CBS News
Deadly flooding in West and Central Africa leaves corpses of crocodiles and snakes floating among human bodies
Houses swept away to the very last brick. Inmates frantically fleeing the city’s main prison as its walls were washed away by water rising from an overflowing dam. Corpses of crocodiles and snakes floating among human bodies on what used to be main streets.
As torrential rains across Central and West Africa have unleashed the most catastrophic floods in decades, residents of Maiduguri, the capital of the fragile Nigerian state of Borno — which has been at the center of an Islamic extremists’ insurgency — said they have seen it all.
Earlier this week, Nigerian authorities said more than 270 inmates were missing after escaping from custody when severe flooding damaged a prison in Maiduguri, CBS News partner BBC reported. Borno state Governor Babagana Zulum described the extent of the damage in the area as “beyond human imagination.”
The floods, which have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands across the region this year, have worsened existing humanitarian crises in the countries which have been impacted the most: Chad, Nigeria, Mali and Niger. Over four million people have been affected by flooding so far this year in West Africa, a threefold increase from last year, according to the U.N.
With rescue operations still underway, it is impossible to give an accurate count of lives lost in the water. So far, at least 230 were reported dead in Nigeria, 265 in Niger, 487 in Chad and 55 in Mali, which has seen the most catastrophic flooding since the 1960s.
While Africa is responsible for a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is among the regions most vulnerable to extreme weather events, the World Meteorological Organization said earlier this month. In sub-Saharan Africa, the cost of adapting to extreme weather events is estimated between $30-50 billion annually over the next decade, the report said. It warned that up to 118 million Africans could be impacted by extreme weather by 2030.
Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, has been under significant strain. Over the last decade, Borno has been hit by a constant string of attacks from Boko Haram militants, who want to install an Islamic state in Nigeria and have killed more than 35,000 people in the last decade.
AUDU MARTE/AFP via Getty Images
Saleh Bukar, a 28-year-old from Maiduguri, said he was woken up last week around midnight by his neighbors.
“Water is flooding everywhere!” he recalled their frantic screams in a phone interview. “They were shouting: ‘Everybody come out, everybody come out!” Older people and people with disabilities did not know what was going on, he said, and some were left behind. Those who did not wake up on time drowned right away.
Local authorities are overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster: over 600,000 people in Borno state have been displaced, while at least 100 were killed and 58 injured, according to the U.N.
Last week, floods killed about 80% of the animals at the Borno State Museum Park and an unspecified number of reptiles escaped. Ali Donbest, who runs the Sanda Kyarimi Zoo, told the BBC that he does not know exactly how many wild animals escaped the zoo but a hunt was on to locate them. He also said the cages where the lions and hyenas were kept had been submerged by floodwaters but the zoo could not determine if they had escaped.
Maiduguri resident Ishaq Sani told the BBC his biggest fear is to come across a wild animal. He abandoned his home due to the floods and is now staying with a friend in another location.
The waters also knocked down the walls of the local police station and some of the government’s offices.
Rescue operations continue 10 days later, with some parts of the city returning to normal as waters recede.
Flooding forces woman to abandon her baby
Survivors recounted chilling scenes of bodies in the floodwaters.
Aishatu Ba’agana, a mother of three, had to abandon her recently born baby as water surging over her house overwhelmed her. “I yelled for my family to help me get my child, but I don’t know if they were able to. I haven’t seen any of them since,” she said, crying at the camp where rescue workers brought her.
The flood also destroyed crucial infrastructure, including two major dikes of a dam along Lake Alau. When the dam failed, 540 billion liters of water flooded the city. Key bridges connecting Maiduguri collapsed, turning the city into a temporary river.
Governor Babagana Zulum urgently appealed for international assistance. “Our resources are stretched to the limit, and we cannot do this alone,” he said.
The World Food Program has set up kitchens providing food to the displaced in Maiduguri as well as emergency food and cash assistance to people in the most hard-hit areas. USAID said Wednesday it has provided more than $3 million in humanitarian assistance to West and Central Africa, including $1 million provided in the immediate aftermath of the floods.
