he wrote.
Garcia’s order was effective December 1.
The case was brought on by 15 families of a multi-faith and nonreligious background.
“All Texas public school districts should heed the court’s clear warning: it’s plainly unconstitutional to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
It’s now the second time a court has ruled against the law signed into law in June by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican.
“Families throughout Texas and across the country get to decide how and when their children engage with religion — not politicians or public-school officials,” Laser continued.
Paxton has sued three school districts for refusing.
A legal representative for the American Civil Liberties Union in Texas said Garcia’s ruling was further affirmation of what’s already accepted legal truth: “the First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities — not the government — the right to instill religious beliefs in our children.”
In 2015, a Ten Commandment monument was ordered by the state’s Supreme Court to be removed from the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds, arguing that Oklahoma’s constitution banned the use of public property for “the benefit of any religious purpose.”
“Our schools are for education, not evangelization,” Chloe Kempf, a staff attorney for the Texas ACLU, added in a statement. “This ruling protects thousands of Texas students from ostracization, bullying and state-mandated religious coercion.”
Every school district in Texas, she added, was “now on notice that implementing S.B. 10 violates their students’ constitutional rights.”
MARTIN Freeman has been branded “selfish” after he complained about the noise from nearby schools.
The Sherlock star recently won a year-long battle with planners to put in new windows at his £5 million mansion to block out the din, despite being in a protected area which has strict rules on building appearance.
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Neighbours of Martin Freeman have dubbed his complaints over noise from nearby school as ‘outrageous’Credit: GettyThe Sherlock star snapped up the five-bed mansion in 2016He recently had planning approved to install double-glazed windows to block out the noiseCredit: Getty
The planning inspector gave the green light for the new double-glazed windows after visiting the star’s home last month, and there were no submitted objections from neighbours.
Aside from the playground noise, Freeman had also insisted that most of the existing single glazed windows were so wonky from building movement that he couldn’t even open and close them properly.
In a statement, his planning agent said: “The noise is a major problem particularly during term time on weekdays due to the school located directly opposite.
“The new units will reduce noise pollution from the street and school, improving the building’s internal environment.”
But some are unimpressed with the actor’s grievances about noise, with one dubbing him “selfish” and saying he was “overreacting”.
Ex-schoolteacher, Simon Bridge, 70, whose property backs onto one of the schools, fumed: “If neighbours are complaining about schools, I think it’s outrageous.
“The children make a noise, of course, the whistle blows, but come on.
“Go and live somewhere else, that’s my feeling. You’ve got money, go away.
“I’m a great lover of theatre, music and everything and I have nothing against actors whatsoever. But I don’t like people complaining about children, hearing noise, that’s all.”
When asked if he had any problems with the noise himself, he replied: “Not at all. I love it. Because I’m an ex-schoolteacher, I’m used to school.
“To hear children playing and laughing, that’s wonderful.”
Freeman’s mansion is in close proximity to several schools.
Retiree Sam De Silva has lived in a block of flats opposite the junior school for 12 years and has no complaints.
Ex-schoolteacher, Simon Bridge, said he thought complaints about noise from the local schools was ‘outrageous’Credit: Ray Collins
He said: “Well, as far as I’m concerned, the only issue with me is finding a place to park my car. I haven’t come across any noise issues, you know.”
When asked about his thoughts on grumblings about noise, he said: “I think it’s a bit selfish , I guess.
“There’s not a lot you can do, you know. I think he’s overreacting.
“I’ve been here for 12 years, my dad lived here prior to me. He’s never complained.
“Honestly, it’s a bit silly. These schools didn’t crop up, you know?
“My daughter goes to school down the road and I heard Taylor Swift bought a house down that lane.
“So if she can buy a house adjacent to a primary school, why the hell should we be complaining?”
Planning battle
Officials at his local council failed to make a decision on time so the Sherlock star appealed to a Government planning inspector who gave the go-ahead.
The council later said they would have refused to grant planning permission as the new windows would harm the designated conservation area.
Freeman’s planning agent said: “To all practical intents and purposes, the replacement windows would retain the appearance of the original single glazed windows and the appearance of the appeal property would be preserved.”
