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African press review 4 May 2015

Freed Boko Haram captives in emotional tell-all, as the Nigerian military frees hundreds of starved women and children. A Boko Haram supplier undergoes grilling by intelligence after his arrest, and US Secretary of State John Kerry is in Nairobi to prepare President Barack Obama’s historic visit to his father’s country.

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We begin in Nigeria where scores of Boko Haram captives freed by the military have been narrating their ordeal to the press.

Punch says the women and children rescued from the Sambissa Forest terrorist lair during a major military operation told grim stories about the terrorists killing husbands and sons in front of their families before they were carted away into the forest where many died of hunger and disease. The newspaper reports that the freed captives, some with their heads and limbs in bandages, said they were under close guard.

Two hundred and seventy-five women and children are recovering at a rehabilitation camp where they were transferred on Saturday. Nearly 700 kidnap victims have been freed from the Islamist group’s forest stronghold since Tuesday, with the latest group of 234 women and children liberated on Friday, according to Punch.

Premium Times welcomes the arrest of a man said to be Boko Haram’s chief food and fuel supplier. The paper quotes the military as saying that he was arrested on Sunday in the Borno State enclave of Daban Shata. He is reportedly being interrogated by intelligence experts, and Premium Times says he could help the military understand the hidden faces behind the funding of the insurgency.

In Kenya the papers react to the visit to Kenya by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Daily Nation says Kerry has a full in-tray of issues to tackle during his two-day trip expected to be dominated by security cooperation and the upcoming first visit of President Barack Obama to his late father’s home country – his very first since coming to the White House.

Standard Digital reports that Obama’s visit is set to take place in July revealing that two special cars which he will use during his visit have already been airlifted to Nairobi.

The Nation sounds the hopes of many Kenyans who expect Kerry’s high-profile visit will signal a “thawing of relations” between Washington and Nairobi, damaged by the Hague trial of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.

Several papers quote officials as saying that they expect Kerry to also raise concerns on human rights violations, especially following accusations the Jubilee regime is clamping down on civil society groups and the press, when he meets Kenyatta at the State House. He has also lined up meetings later in the day with opposition politicians, including Cord leader Raila Odinga in the afternoon.

The fight against al-Shebab features high on the agenda of John Kerry’s meetings with Defence Secretary Raychelle Omamo, her interior counterpart Joseph ole Nkaissery and Foreign Affairs Secretary Amina Mohammed.

Kenyan papers also lead with a breaking story of lead poisoning in Mombasa. According to several news outlets, medical authorities in the county announced that 11 out of 55 tested samples taken from residents of Owino Uhuru slums have shown abnormal levels of lead in their blood. Tests done by Lancet Kenya targeting an initial 55 people found 15 to be in need of treatment for poisoning.

The villagers are reported to have been contaminated directly by smoke from a metal refinery factory known as EPZ Limited which corroded the iron sheets on their roofs and fouled the air leading to respiratory illnesses. Daily Nation reports that the company was on several occasions ordered closed after a government inquiry but it managed to remain open due to graft and scheming by its proprietors.

A lawmaker who leased the land to the company MP Hezron Awiti reportedly said yesterday that he was ready to compensate families affected by a lead factory that operated on his property should he be found guilty of wrongdoing.

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