ABUJA — Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission said on SUnd it had credible reports that security forces are killing, torturing, illegally detaining and raping civilians in a fight to halt an Islamist uprising in the northeast of the country in which about 2,000 people have died since 2010.
A report by the commission said troops retaliating against civilians had torched homes and tried to hide evidence of gross violations by disposing of bodies.
In the most egregious case, troops went on a rampage in several villages after a soldier was killed in mid-April in the fishing village of Baga. The report quotes police officers saying soldiers "started shooting indiscriminately at anybody in sight, including domestic animals".
"This reaction resulted to loss of lives and massive destruction of properties," they said.
The military said 36 people were killed, most of them extremist fighters. Witnesses said at the time that about 187 civilians had been killed.
The commission said the killings also came after militants had ransacked an armoury, with subsequent reports indicating the extremists enjoyed an increase in the calibre and quantity of weapons. In addition, they "had become both more organised and emboldened by their apparent successes despite the enhanced security presence".
That contradicted military reports that they have taken control of the region in a military emergency covering three states and one-sixth of the country. Instead, they appear to have pushed the fighters into rocky mountains with caves where it is more difficult to flush them out.
The extremists regularly attack towns and villages.
The commission, a government body, issued an interim report that it said it would only finalise it when its investigators are able to visit the area, where soldiers have cut cellphone and internet connections.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency on May 14 saying extremists from the Boko Haram terrorist group had taken control of some towns and villages.
The insurgency poses the biggest threat in years to security in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation of 160-million and the continent’s biggest oil producer.
Whole communities trapped between the Islamic militants and the security forces "reportedly live in desperate fear and destitution", the commission said. It warned of an imminent public health emergency and food shortages because farmers had been forced from their fields.
Food prices had nearly trebled, the commission said, with a 50kg sack of rice selling for up to 18,000 naira (R1,094) from 7,000 naira.
Some medical experts from the region have reported a notable upsurge in sudden deaths, heart attacks and aneurysms, the commission said. Northeast Nigeria already presented "the worst statistics of human development in Nigeria generally".
Maternal mortality rates were three times the national average of 545 deaths for every 100,000 live births, and reports reaching the commission suggest the emergency has even more mothers dying in childbirth.
Northeast Nigeria is the poorest region in the country, with government statistics indicating 75% of the population lives from hand to mouth on less than $1 a day.
Sapa-AP
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