But many say they were left to fend for themselves.
Floods in mostly arid Niger have impacted over 841,000 people, killing hundreds and displacing more than 400,000.
Harira Adamou, a 50-year-old single mother of six, is one of them. She said the floods destroyed her mud hut in the northern city of Agadez.
“The rooms are destroyed; the walls fell down,” she said. “It’s a big risk to live in a mud hut but we don’t have the means to build concrete ones.”
Adamou, who is unemployed and lost her husband four years ago, said she has not received any support from the state and has not had the opportunity — or the means — to relocate. She and her children are living in a temporary shelter next to their shattered hut, and fret that the torrential rains might return.
“I understood there was a change in the weather,” she said. “I have never seen a big rain like this year here in Agadez.”
In Maiduguri, 15% of the city remains underwater, according to local authorities. As forecasts predicted more rains across the region, Nigerian authorities warned earlier this week that more floods are expected.
Bukar said he kept going back to see whether the water that swallowed his home had receded, but that has not happened. He said he has not received any aid from authorities except for some food items handed out at the local school, where he is sheltering with 5,000 others.
He is trying to stay sane by helping others. Along with his friend, he helped recover 10 bodies and rescued 25 people, rowing down the streets in a canoe. He said he’s also helping out cooking meals for those that are sheltering with him.
“I am volunteering to help, but I am also a victim,” he said. “Our people need us. They need help.”
The deadly flooding comes about five months after hundreds of people in Tanzania and Kenya died after heavy rain during the region’s monsoon season.
CBS News
Netanyahu sends 2 planes to Netherlands to bring out Israeli soccer fans after violence surrounding match in Amsterdam
Amsterdam — Leaders of Israel and the Netherlands on Friday condemned what they called antisemitic attacks on fans of soccer club Maccabi Tel Aviv before and after a Europa League soccer match between their team and Ajax, and Israel said it was sending planes to fly supporters home from the Dutch capital.
The violence erupted Thursday despite a ban on a pro-Palestinian demonstration near the soccer stadium imposed by Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema, who’d feared clashes would break out between protesters and supporters of the Israeli soccer club.
Amsterdam police had no immediate comment on the violence or numbers of arrests and injuries.
But Halsema said supporters of the Israeli team were hurt and the extent of the violence and number of arrests were still being sorted out, according to the Reuters news agency.
Agence France-Presse reported that a Dutch police spokesperson told the Dutch ANP news agency 57 people had been arrested.
AFP said social media platforms were inundated with unverified images supposedly showing the violence, but authorities offered few confirmed details.
AFP said AT5 reported that the clashes occurred around midnight with numerous fights and acts of vandalism in the center of Amsterdam. “A large number of mobile unit vehicles are present and reinforcements have also been called in,” AT5 said.
X/ iAnnet via REUTERS.
Details were unclear, but Israel ordered that two planes be sent to the Dutch capital to bring the Israelis home.
“The Prime Minister has directed that two rescue planes be sent immediately to assist our citizens,” said a statement from Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
It added that “the harsh pictures of the assault on our citizens in Amsterdam will not be overlooked,” and that Netanyahu “views the premeditated antisemitic attack against Israeli citizens with utmost gravity.” He demanded that the Dutch government take “vigorous and swift action” against those involved.
Netanyahu’s office added that he had called for increased security for the Jewish community in the Netherlands.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on X that he followed reports of the violence “with horror.”
“Completely unacceptable antisemitic attacks on Israelis. I am in close contact with everyone involved,” he added, saying that he had spoken to Netanyahu and “emphasized that the perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted. It is now quiet in the capital.”
The Israeli Embassy in Washington said on the social media platform X that “hundreds” of Maccabi fans were “ambushed and attacked in Amsterdam tonight as they left the stadium following a game,” according to AFP. The embassy blamed the violence on a “mob who targeted innocent Israelis.”
Geert Wilders, the hard right nationalist lawmaker whose Party for Freedom won elections in the Netherlands last year and who is a staunch ally of Israel, reacted to a video apparently showing a Maccabi fan being surrounded by several men.