They said in a statement that planning officers wanted to negotiate on the application to a point where it could be approved but Freeman did not want to make changes.
A local caretaker, who didn’t want to be named, has worked in the area for nearly 30 years and said: “It’s only noisy when the kids are going in in the morning and coming out at night. But that’s where the house is isn’t it?
“What are you going to do? There’s a school there, a school there, a school there.
“The thing is, right opposite his house is the playground. So when I go past sometimes, the kids are in the playground running.
“But what’s that? Ten minutes – then it’s done.
“I don’t see him about much, he’s always away working. If he was here every day, I’d understand it.”
Other residents said the sound of children was a “joyful noise” and that they “wouldn’t have any complaints”.
The Office star’s Arts and Crafts-style pad boasts a basement gym, wine cellar and summerhouse and dates back to 1883 but is not listed.
He bought the massive mansion after cashing with with Hollywood movies Love Actually, Black Panther, Captain America: Civil War.
The old walls of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, South West Nigeria, shook at 9:30 a.m. on June 5, 2022. It was Pentecost Sunday, and the priest’s burning of incense hung in the air. The choir was mid-hymn when the first explosion fractured the rhythm.
Eyewitnesses recalled two men stationed by the doors, firing automatic rifles into the congregation. When the smoke cleared, over 40 worshippers lay dead — children, ushers, and the parish catechist among them. HumAngle spoke to families of the victims, including Akinyemi Emmanuel, whose wife was killed, and Christopher, whose older brother was also a casualty.
HumAngle’s field researchers verified 20 major attacks on places of worship across Nigeria between 2011 and 2025. Each incident was cross-checked against ACLED, CFR’s Nigeria Security Tracker, official statements, and humanitarian field reports.
“Every line of data is a broken family,” said a researcher who assisted in the compilation. “We tracked events, but what we found was grief mapped onto geography.”
Key Figures
Infographics by Damilola Lawal/HumAngle
From 2011 to 2015, churches bore the brunt — Boko Haram’s campaign against the state and society, often weaponising sectarian imagery. Between 2016 and 2021, mosques and Islamic gatherings became targets as extremists purged dissenting clerics. By 2022, the pattern shifted again — terrorists and militias attacked worshippers of both faiths for ransom or reprisal.
Early years of fire (2000–2010): Shari’a, riots, and mob rule
The roots of Nigeria’s religious bloodshed date back to pre-independence; however, this report will examine only the events from 2000 to 2025. In the year 2000 when 12 northern states reintroduced Shari’a law. What began as a demand for moral order soon morphed into violent attacks against non-Muslims.
By 2001, the tension had already turned deadly. Over 100 people were killed in Kano, according to The Guardian(UK), after riotous Muslim youths attacked the minority Christian population in the city. Human Rights Watch later documented the carnage of reprisal that took place in Jos, with similar riots in Kaduna.
Shari’a’s reintroduction became both symbol and signal — a moral protest against state failure but also a green light for mob justice.
The spiral continued. In 2002, Kaduna was a flashpoint again. The infamous Miss World Contest riots, triggered by a controversial ThisDay article deemed blasphemous against Islam. The riots left at least 200 dead.
As the years passed, intolerance became routine. In 2006, a Bauchi-based teacher, Florence Chukwu, was lynched for allegedly confiscating a Qur’an from a student. A year later in Gombe, another teacher, Christiana Oluwasesin, met the same fate. Then, in 2007, Kano’s Tudun Wada suburb witnessed the killing of dozens of Christians after a student was accused of alleged blasphemy.
Two decades later, the script remained tragically familiar. In May 2022, a Christian student, Deborah Samuel Yakubu, at Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto State (a Muslim-majority state), was accused of blasphemy, then stoned, beaten and set on fire by a mob of Muslim students.
Even Muslims have not been spared from mob attacks due to alleged blasphemy against Islam. In 2008, a 50-year-old man was beaten to death in Kano, while Ahmad Usman, a Muslim vigilante, was burnt alive in Abuja in 2022.
In 2023, Usman Buda, a butcher in Sokoto, was stoned to death by his peers. In 2025, food vendor Ammaye met a similar fate in Niger State after an argument over religious differences.
