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Islamic police in Nigeria round up children living on streets to put them in camp "for their rehabilitation"
CBSN
Kano, Nigeria — Authorities in northern Nigeria's largest city have begun evacuating more than 5,000 street children seen as a "security threat" and a growing concern as an economic crisis forces more to fend for themselves. The Hisbah, a regional police force tasked with enforcing Islamic Sharia law, have carried out midnight raids on motor parks, markets and street corners in the regional capital, Kano, since the beginning of the year, evacuating children as they sleep.
"We have so far mopped up 300 of these boys from the streets and taken them into a camp provided for their rehabilitation," Hisbah's director-general Abba Sufi told AFP. "Their continued living on the streets is a huge social and security threat because they are potential criminal recruits."
"They are a ticking time bomb that needs to be urgently defused with tact and care," said Sufi.
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Beijing — China on Friday lashed out at what it called U.S. "coercion" after Panama declined to renew a key infrastructure agreement with Beijing following Washington's threat to take back the Panama Canal. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a briefing that China "firmly opposes the U.S. smearing and undermining the Belt and Road cooperation through means of pressure and coercion."