Hundreds of suspected Islamist militants have died this year while in the custody of the military in northeastern Nigeria, Amnesty International said.
More than 950 presumed members of the Boko Haram militant group perished in the first half of this year alone, London-based Amnesty International said today in a statement, citing an unidentified senior military officer.
Many of the prisoners died of suffocation and starvation in overcrowded facilities, some sustained serious injuries from beatings and received no medical attention, while others were shot dead, Amnesty said, citing testimonies of former detainees. Most of the abuses occurred in the northeastern states of Borno and Yobe in Africa’s top oil producer.
“This is a staggeringly high figure that requires urgent action by the Nigerian government,” Lucy Freeman, Amnesty’s deputy Africa director, said in the statement. “International standards, as well as Nigerian laws, require that deaths in custody must be investigated thoroughly and impartially.”
Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is a sin” in the Hausa language, has killed thousands of people since 2009 across the mainly Muslim north and the capital, Abuja, in its campaign to establish an Islamic state.
Defense Ministry spokesman Chris Olukolade declined to comment on detainee deaths, saying he had not yet seen the Amnesty report.
Indiscriminate Force
“We need to place whoever is the source of the report and its high number of casualties within the larger context of the challenges in facing insecurity in Nigeria and the state of the criminal-justice system, which is overloaded,” Freedom Onuoha, a research fellow at the National Defence College in Abuja, the capital, said by phone today.
Nigeria’s security forces have been accused before of abuses including arbitrary arrests and the indiscriminate use of force in their fight against Boko Haram.
Between 185 and 228 people were killed in the northeastern town of Baga when security forces responded to an attack by suspected Boko Haram militants starting on April 16, according to local officials. New-York based Human Rights Watch said satellite images of Baga showed at least 2,000 homes were destroyed. The army said 30 insurgents, six civilians and a soldier were killed, and 30 houses burned down.
The violence in Baga occurred a month before President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three northeastern states.
“The power of the police has been usurped and some of the practices common in the military are being brought to bear in the maintenance of law and order,” said Onuoha. “Clearly, you’re going to see basic violations.”
[Bloomberg]