From Pandogari to Sokoto, Facebook posts, WhatsApp messages, and street rumours have become digital triggers for extra-judicial deaths.
Nigeria’s decade of supposedly holy violence took a new form with Boko Haram’s rise. The insurgency’s ideological war turned places of worship into battlefields as they circulated videos of beheading of Christians and the Muslims they accused of spying for the Nigerian state.
The Madalla Christmas massacre — 2011
On Christmas morning, a suicide bomber detonated a car outside St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State, killing at least 40. Boko Haram claimed responsibility, vowing more attacks against Christians “for government sins”.
Attack on COCIN Headquarters in Jos — Feb 2012
A year later, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) headquarters in Jos during Sunday service, killing at least three worshippers and injuring dozens. The blast destroyed parts of the church and nearby buildings.
Suicide Bomb Attack at St Finbar’s Jos — March 2012
Barely a month after the attack, a car bomber targeted St. Finbar’s Church in the Rayfield area of Jos during Mass. The explosion killed 14 people and wounded over 20, causing extensive damage to the church premises.
Silencing the critics — 2011–2014
In Biu, Borno State, Shaykh Ibrahim Burkui was assassinated in June 2011 for criticising Boko Haram. His death, along with that of Ibrahim Gomari in Maiduguri and Shaykh Albani Zaria in 2014, underscored the extension of the group’s wrath to Muslims who opposed its doctrine.
Kano Central Mosque bloodbath — 2014
On Nov. 28, 2014, twin suicide blasts struck Kano’s Central Mosque. As worshippers fled, gunmen opened fire. About 80 died. Boko Haram attacked Sunni Muslims loyal to the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who had condemned extremism.
Eid of Ashes — Damaturu 2015
A 10-year-old girl walked into an Eid prayer ground in Yobe and detonated explosives, killing 50. A morning of celebration turned into a funeral for hundreds of people.
Mutations of terror (2016–2021)
AAfter the insurgency’s initial high tide receded, violence splintered into ideological and economic strands.
2016 (Molai-Umarari, Borno): Two female suicide bombers killed 24 during dawn prayers.
2017 (Mubi, Adamawa): A teenage bomber killed 50 in a mosque.
2017 (Ozubulu, Anambra): Gunmen killed 12 during a Mass — incident later linked to a local feud.
2018 (Mubi, Adamawa): 86 worshippers were killed after two suicide bombers detonated explosives in a mosque during an afternoon prayer.
2021 (Mazakuka, Niger): Terrorists killed at least 18 worshippers at a local mosque during Fajr prayers.
2021 (Yasore, Katsina): 10 killed in evening prayers.
2021 (Okene, Kogi): Three people were abducted from a Living Faith Church during a prayer meeting. They were later released.
2021 (Fadan Kagoma, Kaduna): Terrorists attacked and kidnapped three seminarians at Christ the King Major Seminary. Michael Nnadi, one of the captives, was later killed, while the others were released.
“The violence metastasised,” said Olawale Ayeni, an analyst in Abuja. “What began as jihadist warfare became an economy of fear — raids, ransoms, and retaliations.”
The new normal (2022–2025): Terrorism meets belief
Owo, Ondo State — June 2022
On Pentecost Sunday, attackers detonated explosives and opened fire at St. Francis Xavier Church, killing 41 and injuring 70. Initially attributed to ISWAP, investigations revealed financial links to northwestern terrorist networks.
Kafin Koro, Niger State — January 2023
Isaac Achi, a Catholic priest, was burnt to death in the early hours of the morning at the presbytery of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, Kafin Koro, in Niger State. The residence was also reduced to ashes. Achi was the parish priest in charge of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, when it was attacked in 2011.
Kajuru, Kaduna State – September 2024
Gunmen invaded two churches in Bakinpah-Maro during service, killing three and abducting several others. Videos later surfaced showing captives reciting prayers under duress.
Bushe, Sokoto – February 2025
Terrorists invaded a mosque in Bushe Community of Sabon Birni LGA, Sokoro State. They kidnapped the Imam and 10 other worshippers during the dawn prayer.
