What happened
President Donald Trump said over the weekend that the U.S. may take military action in Nigeria to stop the “killing of Christians.” He also threatened to “immediately stop all aid and assistance” to the West African country, whose population of more than 230 million is split almost evenly between Christians and Muslims. Nigerians were “baffled by Trump’s ire” and “described a mixture of confusion and fear” as they “tried to decipher” his threat, The Washington Post said.

Who said what
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing,” the U.S. “may very well go” in, “‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists,” Trump said Saturday on social media. “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!” Trump told reporters last night that he “could be” envisioning airstrikes or ground troops to stop the killing of “record numbers of Christians in Nigeria.”

“Both Christians and Muslims are killed in Nigeria’s security crises,” said The Associated Press, and their deaths are “often determined by their locations and not due to their religion.” Boko Haram’s Islamist insurgency is concentrated in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria. Trump’s claims, following similar allegations from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Christian conservatives, was based on old or misleading reports, said Daniel Bwala, an adviser to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.

What next?
“We don’t expect there to be U.S. military action in Nigeria,” Bwala told the Post, though the Tinubu government would welcome U.S. intelligence sharing. Still, the “once-outlandish image” of Trump “going in ‘guns-a-blazing’ into Africa’s most populous country” is “being taken seriously as Nigerian leaders watch U.S. forces move in on Venezuela,” Semafor’s Africa editor Yinka Adegoke said.

What happened
Jamaica’s death toll from Hurricane Melissa has risen to at least 28 people, the government said Saturday, and some of the areas hit hardest by the Category 5 storm have yet to be reached as crews work to clear roads and debris. The hurricane, one of the strongest ever recorded in the Caribbean, also carved a path of destruction through Cuba and the Bahamas last week, and left 30 people dead in Haiti. 

Who said what
Nearly a week after the hurricane “pummeled into western Jamaica,” the BBC said, people in “devastated communities along the coast are still desperately waiting for help,” with “little food, no power or running water, and no idea of when normalcy will return.” The western part of the island is “considered Jamaica’s breadbasket,” Reuters said, and the devastation to livestock and “flattened fields” there have led to concerns of food scarcity as “farmers struggle to recover and replant.” 

Melissa will have a “crippling effect on our agricultural sector,” Agriculture Minister Floyd Green said. But the full extent of the damage won’t be known until assessments are completed this week.

What next?
Melissa was “among the worst-case scenarios Jamaica could have imagined,” The New York Times said, and the damage will test the island’s “uncommonly sophisticated” and “multilayered financial plan to respond to natural disasters.” The U.S. and other countries have pledged aid and other assistance, but the hurricane will also be a “real test for U.S. disaster response capabilities since the shutdown of USAID,” NPR said.