SOCIETY
SENEGAL – Captain Touré “I have decided to return the entire amount collected to the family of Constable Mohamed Lakhzaf Aïdara”
A gesture of solidarity, noble and greatness, is that of the former captain of the Research Section of Colobane, Seydina Oumar Touré. He made the decision on Thursday, August 26, 2021 to offer the entire amount collected for him to the family of Mohamed Lakhzaf Aïdara. Following the disbarment of Captain Touré, Internet users, under the leadership of Bentaleb Sow, launched a fundraiser to which 300 people contributed. This prize pool launched on Monday 28 June 2021 allowed to collect 1.153.776 FCFA, according to its organizers. But, the 32-year-old investigator, pleased with the highly salutary gesture of Internet users, returned the entire sum to the family of his gendarme friend, the late Mohamed Lakhzaf Aïdara who served under his orders in the Research Section. The sum is distributed as follows: 500,000 for his mother, 266,000 for his son, 266,000 for his widow. In a message published on his Facebook page on Thursday, August 26, Captain Touré returned to this symbolic gesture without forgetting to call for tolerance on social networks where insults and slander arise from everywhere. This is the high-level message issued by the one that was disbarred from the gendarmerie by the President of the Republic, Macky Sall.
“My dear compatriots, in the weeks following my disbarment, I was seized by Mr. Bentaleb Sow, a friend, who informed me of the desire of several Internet users to make a gesture to help me overcome this ordeal. It was a great honour that I accepted with great gratitude and gratitude. I appreciated this highly symbolic gesture. Yesterday, he informed me again that the pot was closed and that more than 300 people contributed to it. For me the amount raised does not matter, but the gesture and the number of people has today reinforced my belief in my ideals and my pride to belong to the Senegalese people, just men and women. Thank you very much.
However, I decided to return the entire amount collected to the family of Constable Mohamed Lakhzaf AIDARA. But you can see, my dear donors, that my acceptance of the gift predates my friend’s death. So this act is in no way synonymous with a refusal. On the contrary, I think we can be proud of this gesture because this man was good and very close to me. You helped me do something for him. In my opinion, there is no such thing as chance.
In passing, I apologize to the family of the deceased gendarme for having published this information on Facebook with their agreement of course. I ask you to understand the circumstances of this donation which motivated this publicity. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who are following with great interest my thoughts on my Facebook page. I sometimes want to respond to the thousands of people who express themselves, comment on or write to me on Messenger. I do everything I can to respond to as many messages as possible. Unfortunately there are many of us, it is not easy to reconcile it with work and studies. But I have the same interest for everyone, because it is you and your interventions that motivate me and encourage me every day to reveal my thoughts, which are certainly very modest and limited.
Also, I have seen instances of altercations of insults against me. Please do not respond to the provocation. I like that quote from the Dalai Lama when he says “don’t let the behaviour of others come to destroy your inner peace”. Indeed, those who insult in public reveal themselves and expose their education. When you respond in his way you become identical and your judgment becomes similar. Remember that on the internet, the virtual takes precedence over the real so a word is enough for a saint to be taken for a moron and an idiot for a reflection. Respond to hatred with tolerance and intolerance with indifference. Let us take the example of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba MBACKÉ who, during his lifetime, could ask an entire community to rise up against its oppressor. Even the oppressor, at times, wondered why this oppressed person did not take advantage of his community’s dedication to arm wrestling.
Imagine a man wrongly persecuted at home, who had the opportunity to ask his disciples to repel the invader but never made use of violence, not even verbal. Yet he has bequeathed a way of life, a behaviour, a mentality and a culture that transcend generations. This is enough as an example for any man who claims to be a believer and, moreover, a Senegalese. Let us also take inspiration from the time that makes no noise and hardly makes itself felt, yet everything that exists in this world is coming to an end.
Let us pray together for the late Constable Mohamed Lakhzaf AIDARA, an exceptional man. May heaven be his last resting place. Let us pray for him, he deserves it amply”.
