World
It was meant to be a Christian utopia. Now this Nigerian community is helpless against rising seas
AYETORO, Nigeria (AP) — The coastal Nigerian community of Ayetoro was founded decades ago and nicknamed “Happy City,” meant to be a Christian utopia that would be sinless and classless. But now its remaining residents can do little against the rising sea.
Buildings have sunk into the Atlantic Ocean, an increasingly common image along the vulnerable West African coast. Old timber pokes from the waves like rotten teeth. Shattered foundations line the shore. Waves break against abandoned electrical poles.
For years, low-lying nations have warned the world about the existential threat of rising seas. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, struggles to respond. Some plans to address shoreline protection, even for Ayetoro, have come to nothing in a nation where corruption and mismanagement is widespread.
Prayers against the rising sea are “on the lips of everybody” in the church every Sunday, according to youth leader Thompson Akingboye. But they know the solution will require far more.
Even the church has been relocated away from the sea, twice. “The present location is now also threatened, with the sea just 30 meters (98 feet) away,” Akingboye said.
Thousands of people have left. Of those who remain, Stephen Tunlese can only gaze from a distance at the remnants of his clothing shop.
Tunlese said he lost an investment of eight million naira, or the equivalent of $5,500, to the sea. Now he adapts to a watery future. He repairs canoes.
“I will stay in Ayetoro because this is my father’s land, this is heritage land,” he said.
The Mahin mud coast where the community is slipping away has lost more than 10 square kilometers, or nearly 60% of its land, to the ocean in the past three decades.
Researchers studying satellite imagery of Nigeria’s coast say a number of things are contributing to Ayetoro’s disappearance.
Underwater oil drilling is one reason, according to marine geologist Olusegun Dada, a professor at the Federal University of Technology in Akure who has studied years of satellite imagery. As resources are extracted, the ground can sink.
But he and colleagues note other reasons, including the deforestation of mangroves that help anchor the earth and the erosion caused by ocean waves.
“When we started coming to this community, then we used to have fresh water,” Dada said. Today, the freshwater ecosystem is transforming into a salty, marine one.
The transformation is enormously costly in Nigeria. The World Bank in a 2020 report estimated the cost of coastal degradation in three other coastal Nigerian states — nearby Lagos, Delta and Cross River — at $9.7 billion, or more than 2% of the country’s GDP. It looked at erosion, flooding, mangrove loss and pollution, and noted the high rate of urbanization.
And yet dramatic images of coastal communities slipping away only capture Nigeria’s attention from time to time, as when the annual flooding occurs — another effect of climate change.
But Ayetoro residents can’t turn away.
“Ayetoro was like a paradise, a city where everyone lived joyfully, happily,” said Arowolo Mofeoluwa, a retired civil servant.
She estimated that two-thirds of the community has been slowly swept under the waves, along with some residents’ multiple attempts to rebuild.
“This is the third house we are living in, and there are some living in the fourth house now, and we do not have enough space for ourselves again. Four or five people living in a small room, you can just imagine how painful it is,” Mofeoluwa said.
“If you look where the sea is now, that is the end of the former Ayetoro.”
For the community’s traditional leader and head of the local church, Oluwambe Ojagbohunmi, the pain is not only in the loss of land but also “what we are losing in our socio-cultural and religious identity.”
Some residents say even burial grounds have been washed away.
Early this year, the Ondo state government announced a commitment to finding “lasting solutions” to the threat to Ayetoro. But residents said that’s been vowed in the past.
It might be too late for efforts to be effective, Dada said. For years, he has hoped for an environmental survey to be carried out to better understand what’s causing the community’s disappearance. But that’s been in vain.
The Niger Delta Development Commission, a government body meant in part to address environmental and other issues caused by oil exploration, didn’t respond to questions from The Associated Press about efforts to protect the community’s shoreline.
The commission’s website lists a shoreline protection project in Ayetoro. A photo shows a sign marking the feat with the motto, “Determined to make a difference!”
The project was awarded two decades ago. Project status: “Ongoing.”
Residents say nothing ever started.
“Help will come one day, we believe,” youth leader Akingboye said.
___ The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
World
Middle East Crisis: Critically Ill Children Allowed to Leave Gaza for First Time Since May
Sixty-eight people, including sick and injured patients and their escorts, crossed the border to get treatment, the Israeli military said. The evacuation was carried out in coordination with the U.S., Egypt and the international community.
World
Taiwan issues travel advisory after China vows to execute independence supporters
![Taiwan issues travel advisory after China vows to execute independence supporters](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/05/xi_jinping.jpg)
The Taiwanese government warned its citizens not to travel to mainland China on Thursday after Beijing threatened to execute residents who support the island’s independence.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council spokesman Liang Wen-chieh issued the warning during a routine press conference. The Chinese government announced a new policy targeting “separatists” last week, and said it would pursue the death penalty for “diehard” supporters of Taiwanese independence.
“I want to stress: Democracy is not a crime; it’s autocracy that is the real evil. China has absolutely no right to sanction Taiwan’s people just because of the positions they hold. What’s more, China has no right to go after Taiwan people’s rights across borders,” Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said Wednesday.