Marnona Mosque Attack, Sokoto – August 2025
On Sunday, Aug. 12, terrorists stormed a mosque in Marnona village in Wurno LGA of Sokoto State, killing one worshipper and abducting several others.
Unguwan Mantau, Katsina — August 2025
During early morning prayers, terrorists opened fire inside a mosque, killing 27. Survivors said the attackers accused locals of tipping off soldiers.
Gidan Turbe, Zamfara State – September 2025
Terrorists stormed a mosque in Gidan Turbe of Tsafe LGA, Zamfara State, and abducted 40 worshippers during a dawn prayer. Reports indicated that the attack happened barely 24 hours after a peace deal with the gunmen terrorising the village.
In recent years, the distinction between ideology and economics has become increasingly blurred. Many southerners who are predominantly Christians living in the north are business owners; oftentimes, they are attacked, not for their beliefs but for their wealth.
Documented discrimination against Igbo Muslims
While the north burned, intolerance also took other forms in the country’s southeastern region. Minority Muslim residents, including Igbo indigenes, who practice Islam, face periodic attacks and persistent discrimination, such as institutional exclusion and social ostracism.
In Nsukka, Enugu State, mobs razed two mosques between Oct. 31, 2020 and Nov. 2, 2020, looting Muslim-owned shops after a local dispute spiralled. Though the state later rebuilt and returned the mosques to the Muslim community in 2021, the incident exposed how fragile interfaith coexistence remains.
Around the same period, in Afikpo, Ebonyi State, an Islamic school reportedly received threats of invasion, prompting nationwide Muslim organisations to condemn what they described as “a wave of attacks on Muslims in the South East”.
Beyond physical violence, Igbo Muslims speak of systemic discrimination in both public and social spheres. The Chief Imam of Imo State, Sheikh Suleiman Njoku, in March 2024, lamented how Muslim indigenes are stigmatised – denied marriage prospects, labelled traitors, and treated as outsiders in their ancestral communities.
Similar accounts featured in a 2021 Premium Times report, where Igbo Muslims detailed how even acquiring land to build mosques or express faith publicly invites suspicion and resistance.
Their testimonies mirror those of Christian minorities in majority-Muslim northern states, where churches are denied land ownership, leading to social alienation. There are also allegations of these minorities being denied state-of-origin certification.
This reciprocal intolerance across regions highlights a broader national crisis in which faith identity, rather than shared citizenship, continues to shape belonging, opportunity, and trust among Nigerians.
School segregation
In northern Nigeria, school segregation along religious lines has deeply eroded interfaith tolerance and national cohesion. Historically, Christian mission schools, Islamic schools and public institutions evolved in isolation, reflecting entrenched religious divisions rather than shared civic identity.
In many states, such as Kano, Kaduna, and Sokoto, Christian students often face discrimination or limited access to education in public schools dominated by Muslim administrators. Research shows that separate religious instruction – Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) for Christians and Islamic Religious Knowledge (IRK) for Muslims —.has created parallel moral universes with little mutual understanding. This separation sustains mistrust and heightens communal suspicion.
The Deborah Samuel case in 2022, where a Christian student was lynched in Sokoto over alleged blasphemy, exemplifies how intolerance fostered from childhood schooling silos can erupt violently in adulthood. Studies by the EU Asylum Agency highlight that exclusion from inclusive schooling deprives youth of empathy across faiths, embedding prejudice into the social fabric. When children never learn together, they rarely learn tolerance. Unless education in northern Nigeria becomes deliberately integrative through mixed enrollment, pluralist curricula and interfaith engagement, religious segregation will continue to reproduce the fear, inequality and division that weaken Nigeria’s fragile unity.
Mass school abductions
Over the past 12 years, Nigeria has witnessed a series of mass school abductions that expose the evolving tactics of both terrorists and armed groups. Notably, on April 14, 2014, Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, sparking the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
Years later, in February and March 2021, a wave of similar attacks swept across the north: 279 girls were taken from Government Girls’ Science Secondary School, Jangebe (Zamfara); 27 students and staff were kidnapped from Government Science College, Kagara (Niger); and 39 students were seized from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka (Kaduna).
The cycle continued in March 2024, when gunmen abducted about 287 pupils from a school in Kuriga, Chikun Local Government Area, Kaduna State — one of the most significant of such incidents in recent years.
