Young son of Atlanta-born Afrobeat star Davido drowns in family pool in Nigeria
It was the week before Christmas 2009 in his small hometown of Ife in southwestern Nigeria after a night of drinking with his family.
That’s when 14-year-old Davido began to struggle. “I was the one who had the problem, I was drunk and we started fighting,” he says.
A fight turned into a fire. His grandfather, the family patriarch, was among the first to arrive, he says.
But Davido’s son, one of his only siblings, wasn’t so lucky. He watched his father run for his life out of the house.
As the flames destroyed his grandfather’s hut, Davido’s younger sister was found clinging to her grandfather’s hands, screaming for help.
Her screams echoed even across the dusty jungle. “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” she says.
Davido was just one of the thousands of children displaced by the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency that has overrun vast areas of Nigeria, threatening civilians and sparking fears over its spread across Africa.
Davido was just one of the thousands of children displaced by the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency that has overrun vast areas of Nigeria, threatening civilians and sparking fears over its spread across Africa.
The Nigerian authorities have struggled to stop the violence. They have been accused of being slow or ineffective. Critics have complained of inadequate coordination between different state authorities, with politicians often neglecting their duties.
The International Rescue Committee says it has been tracking the displacement of more than 2,500 children under the age of 18 since January 2015 in a region between the states of Adamawa, Adamawa, Borno, Borno, Gombe, Yobe, Zamfara and Bauchi.
The conflict, which began in 2013, spread across north-central Nigeria as the government struggled to contain attacks.
Last year, the insurgency killed more than 2,500 people. The UN estimates that at least 23,