building in Marina on fire

           Photos of fire incident at the Mamman Kantagoran House, Marina, Lagos this morning.

Is there any such thing as nude anointing?

I am a young Nigerian female from the southern part of the country. I am in my early 20s and currently doing my NYSC in one of the northern states.

After I found out my NYSC posting, my parents contacted one of our kins men (a pastor of one of the 'new generation' pentecostal churches), requesting that I stay at his place for my NYSC period.  He accepted. I was so excited that 'my accommodation' problem had been solved- little did I know that I was heading for a night mare.

My new guardian, a pastor, is married with two kids; however, his wife and kids are in the southern part of the country where they help manage a branch of the church.
I help-out with errands and house chores; there isn't much chores to be done considering the fact that there are only 4 people in the house (my guardian, the cook, another pastor and myself).
There are enough rooms for everyone; I had a room to myself and often shared it with the cook whenever she was passing the night.

The first 3 months of my NYSC happened so fast because of the number of activities I had to do.
Everything was just perfect until I had this encounter with my guardian.

I usually experience abdominal pains during my mensuration and my guardian soon observed this.
A few days after one of my mensuration cycles, around 1:30 AM, he asked me to come to his room for prayers and anointing especially concerning the mensural pain.
I assumed all was normal and suspected no foul play.
I knocked at his door and stepped into his room, he prayed for a short time and asked me to completely undress so that he could anoint me with olive oil.
I was transfixed and confused for a moment, he was so bold with the 'command', after I reluctantly undressed, he rubbed his palms with the oil and placed them on my two breast.
After a while, he placed one of his hands on my vagina and then rubbed the oil in 5 different strokes.
I was totally shocked and embarrassed, totally confused and afraid of what would happen.
It all seemed like I was under a spell; after a while, I dressed up quickly and hurried out of his room. When I got to my room, the time was already 2:00AM, I stayed alert and awake till day break.
I cried intermittently because of what just happened.I could not believe that a man whom I respected so much could act in such a manner.

I kept the whole incidence to myself, I slowly became sober and depressed, always wanting to avoid his presence. Few weeks went by and then suddenly, one evening, he flippantly asked me to come to his room again for another nude prayer and anointing session.
Somehow, I summoned courage and said to him: 'No, please I'm not interested'. He was surprised but said nothing. The next morning, while I was doing house chores, he started barking and shouting without cause. One of the comments he made was: '...do you think if I want to sleep with a lady, it will be someone like you...'

In the midst of his shouting, I was quiet and calm doing the chores - I said nothing.
Ever since then, he always snaps and shouts at me for any little thing and  he has been very hostile.
Whenever I get home 20 or 30 minutes later than normal after work, he would ask me series of questions ranging from: Where did you go to? Where are you coming from? Who were you with? etc'. On days that I am off-work, it is forbidden for me to step-out or leave the house including weekends.

I am tired of the whole thing and I no longer feel welcome in the house.

Kidnapped Orekoya boys:Nanny demands N15million ransom

 We give God all the Glory. Our  Orekoya missing kids have been found. Thank God so much everyone for your prayers and moral and financial support all along. the list is endless, of awesome mothers, sisters, business partners, father's and even kids too. you've been amazing! May God grant all your heart desires too. Much love always.

23 year old Mary Akinloye, the nanny who kidnapped the Orekoya boys on Tuesday April 7th from their home has reached out to the family of the kidnapped boys demanding a N15 million ransom for their release. A friend of the family who spoke with Punch said the nanny called and demanded for N15 million before the boys can be released.

Meanwhile, Lagos state Police spokesperson, Kenneth Nwosu says further investigation into the matter is ongoing. He said there are things the police know but cannot reveal now so as not to break the line of communication with the kidnappers. He said what is important right now is that the boys are returned hale and hearty.

Chibok girls still missing one year later, residents remain displaced

 Two hundred and nineteen still-missing school girls who were abducted by the Islamist group Boko Haram in northeastern are being remembered across Nigeria and in several cities around the world as they mark their first year in captivity. The girls are among the almost three 300 girls Boko Haram members forcefully took away at gun point from their school dormitories in Chibok town. The girls’ kidnapping and subsequent Boko Haram attacks forced most of the residents to flee the town. One year on, Chibok residents say it is not yet safe for them to return home. Sam Olukoya reports from Lagos.
 