These abductions mark a clear shift from Boko Haram’s ideology-driven kidnappings to the ransom-motivated tactics of armed groups operating across the North West and North East. Christianity and Islam were affected by these abductions, and adherents have endured rape and psychological struggles following their ordeals.
Among these tragedies, Leah Sharibu’s story remains one of the most haunting.
On Feb. 19, 2018, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a Boko Haram offshoot, abducted 110 schoolgirls from Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State. While most were later freed, Leah was held back for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam. Now in her seventh year of captivity, she has become a symbol of religious persecution and the wider suffering of abducted girls. Her story underscores how Nigeria’s school kidnapping crisis intersects with issues of faith, gender and insurgency.
In contrast, Lillian Daniel’s ordeal highlights the hundreds of lesser-known victims whose abductions pass with minimal notice. The 20-year-old zoology student of the University of Maiduguri, originally from Barkin Ladi, Plateau State, was kidnapped on Jan. 9, 2020, while travelling along the Benisheikh–Jakana–Maiduguri road.
Her abductors were ISWAP terrorists who disguised themselves as security personnel. Another passenger was released, but Lillian remains missing. Her case, briefly reported but soon forgotten, reflects the anonymity of many victims caught in transit through conflict zones.
In summary, Leah Sharibu embodies the now globally recognised face of Nigeria’s school abduction crisis, shaped by ideology and prolonged captivity. At the same time, Lillian Daniel represents its hidden dimension — solitary, underreported, and tragically routine. Together, their stories reveal the spectacle and the silence of Nigeria’s enduring tragedy of school abductions.
When clergy became premium kidnapping targets.
Infographics by Damilola Lawal/HumAngle
Each ransom funds further raids. Analysts estimate that up to 15 per cent of ransom payments flow back into logistics for insurgents in Zamfara and Katsina.
Faith and identity: The shari’a factor revisited
The Shari’a revival was more than a legal reform; it was a reclamation of identity amid state collapse. Many Muslims saw it as a return to the moral order of the Sokoto Caliphate; others viewed it as the spark of two decades of religious strife.
Public institutions that once integrated faiths became segregated. Teachers and traders were attacked or expelled. The divide deepened, from classrooms to markets.
Shari’a, in principle, reserves blasphemy trials for qualified jurists. But in practice, mobs assumed divine authority, executing citizens in the name of faith. Many Christians and a few Muslims became victims of this street theocracy.
The justice vacuum
Out of the 20 worship-site attacks recorded, only one — Owo 2022 — reached federal arraignment. Fourteen remain unprosecuted; five are stalled as “unknown gunmen” cases.
On the Kano Central Mosque attack, no suspect has faced trial, while the Madalla bombing file remains “under review”.
“Justice in Nigeria moves slower than grief,” said a human rights lawyer in Abuja. “When the killers are never named, the dead are never remembered.”
Impunity has become policy. Each unsolved massacre guarantees the next.
A geography of grief
Nigeria’s worship-site attacks reveal a tragic spatial logic:
North East (Borno, Yobe, Adamawa): Insurgent bombings, suicide IEDs, and procession attacks.
North West (Katsina, Zamfara, Niger): Terrorists storming mosques during fajr prayers.
North Central (Benue, Plateau, Kaduna): Reprisal killings and clergy kidnappings.
South (Ondo, Anambra): Rare, symbolic assaults for national impact.
These are not frontlines of faith but fault lines of governance — places where the state’s absence defines daily life.
At a mosque in Konduga, the imam now carries a walkie-talkie. In a church in Makurdi, ushers rehearse evacuation drills. Security has become as sacred as scripture. Concrete barriers line entrances. Metal detectors hum where choirs once sang. Pastors rotate parishes weekly to confuse abductors.
“When we gather,” said a priest in southern Kaduna, “someone must always watch the door. It used to be an usher. Now it’s a man with a rifle.”
Multiple faces of mob justice, one failure of the state
Mob justice in Nigeria takes many forms. In the north, a whisper of blasphemy or even sexual orientation can summon a crowd to lynch anyone to death. In the south, a cry of “Ole” (thief) or even an allegation of witchcraft can become a death sentence, with tyres and fire replacing the courtroom and the judge.
