Friday 12 October 2012

Boko Haram has killed over 2,800 people in just 3 years – Report


No fewer than 2,800 persons have been sent to their grave by the radical Boko Haram sect since 2009, Human Rights Watch (HRW), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has said.
The group, while announcing the figure yesterday blamed the perpetual crisis in the country on prevalent poverty, corruption and police abuse.
The African Director of rights group, Mr Daniel Bekele said this at the launching of a report in Lagos on Thursday, while calling on the government to find solution to the Boko Haram insurgence.
The 98-page report, entitled, ‘Spiralling Violence: Boko Haram attacks and security force abuses in Nigeria,’ accused armed forces, which, it alleged, engaged in numerous abuses, including extra-judicial killings in the country.
Bekele said, “The unlawful killing by both the Boko Haram sect and armed forces only grows worse. Both sides need to halt this downward spiral.”
According to Human Rights Watch, the report was based on a field research conducted between July 2010 and July 2012, and close monitoring of media reports of the Boko Haram attacks and statements for the past three years.
It added that 135 people, including 91 witnesses were victims of the Boko Haram violence or armed forces abuses, as well as lawyers, civil society leaders, government officials, senior military and police personnel.
The group disclosed that in the first nine months of 2012 alone, more than 815 people died in some 275 suspected attacks by the group – and equally more than the aforementioned figure in all of 2010 and 2011 attacks.
While lamenting that five days of clashes between the group and armed forces left more than 800 people dead in July 2009 and precipitated further violence, the group recalled that security personnel, in 2009, arrested and allegedly executed the group’s leader, Mohammed Yusuf, with at least several dozens of his followers in Maiduguri.
The report said, “When the group reemerged in 2010, under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau, Yusuf’s former deputy, it vowed to avenge the killings of its members.”
Quoting media reports in Nigeria, the group further added that at least 211 policemen lost their lives in the attacks orchestrated by the Boko Haram foot soldiers.
The group however called on the government to address the security situation before the entire nation is wiped out.

DailyPost

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