 Activists held demonstrations across Nigeria to mark the one-year anniversary of the mass abduction of around 300 school girls by Boko Haram militants in the town of Chibok. While some eventually escaped, 219 are still missing.

The largest rally took place in the capital, Abuja. Oby Ezekwesili is a founder of Bring Back Our Girls group, a movement formed to campaign for the return of the Chibok schoolgirls.
“Our greatest pain as a movement is that our girls could have been found within the first couple of days of their abduction,” Ezekwesili told rally atendees. “We lost that opportunity and today here we are. Our Chibok girls will remain an open sore on the conscience of the nation, that when it mattered most many turned their backs on our Chibok girls.”
Many in Nigeria saw government inaction immediately following the mass abduction of the Chibok girls as a sign that the conflict in the country’s northeastern states was not a priority for President Goodluck Jonathan. He recently lost his bid for re-election, despite a last minute push to recover territory taken by the militants.
Internally displaced persons who fled Chibok in the wake of Boko Haram attacks in the area say even though the Nigerian military has chased the militants away, it is not yet safe to return home.
“For us, it is evidently clear that the home is not safe for us,” says Maina Yahi, a displaced person from Chibok who is taking refuge in Lagos.”The government will not protect, us or perhaps cannot still protect us. So that is why we run this far. So if the government is telling the media that there is peace down Chibok no we disagree with that. There was an attack in the Chibok area and about three people were killed so home is not yet safe for us.”
He said the attack took place just last month, yet the government claims Chibok is now safe. At about the same time as the attack, federal workers laid a foundation stone to rebuild the destroyed school where the abduction occurred.
Yemisi Ransome Kuti, also of Bring Back Our Girls says security issues have to be addressed before urging Chibok’s displaced population to return home: “It is not enough to go and put a stone in a school in Chibok when there will be no children to occupy that school even if you build it. There needs to be more cohesion, more planned and joined up thinking about what to do about these girls and the communities that are being ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgency.”

Civilians from the northeastern states have paid the highest price for the government’s failure to react swiftly and successfully to Boko Haram’s offensive.
The rights group Amnesty International says Boko Haram has abducted more than two thousand women and girls in Nigeria in the last year and used scorched earth tactics to take over entire villages in the northeastern states.
President-elect Muhammadu Buhari has pledged to do more to address the conflict, but just what exactly remains to be seen.

Best and worst moments of 2015 MTV Movie Awards

From Channing Tatum twerking for Jennifer Lopez to host Amy Schumer's archery fail, there were plenty of highlights and misfires from the 2015 MTV Movie Awards.

Here are the jokes, performances and moments that hit the target and the ones and missed it.

Best Moments

Amy Schumer's opener: From a "Boyhood"/HPV joke to nearly flashing J.K. Simmons to her run-in with a cancer support group, Schumer's opening video segment was as reliably hilarious and inventive as her Comedy Central show (which can't come back on TV soon enough). Plus, her monologue killed: "Half of you know who I am, half of you think I'm Meghan Trainor."

Channing Tatum doing his thing: When the cast of "Magic Mike XXL" presented J.Lo with the Scared As Shit Performance award, she asked them exactly what we were all thinking: "Why aren't you dancing?" Channing Tatum obliged, popping a twerk (in a suit) onstage in front of Lopez. "Your turn," he told her. Sadly, she did not oblige.

'The deepest circle of hell:' Terrified Yarmouk residents describe ISIS raid

They took Yarmouk by storm, a sea of masked men flooding into the streets of one the world's most beleaguered places.

Besieged and bombed by Syrian forces for more than two years, the desperate residents of this Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus awoke in early April to a new, even more terrifying reality -- ISIS militants seizing Yarmouk after defeating several militia groups operating in the area.

"They slaughtered them in the streets," one Yarmouk resident, who asked not to be named, told CNN. "They (caught) three people and killed them in the street, in front of people. The Islamic State is now in control of almost all the camp."

An estimated 18,000 refugees are now trapped inside Yarmouk, stuck between ISIS and Syrian regime forces in "the deepest circle of hell," in the words of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, was formed in 1957 to accommodate people fleeing the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The camp, which sits just 6 miles from central Damascus, has been engulfed in fighting between the Syrian government and armed groups since December 2012.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says ISIS and the al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front control about 90% of the camp. The organization also claims that the Syrian government has dropped barrel bombs on the camp in an effort to drive out armed groups.