The motives differ, but the barbarity does not.
Accused of robbing point of sale (PoS) machine operators, for instance, three women were burnt to death along the Aba-Owerri road in Aba, Abia State, on July 3, 2022. In March of this year, 16 hunters travelling from Rivers State capital Port Harcourt to Kano State were tied to used tyres and set ablaze in Uromi, Edo State, on suspicion of kidnapping.
What unites these episodes is a simple truth: they are crimes, yet their prosecutions are rare. That gap between law and practice isn’t a cultural quirk; its Local Security Equals High Fatality Rates.
Across faiths, executioners signal that citizens expect neither safety nor fairness from the state. Each unpunished lynching teaches the next crowd that there will be no price to pay.
Lessons in numbers
From 15 years of blood and rebuilding, four insights emerge:
Predictable Patterns: Attacks cluster around worship hours and feast days.
Declining Ideology: Ransom and revenge now outweigh religion.
Governance Gaps: Weak local security equals high fatality rates — across faiths.
Institutionalised Impunity: No justice, no deterrence.
Policy paralysis
Successive Nigerian administrations have treated worship-site attacks as isolated tragedies, not system failures. Troops arrive shortly after each attack. Condolences flow. Then silence.
“There is no single desk in Abuja tracking attacks on religious sites,” admitted a senior intelligence official. “The data is fragmented, politicised, and rarely analysed.”
Without institutional memory, the nation is condemned to repetition.
Architectural retrofits: Two outward exits for every 150 congregants; Eid checkpoints relocated from dense zones.
Safety training: Rotating volunteer marshals during peak services.
Clergy protection: GPS-tracked parish vehicles and secure communications.
Public case tracker: Government–media collaboration to document investigations and trials.
Each measure is a step toward rehumanising worship in a country where prayer itself is perilous.
Faith beyond fear
In Konduga, survivors of a 2013 mosque attack still gather under a patched tarpaulin. In Owo, St. Francis Church has reopened — some survivors sit by the very pews where they once fell to the ground.
“They wanted to destroy faith,” said Sister Agatha, who lost her niece in Owo. “But faith is the only thing that made us rebuild.”
Nigeria’s crisis of worship-site violence is neither a Christian nor a Muslim story. It is a national failure of protection and justice.
When a mosque burns in Borno and a church is bombed in Ondo, the message is the same: extremism recognises no creed. The silence that follows — the absence of trials, the forgetting of names — has become a form of complicity.
Faith in Nigeria today is more than belief. It is resistance — quiet, fearful, and defiant. From Madalla to Owo, from Kano to Katsina, the faithful still gather. Each whispered prayer in a bullet-scarred hall is an act of remembrance and a testament to resilience.
To remember both streams of suffering in one chronicle is to reject the propaganda of division. It is to insist that faith, stripped of politics, can still illuminate what violence seeks to obscure: our shared humanity.
About 300,000 UNRWA pupils have been deprived of a formal education since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.
Gaza’s classrooms are slowly coming back to life, following two years of relentless Israeli war and devastation that has destroyed the Palestinian enclave’s fabric of daily life: Homes, hospitals and schools.
Four weeks into the United States-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is in the process of reopening schools across the territory amid ongoing Israeli bombardment and heavy restrictions on the flow of aid.
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Since October 2023, more than 300,000 UNRWA students have been deprived of a formal education, while 97 percent of the agency’s school buildings have been damaged or destroyed by the fighting.
What were once centres of education are now also being used as shelters by hundreds of displaced families.
Reporting from the central city of Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum found families sharing classrooms with children striving to reclaim their futures.
Inam al-Maghari, one of the Palestinian students who has resumed lessons, spoke to Al Jazeera about the toll Israel’s war on Gaza has had on her education.
“I used to study before, but we have been away from school for two years. I didn’t complete my second and third grades, and now I’m in fourth grade, but I feel like I know nothing,” al-Maghari said.
“Today, we brought mattresses instead of desks to sit and study,” she added.
