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Pressure Mounts On Buhari To Act On Amnesty International’s Report Indicting Top Military Officers Of War Crime

 Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein

Pressure has started mounting on President Muhammadu Buhari to act fast on the report coming of Amnesty International that indicted five top military officers in Nigeria of war crime and human rights violation in the course of executing the war against Boko Haram in the North East in particular.
The latest call for action came from the United Nations, with its commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, asking President Buhari to investigate Amnesty International’s reports of crimes by Boko Haram and alleged abuses by the Nigerian military
In a statement issued by him, Al-Hussein said that he had seen allegations of mass executions, rape and amputations of children.
He described the role by the Nigerian military in the fight against Boko Haram as “extremely worrying.”
He said that reports had emerged about the conduct of Nigerian armed forces, adding that one man testified about his ordeal when he was mistaken for a Boko Haram member and detained by the military in Yola in Adamawa.
“The man said he spent five days without food or water, as detainees drank the urine of others to quench their thirst. He claimed that there was an average of five deaths per day in the facility.
“Civilians in northeast Nigeria have been living through horrifying acts of cruelty and violence by Boko Haram. These include wanton killings, summary executions, forced participation in military operations – including the use of children to detonate bombs, forced labour, forced marriage and sexual violence, including rape.
“We have reports of children who were suspected of theft and had their hands amputated, of a man stoned to death on accusations of fornication, mass executions of captives whose hands and legs were bound and who were dumped into rivers and wells.”
The UN representative recalled that about 1,000 people were brutally killed by insurgents in Mararaba and Madagali in Adamawa state in late 2014, adding that the UN encountered some witnesses who described how insurgents asked villagers in Kwajafa, Borno state to gather to hear them preach.
“When the villagers gathered, the insurgents opened fire. The U.N. Human Rights Office has also received a video recording of an execution, allegedly of a girl who refused to convert to Islam.” [myad]

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