“I also want to call on China to face up to the existence of the Republic of China and have exchanges and dialogue with Taiwan’s democratically elected, legitimate government,” he said, using Taiwan’s formal name. “If this is not done, relations between Taiwan and China will only become more and more estranged.”
FBI DIRECTOR WARNS OF JIHADIST ATTACK IN US, SIMILAR TO RUSSIAN CONCERT HALL: ‘HEIGHTENED TERRORIST THREAT’
The Taiwanese government warned its citizens not to travel to mainland China on Thursday after Beijing threatened to execute residents who support the island’s independence. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
China has long considered Taiwan to be its territory, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has threatened to take the island by force in recent years.
IRAN CAPABLE OF BUILDING NUCLEAR BOMB IN ONE WEEK, REPORT FINDS AS MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS FLARE
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office clarified on Wednesday that the threat of execution applies only to a small number of Taiwanese independence “diehards’ evil words and actions.”
![Xi Jinping](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/05/1200/675/xi_jinping.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
China has long considered Taiwan to be its territory, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has threatened to take the island by force in recent years. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP)
The move is the latest escalation of tensions between Taipei and Beijing. Recent months have also seen China conduct extensive military drills surrounding the island. China has used the drills as intimidation, typically following events connecting the U.S. and Taiwan.
EUROPEANS AWAIT CHINA’S RESPONSE TO NEW EU TARIFFS ON CHINESE CARS
China first conducted live-fire drills in 2022 after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. D-Calif., traveled to Taiwan. It was the first time a U.S. speaker visited the island in over 25 years.
![Chinese soldier looking through binoculars with a military ship in the background](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2022/08/1200/675/Taiwan-China-Military-Exercises-2.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Recent months have also seen China conduct extensive military drills surrounding the island, typically following events connecting the U.S. and Taiwan. (Lin Jian/Xinhua via AP)
Beijing’s execution threat comes just days after the U.S. approved the sale of $360 million in drones, missiles and other equipment to Taiwan.
Reuters contributed to this report.
World
Serbian police shut down cultural exchange festival with Kosovo
![Serbian police shut down cultural exchange festival with Kosovo](https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/08/53/59/96/1200x675_cmsv2_0bfb757c-8481-503b-8547-5b03b8feb345-8535996.jpg)
The festival ban comes a day after the EU Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell said no progress had been made during talks in Brussels towards implementing an EU-backed agreement towards normalising ties between Belgrade and Pristina.
Serbian police have banned a festival that promotes cultural exchange with Kosovo following a rally by far-right protesters outside the venue.
In a statement, Belgrade police cited security concerns as the reasons for stopping the event from going ahead, saying they wanted to prevent ‘danger to the security of people and property and to public peace and order on a larger scale.’
The police statement also said that the anti-festival protest, which saw several dozen right-wing extremists gather outside the festival venue, waving Serbian flags and banners saying ‘No surrender’, had also been banned.
Several Serbian government officials have sharply criticised the festival in recent days, describing it as anti-Serb.
While the festival has been held alternatively in Serbia and Kosovo for the past decade, this year’s ban in Serbia illustrates a general toughening of the government’s stance toward its critics.
The Mirëdita, dobar dan festival, whose name means ‘hello’ in Albanian and Serbian, is organised by youth groups from Serbia and Kosovo and was due to open on Thursday with a theatre show from Kosovo.
According to the festival’s website the event, which was due to run for two days, aims to ‘enrich regional perspectives and foster cooperation and peacebuilding’.
No progress
The festival ban came a day after the EU Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell said no progress had been made during talks in Brussels towards implementing an agreement between Belgrade and Pristina.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti had met to discuss an EU-backed plan to normalise ties. However, unresolved issues, including Pristina’s demands that Belgrade hands over the suspected organisers of the Banjska attack, blocked further progress.
Speaking after the meetings, Borrell said that the European Union will continue to exert all its efforts and capacity to normalise relations between Belgrade and Pristina.
“Kosovo was not ready for this, Kosovo was not willing to do this trilateral meeting. Serbia was ready to do it, but you need two to dance tango and we need two to sit around the table in order to continue the dialogue,” Borrell added.
Borrell said on Wednesday ahead of the meeting that a new round of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina would “hopefully send a different message and end in a different note.”
Brussels has warned both Belgrade and Pristina that refusal to compromise jeopardises Serbia and Kosovo’s chances of joining the bloc.
Kosovo, a former Serbian province, declared independence in 2008, a move Belgrade does not recognise.
-
News1 week ago
NYC pastor is sentenced to 9 years for fraud, including taking a single mom's $90,000
-
Crypto1 week ago
Idris Elba Promotes Cryptocurrency in West Africa – BORGEN
-
News1 week ago
Read the Ruling by the Virginia Court of Appeals
-
Politics1 week ago
Trump targets House Freedom Caucus chair in intra-party Republican primary feud
-
News6 days ago
Tracking a Single Day at the National Domestic Violence Hotline
-
Politics7 days ago
Trump classified docs judge to weigh alleged 'unlawful' appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith
-
News7 days ago
Supreme Court upholds law barring domestic abusers from owning guns in major Second Amendment ruling | CNN Politics
-
World1 week ago
Concentration camp museum director joins campaign to ban AfD