Palestinian student Inam al-Maghari speaks about her return to school [Screen grab/Al Jazeera]
UNRWA is hoping to expand its educational services in the coming weeks, according to Enas Hamdan, the head of its communication office.
“UNRWA strives to provide face-to-face education through its temporary safe learning spaces for more than 62,000 students in Gaza,” Hamdan said.
“We are working to expand these activities across 67 sheltering schools throughout the Strip. Additionally, we continue to provide online learning for 300,000 students in Gaza.”
Um Mahmoud, a displaced Palestinian, explained how she and her family vacate the room they are staying in three times a week to allow students to study.
“We vacate the classrooms to give the children a chance to learn because education is vital,” Um Mahmoud said. “We’re prioritising learning and hope that conditions will improve, allowing for better quality of education.”
A picture taken from outside a classroom in Deir el-Balah, Gaza [Screen grab/Al Jazeera]
The war in Gaza has taken an immense toll on children, with psychologists warning that more than 80 percent of them now show symptoms of severe trauma.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF has estimated that more than 64,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza during the fighting.
Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa regional director, said “one million children have endured the daily horrors of surviving in the world’s most dangerous place to be a child, leaving them with wounds of fear, loss and grief.”
Children will be taught how to budget and how mortgages work as the government seeks to modernise the national curriculum in England’s schools.
They will also be taught how to spot fake news and disinformation, including AI-generated content, following the first review of what is taught in schools in over a decade.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the government wanted to “revitalise” the curriculum but keep a “firm foundation” in basics like English, maths and reading.
Head teachers said the review’s recommendations were “sensible” but would require “sufficient funding and teachers”.
The government commissioned a review of the national curriculum and assessments in England last year, in the hope of developing a “cutting edge” curriculum that would narrow attainment gaps between the most disadvantaged students and their classmates.
It said it would take up most of the review’s recommendations, including scrapping the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), a progress measure for schools introduced in 2010.
It assesses schools based on how many pupils take English, maths, sciences, geography or history and a language – and how well they do.
The Department for Education (DfE) said the EBacc was “constraining”, and that removing it alongside reforms to another school ranking system, Progress 8, would “encourage students to study a greater breadth of GCSE subjects”, like arts.
The former Conservative schools minister, Nick Gibb, said the decision to scrap the EBacc would “lead to a precipitous decline in the study of foreign languages”, which he said would become increasingly centred on private schools and “children of middle class parents who can afford tutors”.
Other reforms coming as a result of the curriculum review include:
Financial literacy being taught in maths classes, or compulsory citizenship lessons in primary schools
More focus on spotting misinformation and disinformation – including exploring a new post-16 qualification in data science and AI
Cutting time spent on GCSE exams by up to three hours for each student on average
Ensuring all children can take three science GCSEs
More content on climate change
Better representation of diversity
The review also recommended giving oracy the same status in the curriculum as reading and writing, which the charity Voice 21 said was a “vital step forward” for teaching children valuable speaking, listening, and communication skills.
Asked what lessons would be removed from the school day, Phillipson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it would not be a case of swapping out content for new topics but that there would be “better sequencing” of the curriculum overall.
“We need to ensure that we avoid duplication so that children aren’t repeating the things that they might have already studied,” she added.
However, the government is not taking up all of the review’s recommendations.
It is pushing ahead with the reading tests for Year 8 pupils reported in September, whereas the review recommended compulsory English and maths tests for that year group.
Asked why she stopped short of taking up the review’s recommendation, Phillipson said that pupils who are unable to read “fluently and confidently” often struggle in other subjects.
And she addressed the claims that scrapping the EBacc could lead to fewer pupils taking history, geography and languages at GCSE, saying the measure “hasn’t led to improved outcomes” or “improvement in language study”.
“I want young people to have a good range of options, including subjects like art and music and sport. And I know that’s what parents want as well,” she said.
She said ministers recognised “the need to implement this carefully, thoroughly and with good notice”, adding that schools would have four terms of notice before being expected to teach the new curriculum.
Prof Becky Francis, who chaired the review, said her panel of experts and the government had both identified a “problem” pupils experience during the first years of secondary school.
“When young people progress from primary into secondary school, typically this is a time when their learning can start falling behind, and that’s particularly the case for kids from socially disadvantaged backgrounds,” she told the BBC.
