Locals tell Al Jazeera they feel abandoned by the government and will have no peace of mind until the children return. Armed men have kidnapped 15 pupils from a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria days after more than 280 students were abducted from another school with the army still searching for them. The men broke into the Islamic seminary in the village of Gidan Bakuso in Sokoto state...

In Iraq’s western Anbar province, authorities made a new drug bust at the end of February, seizing 80kg (176lb) of the narcotic Captagon. It is just the latest seizure of the Middle East’s budget amphetamine of choice in Iraq, and in a region that lies just across the border from Syria, where the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has increasingly come to rely on the manufacture and export...

Occupied East Jerusalem – The mood in occupied East Jerusalem is tense as the city’s Palestinians prepare for Islam’s holy month of Ramadan. From dawn to sunset, Ramadan requires practising Muslims to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual relations before they break their fast with friends, family and communities. But the Palestinians who spoke to Al Jazeera say they are too depressed to hang up decorations or...