Amnesty: 8,000 Killed in Anti-Boko Haram Campaign
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Date: 6/3/2015 10:10:41 AM
Sender: VOA
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FILE - Niger＇s special forces prepare to fight Boko Haram in Diffa, March 26, 2015.
A human rights group says more than 8,000 Nigerians have died as a result of the government＇s campaign to stamp out insurgent group Boko Haram.
Amnesty International says its researchers found more than 1,200 people have been executed since 2009 during raids by the Nigerian military. It says at least 7,000 more have died in custody because of torture, thirst, hunger or severe overcrowding in jails.
The rights group says senior military officials had full knowledge of the detentions and high death rate, but took no action to halt the abuses.
Amnesty is calling for Nigeria＇s new government under President Muhammadu Buhari to launch an investigation.
Buhari is visiting neighboring Niger for talks on Boko Haram, on his first trip out of the country since taking office last week.
The new president has said he will move the military＇s base of operations against Boko Haram to the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the scene of many attacks by the Islamist insurgents.
The latest of those attacks took place Tuesday, when reports say as many as 20 people died in a suicide bombing at a cattle market. The bombing came after Boko Haram fighters attacked the city using rocket-propelled grenades.
Tuesday＇s attack was the third Boko Haram assault on the northeastern city since Buhari took office. At least 26 people were killed during the previous attack on Saturday.
Maiduguri is the largest city in restive northeastern Nigeria, with a population of two million, among them hundreds of thousands of displaced people from other parts of Borno state.
Also Tuesday, Niger＇s President Mahamadou Issoufou said in coming weeks a multinational force to fight Boko Haram will become operational.
Troops from Niger, Chad and Cameroon have been helping Nigeria fight the militant group, which has staged attacks in all three neighboring countries.
More than 1.5 million Nigerians have been displaced by the nearly six-year-old Islamic uprising in Nigeria’s northeast. Amnesty International says the conflict has killed an estimated 17,000 people. |
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