Professor Becky Francis led the curriculum and assessment review
She said the approach to the review was “evolution not revolution”, with England’s pupils already performing relatively well against international averages.
She said the call for more representation of diversity in the curriculum was not about “getting rid of core foundational texts and things that are really central to our culture”, but was more about “recognising where, both as a nation but also globally, there’s been diverse contribution to science and cultural progress”.
Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott said the changes “leave children with a weaker understanding of our national story and hide standards slipping in schools”.
“Education vandalism will be the lasting legacy of the prime minister and Bridget Phillipson,” she added.
The Liberal Democrats have welcomed the broadening of the curriculum, but said “scrapping instead of broadening the EBacc is not the right move.”
Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Munira Wilson also highlighted the financial challenges posed by these changes.
“Head teachers, who are already having to cut their budgets to the bone, will be asking one simple question – ‘how am I supposed to pay for this?'” said Wilson.
“Liberal Democrats are calling for Labour to be honest with schools. To admit that, without a costed plan and proper workforce strategy, these reforms will stretch teachers even further and fail our children.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the review had proposed “a sensible, evidence-based set of reforms”.
But he said delivering a “great curriculum” also required “sufficient funding and teachers”, adding that schools and colleges did not currently have all the resources they need.
He said a set of “enrichment benchmarks” – which the government said would offer pupils access to civic engagement, arts and culture, nature and adventure, sport, and life skills – had been announced “randomly” and “added to the many expectations over which schools are judged”.
TWISTING the handles of his personal periscope around, my son Billy lets out an excited gasp.
Through the lens he’s able to catch a glimpse of the rollercoasters and colourful rides that await him at Chessington World of Adventures, right on the doorstep of our hotel.
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The Paw Patrol gang cut looseCredit: AlamyOne of the five Paw Patrol roomsCredit: Chris Read-Jones/Chessington World Of AdventuresThe Sun’s Lydia Major and son BillyCredit: Supplied
I’m staying in one of the theme park’s new Paw Patrol-themed rooms, offered up just in time for half term.
Part of Chessington’s Safari Resort hotel, the five new pup-tastic bedrooms offer a glimpse of what’s to come when a new Paw Patrol-themed land opens next spring.
Nothing has been spared on making these spaces as immersive as possible.
Funky bunk beds have been disguised as the famous Paw Patroller truck featured in the show, with a driver’s seat at the front and a steering wheel that little ones can play with.
A yellow periscope in the main room, that fans will recognise as a replica of that from the Paw Patrol Lookout Tower, is surrounded by coloured bean bags which kids can plonk themselves on when spying on the theme park.
And if the view from the periscope isn’t enough to impress them, the bedroom window one will be.
Rooms overlook the park’s Wanyama Reserve, and one afternoon we were treated to the sight of two giraffes munching away on their leafy dinner.
I was grateful for some tranquillity to balance out the “wow” of the all-singing, all-dancing bedroom.
The decor here is bold and bright, with huge murals of the pups showing their wacky adventures.
Rooms sleep up to two adults, in a plump double bed, and three children.
They also come with a special Paw Patrol parking outside.
Even when you’re dining at one of the two restaurants, you’re likely to bump into your little ones’ favourite character.
As Billy tucked into his junior Wanyama burger (£7) at dinner, he clocked Skye giving some of her fans a high-five and a cuddle across the room.
If you don’t get to meet your hero at the hotel, Paw Patrol guests can nab fast-track entry to daily meet-and-greets with Chase, Skye and Rubble in the park.
A night’s stay comes with a huge buffet breakfast – which has everything from a full English to pancakes and pastries and is available from 7am to 10am.
Access to the hotel’s Savannah Splash Pool means children can burn off any extra energy.
After an action-packed day here, adults will be just as grateful for the ultra-comfy beds as the kids are.
Paw Patrol stays start from £155 for a family of four, including bed and breakfast. Stays include early ride access, a Pup Pass (meet-and-greet fast track pass) and a Reserve & Ride one-shot pass.
Guests staying before the Paw Patrol-themed land opens will have a chance to be one of the first to ride the new rollercoaster in 2026.
