Boko Haram: 10,000 Nigerians Arrested By Military Died In Custody

At least, 10,000 persons have died in custody since 2011, Amnesty International has claimed on Monday.

The statement by the body made available to the media, also revealed that many of them are detainees of Giwa Barracks, Maiduguri, Borno State.

The global watchdog further added that the aged had become a major casualty figure in the terror war in the North-East.

“Amnesty International estimates that in the context of the Boko Haram crisis, at least 10,000 people have died in custody since 2011, many of them in Giwa Barracks.

The organisation reviewed more than 120 images of corpses brought from the barracks to a local mortuary and spoke to individuals with insider knowledge who estimated that 15 to 25 per cent of those who have perished are older men. This is disproportionately high, as older men appear to account for no more than four per cent of the population in North-East Nigeria. In April 2017 alone, 166 corpses were transferred from Giwa to the mortuary,” it said.

Making further disclosure in a new report, “My heart is in pain,” which was released on Monday, Joanne Mariner, Director of Crisis Response, said: “When Boko Haram has invaded towns and villages, older men and women have often been among the last to flee, leaving them particularly exposed to the armed group’s brutality and repression, amounting to war crimes and likely crimes against humanity.

“This has included torture, being forced to witness killings and abductions of their children, as well as looting, resulting in extreme food insecurity. “Nigeria’s military, in turn, has repeatedly shot older people to death in their own homes during raids on villages in Boko Haram-controlled areas. Thousands of older people have been denied dignity in hellish conditions in military detention with many hundreds of them dying in squalor. These, too, amount to war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity.”

Detailed in the 67-page report are accounts of survivours who are advanced in age. Eighty-year-old woman from a village in Michika Local Government Area of Adamawa State was quoted as saying: “Boko Haram asked why I was still around when others had run away. I told them it was my house and I was not scared of dying. Some of them said instead of killing me, they would put me in permanent pain. They brought out their knife and stabbed me in my foot, leaving a big gash.”

READ MORE: Boko Haram's Weapons Are From Nigeria's Armoury - Donald Duke

A man in his late 50s from a village in Bama, Borno State, was also interviewed by AI and he reportedly described a Nigerian military attack on his village thus: “They came in the night. My father was an older man, more than 75. I said we should run to the bush. He said he couldn’t, he was too old. We came back, around 2.00 a.m. He had bullets all in his body. We took the body to the farm area and we buried it there.” “Nobody is hearing us, nobody is seeing us,” one older woman told the organisation.

The statement further read, “Amnesty International spoke to older people from 17 camps across Borno State and none of them had received targeted assistance as an older person. They felt invisible or as if they were treated as a ‘burden’."

Some reported having to beg just to have enough food and medicine to survive. Others said they were forced to go without essential medication. “Many older women in particular face further challenges as they care for grandchildren whose parents were killed, abducted or detained by Boko Haram or the Nigerian military.

Gender discrimination and patriarchal norms in North-East Nigeria pose additional barriers to older women’s participation in processes that impact their lives. “On November 28, 2020, Boko Haram killed at least 43 farm workers near Koshebe village, in Borno State, mostly with machetes or knives; dozens more civilians from the area remain missing.

Amnesty International interviewed a 65-year old man who was among those captured; he was on a one-week contract for farm labour, as he said the food assistance his family receives in displacement is irregular and insufficient to feed them. “Boko Haram spared and released the man, but murdered two of his sons. ‘Those boys, they’re the ones who help me stay alive,’ the man said. Boko Haram had murdered another of his sons five years earlier, during an attack that forced his family to flee their village in Mafa Local Government Area.”