Activists and residents in Yarmouk tell CNN that as many as 5,000 people have tried to flee their homes since ISIS stormed the camp, but have no place to go.

Hundreds have been injured, but the camp's only functioning hospital was first occupied by ISIS, then targeted last week by regime shelling.

 

 

Attacks in Egypt leave at least 12 dead

At least 12 people were killed Sunday, and more injured, in separate attacks on a police station, a checkpoint and along a highway in Egypt's northern Sinai, authorities said.

Six people, including one civilian, were killed when a car bomb exploded near the police station in Al-Arish, capital of North Sinai, Health Ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel-Ghafar told Ahram Online. He said 40 people were injured.

Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, an ISIS affiliate, claimed responsibility for the attack, which came hours after another operation that the group also claimed.

In that earlier attack, a first lieutenant, a sergeant and four conscripts were killed when their armored vehicle was attacked on the highway from Al-Arish to Sheikh Zuweid in northern Sinai, the military said. Two other soldiers were injured and taken to a military hospital.

Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis has claimed many attacks against the army and police in Sinai.

A third attack Sunday on a checkpoint in Rafah left three security personnel injured, after unknown assailants opened fire at them, according to state media.

The attacks come as the military announced a reshuffle of several senior military positions, state media reported.

Among those being replaced are the generals in charge of military intelligence and Egypt's second field army, which is spearheading the battle against the insurgents in the northern Sinai.

Egypt's army has been fighting a decade-long militant Islamist insurgency, which has spiked since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsy in the summer of 2013.

Hundreds of police and soldiers, as well as civilians, have been killed in militant attacks in the past months.

One killed, 150 hurt in Kenya stampede after electrical blast sparks attack fears

NAIROBI, April 13, 2015:

A panicked student was killed and 150 more were hurt in a stampede on Sunday when an electrical blast sparked fears of a new Islamist attack on a Kenyan university campus.

Some students jumped from as high as the fifth floor of a hostel at the University of Nairobi campus after the pre-dawn explosion, vice-chancellor Peter Mbithi told AFP.

“It was total chaos because we thought now it is our turn after Garissa,” student Michael Njuguna was quoted by Kenyan media as saying.A shocked Kenya is on edge after the April 2 attack by Somalia’s Shebab insurgents on Garissa university that killed 148 people, almost all of them students.Education Minister Jacob Kaimenyi said Sunday’s explosion occurred at around 5.30am while students were sleeping on the university’s Kikuyu campus about 20 kilometres west of the capital.

“A power cable blew up outside the student hostel. The hostel itself was not affected, but the students thought it was an attack,” said Mbithi.“Some students jumped out,” and “there was also a stampede”, said Mbithi.“One student died after jumping from the fifth floor.”Student Spencer Kimani said he jumped out of a window, but only sustained minor injuries.“The blast was so loud, I had to jump out of bed and run,” he said.

About 150 were injured, mostly lightly, while 20 remain in hospital for treatment.

“There is no cause for alarm but we can understand their fears after the recent incident,” Nairobi police chief Benson Kibue said, confirming that a power cable explosion was behind the incident.

The attack in Garissa, a town near the border with Somalia, was the deadliest on Kenyan soil since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi and followed the 2013 Westgate shopping mall massacre in the capital.

THE ECONOMIST...

Imo Police Nab Breakaway MASSOB Members With IED

 
 The Imo State Police Command has arrested two breakaway members of Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), suspected to have fabricated items certified by the command’s Explosive Unit to be Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

The suspect identified as Love Davison, who hails from Aboh Mbaise Local Government Area (LGA) Of Imo State and another Eze Charles were said to have produced the IEDs, in a bid to disrupt peace in the state during Saturday’s Governorship and House of Assembly elections. Parading the suspects at the command headquarters in Owerri, the capital of Imo State in south east Nigeria, the command spokesman, Andrew Enwerem, said the men of the command arrested the suspects following a tip off. He said officials busted the hide-out of the suspects at Umuokirika Ekwereazu in Mbaise LGA of the state and arrested the two suspects.
Mr Enwerem, however, said efforts were being intensified by the police to apprehend the leader of the gang, whose identity is yet to be confirmed.
Recovered from the suspects where drilling machine, gun powder, tins of paint, thread, bucket and other items certified to be components of the IED.
The command has, however, urged the  people of the state to remain calm and come out en masse to exercise their civic rights in Saturday’s elections in the state.
                                                                                                                Channels Television...

