In this image shot with a mobile phone, a young girl stands amid the burned ruins of Baga.
In this image shot with a mobile phone, a young girl stands amid the burned ruins of Baga.

Almost 200 killed in gun battles in Nigeria



KANO, NIGERIA // More than 185 people are believed to have been killed and 2,000 houses burnt in a battle between soldiers and suspected Islamist militants.

Most of the victims of the violence, which started on Friday in the north-east village of Baga, are civilians.

The fighting, which killed one officer, began after a patrol was attacked near a mosque where Boko Haram fighters have hidden weapons, Brig Gen Austin Edokpaye said on a visit to the area yesterday.

Militants "came out with heavy firepower", including rocket-propelled grenades, he told the Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima.

"The soldiers were mindless that night," a Baga resident, Mallam Bana, told Mr Shettima.

"They killed and burnt our houses, chased everyone into the bush including women and children."

The Borno state military spokesman, Lt Col Sagir Musa, said media reports claiming that nearly 200 people could have died in the clashes were "extensively inflated".

"There could have been some casualties, but it is unthinkable to say that 185 people died," Lt Col Musa said. "On my honour as an officer, nothing like that happened."

When gun battles broke out in Baga on Friday, residents were forced to flee the fishing village, which also serves as a small trading centre on the shores of Lake Chad.

It lies in Borno state, the home of Boko Haram, who are blamed for carrying out scores of attacks across northern and central Nigeria since 2009.

There was extensive damage to the village, including signs that a fire had razed several homes and a market, according to an official who toured the area on Sunday with Mr Shettima.

The official said residents reported deaths among the insurgents, soldiers as well as civilians.

A regional spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, Abdulkadir Ibrahim, said his personnel had arrived in Baga but communication was difficult and it was too early to assess the scale of the attack.

Mobile phone network coverage in some parts of Borno was crippled last year after Boko Haram burnt down telecommunications masts.

The emergency agency is trying to distribute "humanitarian assistance to victims", Mr Ibrahim said. An exact death toll and reports 2,000 homes were destroyed "cannot be independently verified", he added.

A spokesman for the Red Cross charity, Nwakpa O Nwakpa, said a significant attack occurred but "we really don't know yet how many people died. Once the security situation is clear, Red Cross staff will move in".

Baga is more than 150 kilometres from the state capital, Maiduguri, a precarious drive on poor roads in a region hit by waves of violence.

Boko Haram has used Maiduguri as a base for its insurgency but scores of militants have reportedly fled to more remote corners of the state following a crackdown by security forces in the city.

Residents told the governor's delegation that the clashes started when troops surrounded a mosque that was believed to be sheltering insurgents. A shoot-out ensued and there were reports that the Islamists used heavy weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades, but the nature of the fighting could not be confirmed and details were still emerging.

Nigeria's security forces have a history of minimising casualty figures in the conflict with Boko Haram in a bid to downplay the group's capacity.

But resentment of the military is high in some communities and locals have in the past given inflated death tolls while accusing the military of indiscriminately killing civilians during their operations.

Boko Haram has said it is fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north but the group's demands have shifted repeatedly. The conflict in Africa's most populous country and top oil producer is estimated to have left about 3,000 people dead since 2009.

This includes people killed by the security forces, who have been accused by international rights groups of abuses, especially in the north-east.

Facing mounting political pressure over his inability to end the violence, the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, set up a panel last week to study how an amnesty could be offered to Boko Haram. It is unclear if the sect would be open to such a proposal.

* Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg News

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  • 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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