Amnesty International has released a report indicting the Nigerian police, military, and regional security outfit Ebube Agu, as well as non-state actors, for massive killings, forced disappearances, and various human rights violations in the South-East region.
According to the report, a staggering 1,844 people were killed by both state and non-state actors between January 2021 and June 2023 alone.
The report, titled “A Decade of Impunity: Attacks and Unlawful Killings in Southeast Nigeria,” documents unlawful killings, torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, and displacement at the hands of rampaging gunmen, state-backed paramilitary outfits, vigilantes, criminal gangs, and cults in the South-East region between January 2021 and December 2024.
According to the report, Over 1,844 people were killed, and hundreds more were arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared.
”Gunmen killed over 400 people in Imo state between 2019 and 2021, often emerging from their camps unmasked to carry out attacks on residents, police stations, and vigilante offices. ”
Amnesty International urged the government to act swiftly to stop the killings in the region .
“The Nigerian authorities’ brutal clampdown on pro-Biafra protests from August 2015 plunged the South-East region into an endless cycle of bloodshed, which has created a climate of fear and left many communities vulnerable.
”Assassinations of prominent personalities and attacks on highways, security personnel, and facilities are chilling reminders of the region’s insecurity,” said Isa Sanusi, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.
“The government must stop turning a blind eye to the unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, enforced disappearances, and destruction of properties in the South-East region.
“Authorities must live up to their constitutional and international human rights obligations, including by ensuring all suspected perpetrators are brought to justice in fair trial, no matter who they are, and that victims and their families have access to justice and effective remedies, ” he added.
The government, police and army have were yet to react to the allegations as of the time of filing the report.
