London-based global
human rights group, Amnesty International, has said that hundreds of people
died in detention facilities in north-east part of Nigeria, as many are clamped
there consequent upon the military offensive against the Boko Haram insurgents.
The human rights body
said some of the detainees died from suffocation in overcrowded cells, while
others from starvation and extra-judicial killings.
Consequently, Amnesty
International is seeking a thorough investigation into the alleged deaths of
the detainees.
The Amnesty
International, in its report released yesterday, said “credible information”
from a senior Nigerian Army officer indicated that more than 950 people
suspected of having links to Boko Haram died in military custody in the first
six months of this year.
It also said senior
Ministry of Defence officials had not responded to written details about
soldiers on April 19 depositing 60 bodies at the main hospital mortuary in
Damaturu, the Yobe State capital, claiming they were killed in a shootout.
The body, quoting a
source, said the deposited bodies were detainees taken from their cells and
shot, besides other detainees that had suffocated and starved to death in
horrendous conditions.
The Nigerian Army has
consistently rejected these accusations of human rights abuses, even as Boko
Haram continued its attacks, the latest most painful being the killing of 50
students of school of agriculture in Yobe State.
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