World Tour: Christians seek protection in Nigeria

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

World Tour, with our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

SOUND: [Protest]

Nigeria — We begin today in Nigeria, where Christians are calling for an end to ongoing violence.

Christians crowded the streets of Plateau state on Easter Monday in an effort to pressure the government to end the violence blamed on armed herdsmen targeting mostly Christian communities.

Attacks on Palm Sunday left at least 51 people dead in the state. It brings to more than 100 the number of deaths since the end of March.

Rev. Gideon Para-Mallam was one of the coordinators of the peaceful walk.

GIDEON PARA-MALLAM: We have come out dressed in white to symbolize our hope that peace is possible.

Meanwhile, the death toll from similar violence last week in Benue state has topped 70 people.

Hyacinth Alia is the Benue state governor.

HYACINTH ALI: The federal government's support is very enormous. And our security and all their teams have been working strenuously nonstop. But for this still to have happened, something drastic, something strategic has to come to play.

He says security forces have been working nonstop … but the latest attacks mean they need to rethink their strategy.

Australia drownings — Next we head to Australia, where authorities say the long Easter weekend was one of the deadliest for drownings in New South Wales.

At least seven people died including a 9-year-old boy.

Brent Manieri is the general manager of the Surf Lifesaving volunteer rescue group.

MANIERI: Yeah so over the last four days our Lifesavers have performed in excess of 150 rescues and obviously we have seen those six tragedies occur along our New South Wales coastline.

Authorities blamed a perfect combination of high temperatures, deadly ocean swells, and holiday activities.

Puerto Rico power supply — Over in Puerto Rico, authorities are reviewing what’s behind yet another power outage that affected 1.4 million customers.

The outage last week hit the main international airport, hospitals, and hotels. More than 400,000 people had no access to water.

Herbert Rodriguez Martinez resides in southern Puerto Rico.

MARTINEZ: [SPANISH] The bad thing is that all of Puerto Rico is suffering from this, and it keeps happening frequently.

He says that all Puerto Ricans are battling the outages that continue to happen.

An earlier blackout on New Year’s Eve left nearly all Puerto Ricans without power.

Gov. Jenniffer González is demanding answers from the private company managing the island’s power distribution.

SOUND: KYRGYZSTAN MUSIC

Kyrgyzstan new anthem — We wrap up today in Central Asia, where composers in Kyrgyzstan are competing to create the country’s new national anthem.

Kyrgyzstan adopted its current anthem in 1992 after independence from the Soviet Union.

But the government says the anthem is still based on the Soviet-era on and fails to represent the young nation.

President Sadyr Japarov has taken other similar steps to overhaul state symbols since assuming office in 2021. At the end of 2023, parliament approved changes to the details of the sun on the Kyrgyz flag.

Nurzhyguit Moldoya is a composer and vocalist.

He says he composed his submission with some poet friends.

AUDIO: [KIRGHIZ] I wrote the melody with very strong feelings when inspiration came to me. These emotions can make you shudder, grow spiritually.

He says here that he wrote the melody with strong feelings emotions that will move any listener to respond from deep within.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

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