“Looks like a Jew hunt in the streets of Amsterdam. Arrest and deport the multicultural scum that attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in our streets. Ashamed that this can happen in The Netherlands. Totally unacceptable,” Wilders said.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, also condemned the violence in a post on the social media platform X.
When Huntington Beach, Calif., detectives searched Rodney Alcala‘s Seattle storage locker during the murder investigation of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe in 1979, they discovered a cache of photos, many of them young women in suggestive, and even pornographic poses.
In March 2010, after a third jury in 30 years handed Alcala a death sentence, Huntington Beach police released more than 100 of those photos hoping to identify the women and some children, and learn if Alcala claimed still more victims.
Most of those who have been identified are alive and well.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
Unidentified women in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
Unidentified women in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified child in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified child in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
Unidentified women in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified child in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
Huntington Beach Police Dept.
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
Unidentified people in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified person in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified child in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
An unidentified woman in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
Serial Killer’s Secret Photos
Unidentified women in an image from Rodney Alcala’s photo cache.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed conceded the mayoral race to Daniel Lurie Thursday afternoon with a social media post that congratulated her competitor.
The mayor also thanked the city and its residents for “the opportunity to serve the City that raised me” in the post on X just after 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
There had been rumblings that Breed might concede the race earlier Thursday having come in behind Lurie in the last vote count released Wednesday morning.
“Today, I called Daniel Lurie and congratulated him on his victory in this election,” the post read. “Over the coming weeks, my staff and I will work to ensure a smooth transition as he takes on the honor of serving as Mayor of San Francisco. I know we are both committed to improving this City we love.”
Breed spoke at a press conference less than an hour after the social media post to answer questions from reporters about her decision, reiterating some of what she said in her social media post.
“The city is on the rise. The office is bigger than just one person, and I called Daniel Lurie earlier today to congratulate him,” the mayor said. “And made it very clear my team and I stand ready to support him during his transition. We will always do everything we can to ensure the success of the city and that there is a smooth transition, so that the important work that has been done and needs to continue in San Francisco moves forward.”
When asked if this was the hardest speech she’d ever given, Breed quickly dismissed that idea.
“No, it’s not. There’s been other harder speeches. I mean I had to make a hard decision to close the city down during a global pandemic. I had to deal with…the racial reckoning that happened after the tragic death of George Floyd. I had to go out in the middle of the night and tell people that Mayor Ed Lee had passed away. There are numerous occasions.”
Six years ago, incumbent London Breed became the first Black woman to serve as mayor of San Francisco after the death of Mayor Ed Lee in late 2017. The then president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors was automatically appointed as the city’s acting mayor early the morning after Lee’s death.
In June of 2018, Breed won the special election that was held to fill the office, defeating her main opponent, former state senator Mark Leno.
Breed faced a number of major challenges during her first term in office, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the city’s ongoing issues with drug abuse and homelessness, rising housing costs and a spike in retail crime that some chains cited as the reason behind closing stores in San Francisco.
While Breed has touted progress in reducing the number of homeless encampments and pushed programs to fill vacant business spaces downtown, the mayor’s struggles have led to 11 other candidates entering the race to challenge her for the job.
“Over the coming weeks, I plan to reflect on all the progress we’ve made. But today, I am proud that we have truly accomplished so much and my heart is filled with gratitude,” Breed’s message said in closing. “During my final two months as your Mayor, I will continue to lead this City as I have from Day One – as San Francisco’s biggest champion.”
Daniel Lurie has announced that he will speak to the media about the latest developments Friday morning.
Netanyahu sends 2 planes to Netherlands to bring out Israeli soccer fans after violence surrounding match in Amsterdam
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans clash with reported pro-Palestinian protesters at Ajax Europa League match
Naz Reid’s new mission is to help save lives
Netanyahu sends 2 planes to Netherlands to bring out Israeli soccer fans after violence surrounding match in Amsterdam
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans clash with reported pro-Palestinian protesters at Ajax Europa League match