Amnesty international accuses Nigerian army of extra-judicial killings in their fight against Boko Haram

Amnesty International has revealed that Nigerian Army tacking the Boko Haram insurgency has killed over 1,500 people since January 2014 as against an earlier figure of about 1,000 .They say most of those killed were young men and unarmed freed detainees.

They say  600 people were killed on 14 March, after the attack on Giwa Barracks by Boko Haram gunmen, done to free their members. Other detainees were also freed, but most of them were later rounded up and killed by Nigerian soldiers.
According to Netsanet Belay.

“The scale of atrocities carried out by Boko Haram is truly shocking creating a climate of fear and insecurity. But this cannot be used to justify the brutality of the response that is clearly being meted out by the Nigerian security forces,”

Amongst the testimony gathered by Amnesty International were the voices of witnesses who described what happened when the military found 56 of those who had escaped from the Giwa barracks.

“The former detainees were in a classroom. They started screaming ‘we are not Boko Haram. We are detainees!’ My neighbours and I saw the soldiers take the men to a place called ‘no man’s land,’ behind the University of Maiduguri. We watched as the soldiers opened fire killing all 56. They were killed in front of us. All of them.”

Some murdered inmates

Other eyewitnesses in Jiddari Polo, also in Maiduguri, described how members of the “Civilian Joint Task Force” rounded up freed prisoners and handed them to soldiers. More than 190 people were executed, many of whom were too frail to run.

“I saw the soldiers asking the people to lie on the ground. There was a small argument between the soldiers and the civilian JTF. The soldiers made some calls and a few minutes later they started shooting the people on the ground. I counted 198 people killed at that checkpoint.”