Sold by their mother: Shining a light on the child sex trade in Cambodia

 
 When Kieu was 12, her mother asked her to take a job. But not just any job. Kieu was first examined by a doctor, who issued her a "certificate of virginity." She was then delivered to a hotel, where a man raped her for two days.

In 2013, the Freedom Project went to Cambodia with Oscar-winning actress and UNODC Goodwill Ambassador against Human Trafficking, Mira Sorvino. 

In Svay Pak, a notorious child sex trafficking hub in Phnom Penh, Sorvino met Kieu, who was then around 14 years old. She had been rescued from sex trafficking by Agape International Missions (AIM), a non-profit for trafficked and at risk children and teenagers.

Kieu told of how she had been sold aged 12 by her mother to a Khmer man of "maybe more than 50" who had three children of his own, Sorvino explained in her Cambodia journal: "The price set in advance for her virginity: $1,500, though she was ultimately only given $1,000, of which she had to give $400 to the woman who brought her to the man. Her mother used the money to pay down a debt and for food for the fish they raise under their floating house -- their primary income source.

"Beforehand, Kieu said, 'I did not know what the job was and whether it was good for me. I had no idea what to expect. But now I know the job was not good for me.' After she lost her virginity to the man, she felt 'very heartbroken.' Her mother supposedly felt bad too, but still sent her to work in a brothel. Kieu said she did not want to go, but had to. She said, 'They held me like I was in prison.'"

She was kept there for three days, raped by three to six men a day. When she returned home, her mother sent her away for stints in two other brothels, including one 400 kilometers away on the Thai border. When she learned her mother was planning to sell her again, this time for a six-month stretch, she realized she needed to flee her home.

MARIJUANAL: IS IT ECONOMICAL?

For more than 20 years, Jeremy Moberg dreamed of growing cannabis in the sunshine -- without the threat of helicopters or arrest. Now that marijuana is legal in his home state of Washington, he can.
Last year, Moberg started CannaSol Farms, where he is licensed to grow marijuana in Okanogan - a rural area about 4 hours east of Seattle. A self-described “rugged individualist,” he is now one of the 10 biggest producers in the state. Since pot became legal in July, he's grossed almost $1 million in sales.
Yet, the transition from growing a small, illicit crop to commercial scale cultivation hasn't been easy. On top of ensuring the quality of his product and running a sustainable farm, he's been forced to become a businessman - building relationships with retailers, maintaining budgets, managing people, and keeping track of legislative policies and other regulations that impact the industry.
That means these days Moberg is constantly on the phone, working long hours and often on the road, trying to stay ahead in a competitive new marketplace.

Here are journal entries from a day in his life:

Wake up and get my nine-year-old daughter going for her school day. My live-in sales rep, Tyler, is making coffee and eggs. I pay him partially in housing. We need to take breakfast to go as we commute down the mountain to town.

Arrive at CannaSol Farms. I fought tooth and nail to get this farm up and running in time for a 2014 harvest. Most licenses in the state were issued too late for outdoor growers. But we'd rather grow under the sun than use massive amounts of electricity to grow under artificial lighting.

It's exciting to see the plants in one of our greenhouses start to flower. By law, we can grow as much as we can on a limited 21,000 square feet of space - which for us means 2,500 plants currently. Our first harvest will be about 6 to 8 weeks away. Last year, we yielded almost a ton of weed.
The greenhouse manager and I discuss which strains we think will do well in the market. The early season Blue Dream is flowering in another greenhouse. It looks and smells phenomenal.

Phone call from our local soil supplier who says that we are not considered an agriculture business by the state, and therefore, we're not tax exempt. We owe him $5,000 for last year’s sales tax. I write an email to my state representative outlining the issue.

Meeting with Processing and Sales team. Processing complains that there are not enough glass jars to fulfill upcoming orders. We’ve heard from retailers that our glass packaging drives repeat customer visits. We agree to reduce prices on our bagged products, until the glass arrives.

