Polish diplomats seek release of students and a lecturer detained in Nigeria during protests

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Polish diplomats seek release of students and a lecturer detained in Nigeria during protests

2024-08-10 03:08 Last Updated At：03:11

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish diplomats on Friday said they were making progress as they appealed for the release of seven citizens who were detained in Nigeria in what Warsaw believes was a misunderstanding that happened as protests were underway in the West African country.

Six Polish students and a lecturer from Warsaw University, who were taking part in a program to study the Hausa language, were detained earlier this week in the state of Kano in northern Nigeria.

Nigeria’s secret service said they were arrested for carrying Russian flags during a protest — something Polish officials say they find unlikely.

The Polish consul in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, met Friday with the detained students as Poland sought to clarify their legal situation.

They “are feeling well and in good condition. They are currently living in a hotel in a good district of the city,” Poland's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “No charges have been brought against them, and procedures are underway to conclude the investigation."

Deputy Foreign Minister Jakub Wisniewski earlier appealed to Nigeria to allow the students and lecturer to return home to their families, briefing reporters after meeting separately with Nigeria’s chargé d’affaires and the families of the detained Poles.

“During the meeting, I conveyed that I was convinced that the students’ behavior could have resulted from their ignorance of local customs, culture and laws. I appealed for the possibility of their return to Poland, to their homes, where their families are waiting for them,” Wisniewski said.

Wisniewski said he did not believe the students had been carrying Russian flags.

Pro-Russian sentiment is rare in the Central European nation, which has bad memories of suffering under Russian rule in the past. Polish society is today deeply critical of Russian aggression in Ukraine and strongly backs Ukraine.

Wisniewski noted that there is currently a curfew in place and a ban on demonstrations in Nigeria, where large protests have been taking place in the nation of 220 million in reaction to high inflation and hunger.

A few Nigerian protesters have been seen waving Russian flags in northern states, continuing a trend previously seen in Africa in coup-hit countries where pro-Russian sentiments are growing as military governments sever ties with the West.

AP PHOTOS: Cascading disasters push residents of a Nepalese valley to the brink

2024-09-21 10:29 Last Updated At：10:31

MELAMCHI, Nepal (AP) — In between the Himalayas' towering mountains, the town of Melamchi is no stranger to extreme weather, and its landscape bears the scars of years of floods and landslides.

Located just 50 kilometers (31 miles) outside Kathmandu, lush green mountainsides are dotted with landslips and rubble. Amid the debris, people live and work, and children play.

Saroj Lamichane, a 24-year-old resident of the region, says he still remembers “the terrifying sound of the flood.” Lamichane fled that night, returning only to collect belongings wedged between boulders and broken walls.

Many houses in Melamchi are on stilts to avoid the worst of the flooding. Still, floors are covered in a layer of loose rock. Windows have been ripped out of walls. And some buildings still slant after Nepal's devastating 2015 earthquake.

Farms are also not spared.

Sukuram Tamang, 50, lost his land and field to floods in 2021, and his home was damaged in a landslide this year. When The Associated Press visited, Tamang stood holding one of his goats — a literal handful of what survived Melamchi's incessant weather extremes.

“Even the little that remained has been swept away by floods earlier this year,” said Tamang's wife, Maya. “The river used to be a 20-minute walk from our house but during the floods, we were shocked to see it overflow and wash away everything we had.”

Another farmer, Sita Pandit, 50, took a loan to rebuild her home that was destroyed in the earthquake. But one year after construction finished, her new home was swept away by the 2021 floods. Rocks and debris now cover her farm.

In a 2021 report, the Kathmandu headquartered International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development found that cascading hazards are becoming more common in Nepal and the Hindu Kush Himalaya.

Rising temperatures are leading to heavy glacial melt and glacial lakes overflowing. They also lead to shifting rainfall patterns which bring heavy sediments downstream, said Sudan Bikash Maharjan, one of the authors of the 2021 report.

Maharjan said local and federal governments need to be better prepared and give people time to evacuate.

Until then, many work hard to rebuild their old lives. People reconstruct homes among the debris or build new ones entirely. They walk and live among pieces of homes and furniture. Layers of mud cover up the lives they once lived.

Follow Niranjan Shrestha on Instagram.

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