In Cameroon, about 7 million children, including more than 1.5 million in school, do not have a birth certificate. The absence of this essential document for access to education, health and other public services, particularly affects rural areas and the regions of the Far North, Northwest and Southwest. The subject was discussed during the 3rd International Economic Days of Municipalities (JEICOM), held from June 2 to 4, 2025, at the Palais des Congrès in Yaoundé.
A deplorable situation at the moment when Cameroon is celebrating the 5th edition of Children’s Day under the theme “Child-sensitive budgeting and planning: a strategic lever for the promotion and protection of children’s rights”.
Faced with the constant problem of establishing birth certificates in Cameroon, the government, through the National Civil Registry Office (BUNEC), collaborates with partners such as UNICEF or the World Bank in order to provide an effective response to the phenomenon.
In this dynamic, the Bunec provides the town halls with tools to ensure a “compliant and reliable registration of births”. It also supports them in the modernization of the civil status system, including the digitization of registers. UNICEF has enabled some town halls to strengthen their human resources capacities and develop innovative strategies.
Several initiatives were launched, notably the national forum on universal birth registration, organized in April 2024, which brought together mayors, civil status officials, and partners to discuss solutions to the problem.
A violent mutiny broke out this Tuesday, June 3, 2025, at the Maison Pénale de Bouaké in Ivory Coast. While the Prison Administration was conducting a routine search within the establishment, it encountered hostility from the inmates of Building E. According to the prosecutor’s statement, they “were attacking them with the help of clubs, machetes and other blunt objects.” To clear themselves, the agents were forced to carry out warning shots in order to cover their retreat.
Unfortunately, this incident led to a heavy toll: “the death of five (05) detainees is to be deplored. Twenty-nine (29) injured, including six (06) prison officers and twenty-three (23) detainees, were also recorded,” said the public prosecutor. He specifies that the injured were taken care of and a coroner was requested for findings of use in such circumstances.
The rapid intervention of the forces of the Gendarmerie and the National Police allowed to limit the violence and restore order. The search operation then continued without further incidents. She led to the discovery of “several blocks of cannabis, platelets of Tramadol tablets, eighteen (18) mobile phones, including eight (08) smartphones, three (03) grenades, knives etc… strictly prohibited in detention.
The prosecutor recalled that previous excavations had already led to the discovery of bladed weapons
More than 200 people were found dead after the sudden floods that hit the Central West of Nigeria on Thursday, May 29, 2025, announced the humanitarian coordinator of the state of Niger in a new report, Tuesday, June 3. Hundreds of victims are still missing.
The balance sheet is getting heavier. Trapped by sudden floods in west-central Niger, many people were still missing on Tuesday 3 June. The humanitarian coordinator of Niger state said that the death toll now exceeds 200, while hundreds of people are still missing.
“We have more than 200 bodies,” Ahmad Suleiman told Channels Television. “No one can say at the moment how many deaths there are in the state of Niger because we are still looking for other bodies,” he added.
The research continues
“We continue to search but sincerely, we cannot be sure of anything,” he added. Many victims were counted in Mokwa, the most affected agglomeration and a neighborhood of which was wiped out within hours Thursday by flood waters from the Niger River. Since then, volunteers and rescue teams have been combing the area under an overwhelming heat, sometimes finding bodies up to 10 kilometers away.
The coordinator’s announcement comes after the official toll remained stuck at 150 deaths, although some residents deplore the loss of more than a dozen family members.
Fifteen of the 36 states in Nigeria had been placed on flood alert a few days before the disaster. Climate change amplifies extreme weather events in Nigeria but for the people of Mokwa, the tragedy is also linked to human failures. In Mokwa, muddy waters swept away hundreds of houses in the town, including the lack of maintenance of the nozzles designed to evacuate floodwaters, which were clogged with debris on the day of the flood.
The death toll could exceed the 321 deaths from the floods that occurred in 34 of Nigeria’s 36 states in 2024. The Nigerian government claims to have provided aid, but on the spot, the inhabitants feel left to themselves and several families said they had received nothing.
Source: la-croix.com/ Photo credit: TV5