The conversation drifts toward automation and conveyor belts. Right now, it’s a lot of handwork – individually weighing and sealing bags. A large order for 10,000 single gram bags comes in – it’s a decent-sized order but it’s really inefficient to fulfill one-gram units.

I get sample packs together for stops at retail shops and depart for Seattle to catch a plane to Oregon.
People in Oregon will be able to possess marijuana for recreational use starting July 1, but businesses will not get licensed to sell until 2016. As a business owner in next-door Washington, I'm keeping a close eye on this developing market.

Stop in at a new retail store on the way to Seattle. The manager seems excited to carry our sun-grown product, but follow up is key in this industry.

Continue on to Seattle to meet with my marketing director, Andrei. There's a lot more traffic on this side of the state. We get through it just in time to catch the plane to Medford, Oregon.

Head to Williams, Oregon, near the northern California border, to meet some sun growers in the state who are currently providing for the medical market. We're helping them with their branding ahead of upcoming legalization. My advice to them: Brand now, don't wait.

Dinner with the Oregon SunGrown Growers Guild board members. The local growers are apprehensive about the upcoming legalization changes. We give an update on how the Sungrown Growers associations of Washington, Oregon, and California are working together to establish a standard for sustainably grown cannabis.

We show some Oregon growers (still largely in hiding) our branded packaging and marketing; they look at it with a combination of apprehension and interest. Their product currently goes out in bulk, and the dispensaries package it for their patients.
These farmers are still not sure if they want to deal with the complexities of recreationally legal business. The system they have now supports families and a good lifestyle.

We take a break to smoke. I can't run this business and be stoned during the day, and I'm trying to get my employees to understand that, too. But as the day winds down, this Super Silver Haze is a sativa breed of weed that makes you think. It's good for networking and talking business.

Green Leaf Labs gives a talk on marijuana testing. In Washington and Colorado, the law requires all marijuana sold in retail stores to include the THC level on the label. I discuss the prolific THC overstating in Washington. Having 30% or 40% THC on your label would help sales (‘normal’ is 15-25%), but we’re in this for the long haul and don’t want to play that game. Plus, if I really grew something above 30% I’d call the Guinness Book for my prize money.

'Daredevil' has arrived: What's the verdict?

Minor spoilers ahead for the new Netflix series Marvel's "Daredevil."

Justice may be blind, but it's easy to see that Marvel's "Daredevil" is already a hit with fans.

The pitch-black-dark new series streamed its entire first season on Netflix on Friday morning, and the early word is quite good.

Charlie Cox is perfectly cast as blind attorney Matt Murdock, whose nights are consumed with cleaning up the New York neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen while dressed in a black ninjaesque outfit.

As the season unfolds, he heads toward a confrontation with Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. the Kingpin.

Two love interests enter Murdock's life in the form of Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson).

Oh, and there's that red suit.

So what do critics think? Quite a lot, with 94% giving it positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

"Marvel's 'Daredevil,' Netflix's latest offering, is a well-scripted, beautifully acted superhero saga that is surprisingly impressive," said the Philadelphia Inquirer's Tirdad Derakhshani.

"The series stays incredibly faithful to Daredevil's pulp roots and does something delightfully unexpected -- trust its fans enough to spare us a long, drawn-out origin story," said Sadie Gennis of TV Guide.

Early risers on Twitter praised the show as well, especially Cox's performance, as well as a drawn-out, well-choreographed fight scene in episode 2.

Mother in car lake plunge tragedy visits surviving daughter

Kenya Boost Security After Al-Qaeda Attack on University

Nanny Demands N15M For Three Kidnapped Orekoya Kids In Lagos

 

Grow your own veges at home...

 
 

Commercializing creativity

.

According to Caroline Rush, the British Fashion Council's chief executive and co-chair of the New Gen selection panel , this focus on young designers has been instrumental to London's status as a style capital and essential part of the fashion calendar.

"The moment they're selected under that New Gen banner, everyone looks forward to seeing them," says Rush. "We've always had great young designers, and successful brands like Burberry, but (London) was lacking that success in the middle that now attracts international press and attention."

Without Nina?'Vampire Diaries' fans mourn as star Nina Dobrev announces she's leaving

That was the sentiment of many "Vampire Diaries" fans on Tuesday after star Nina Dobrev announced she will be leaving the CW show at the end of this season.

"I always knew I wanted Elena's story to be a six season adventure, and within those six years I got the journey of a lifetime," she posted on her social media accounts after a "goodbye party" at Lake Lanier outside Atlanta, where the show is filmed.

"I was a human, a vampire, a doppelganger, a crazy immortal, a doppelganger pretending to be human, a human pretending to be a doppelganger. I got kidnapped, killed, resurrected, tortured, cursed, body-snatched, was dead and undead, and there's still so much more to come before the season finale in May."

JANKARA FABRICS ROCKS...

This ladies are mother of children and they still rock with  fashion trend. Zephans and Neetah...

See The Woman Who gives birth on the road in Lagos

A woman gave birth to a baby on the streets of Lagos this morning April 7th. Eye witnesses said the woman was on her way to the market when her water broke. She started screaming for help and a few people gathered around her and when they saw the baby's head was already coming out, they helped her deliver the baby right there. The woman and her baby are said to be doing well. God is great! More photos after the cut...

World Health Day

 l

#Didyouknow  that there are over 200 diseases that are caused by unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, parasites, viruses & chemical substances? Approximately two million deaths occur every year from contaminated food or drinking water. It is time to raise awareness..share with your friends! For more info: http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2015/en/

#MissjuvinilengCares   #WorldHealthDay   #FoodSafety   #SafeFood  

Culled From GTB

Man kills 10 family members in marriage dispute in Pakistan

Authorities say a man in Pakistan, angered by a rejected marriage proposal to his cousin, has killed 10 members of his extended family after years earlier killing four others over it.
Police officer Shahid Khan says the attack happened early Sunday in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in its mountainous northwest. Khan says Gul Ahmed, the man suspected of carrying out the attack, is still on the run.
Khan says Ahmed shot dead his uncle, aunt and eight cousins — including Naveeda Bibi, who he wanted to marry. In November 2014, Khan says Ahmed also shot dead his parents and two brothers over wanting to marry her. He was never arrested by police for the earlier killings.

 

Kenya bombs Al Shabab targets amid outcry over response to Garissa attack

The Kenyan government says it has struck back against Al Shabab, bombing two of the Islamist group's Somali camps in retaliation for its deadly attack Thursday on a university in the northeastern town of Garissa. But some experts say the danger to Kenya is less the terrorist group itself than the holes in the country's security thanks to rampant corruption.

A Kenyan spokesman said early Monday that the Air Force had bomb two sites within Somalia   "because according to information we have, those [Al Shabab] fellows are coming from there to attack Kenya," the Guardian reports. The damage done to the two camps, both in the Gedo region bordering Kenya, could not be ascertained because of cloud cover over the sites, the spokesman said.

Al Shabab claimed responsibility last week for the attack on Garissa College University, in which four gunmen killed at least 148 students. Kenyan security forces eventually killed the gunmen. Al Shabab said that the attack was in retaliation for Kenya's ongoing military activity in Somalia, where its Army is aiding the internationally-backed Somali government in rooting out the Islamic group.

 

Kenyan warplanes attack suspected militants position

Christians mark Good Friday in Jerusalem

Thousands of pilgrims commemorate Jesus’s crucifixion throughout the capital’s Old City

 

Catholic worshipers carry a wooden cross during the Good Friday procession along the Via Dolorosa (Way of Suffering) on April 3, 2015 in Jerusalem's Old City.

 

Christian pilgrims from around the world on Friday joined Palestinian co-religionists in a solemn Easter procession through the walled Old City of Jerusalem. 

Some carried massive wooden crosses from the Monastery of the Flagellation along the cobbled Via Dolorosa on the way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Catholic and Orthodox Christians believe Jesus was crucified, entombed and later resurrected on what is now celebrated as Easter Sunday.

“It’s splendid. It’s interesting because back in Singapore at least, the Easter celebrations are not so vibrant,” pilgrim Dominic told AFP.

Laura Samoa, from Ivory Coast, said it was if Christ was himself present.

“The Easter celebration was wonderful,” she said. “You felt like if he is still here again. So, it was wonderful.”

Also on Friday, Jews in Israel and around the world begin celebrating the week-long Passover festival, commemorating the Biblical exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.