Amnesty Int’l calls on Nigeria to investigate detainee deaths - TRIBUNE

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• Wednesday, 16 October 2013 00:00

Amnesty International has said that hundreds of people have died in Nigerian military detention centres from mistreatment or neglect this year. The group said the detainees were usually suspected of being associated with Boko Haram, a militant group that has been terrorising northern Nigeria for nearly four years.
Last May, Nigeria began its largest-ever assault on Boko Haram after President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three north eastern states.
Officials say Nigeria is at war with Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group blamed for thousands of deaths since 2009.
Amnesty International researcher, Makmid Kamara, said Nigeria’s prisons were full and that crowds of Boko Haram suspects were being packed into rooms meant to accommodate 20 or 30 people.
“When mass arrests are conducted,  the suspects are put in those small rooms,” he said. “Up to 100, 150 people at one time and most of these people are not fed well.”
Worse than bad food, he said, is that the rooms have no beds or toilets and sometimes no ventilation. He further said that in northern Nigerian heat, former detainees said some people literally suffocated from the poor conditions.
“During interrogations, we were told that some suspects are shot in the leg and they are left to bleed to death and they are brought back into the cells without any medical care,” he said.
The Nigerian military has repeatedly denied accusations from both international and Nigerian rights groups that soldiers are responsible for killing some suspects and arresting others without charges.
Some analysts said these amnesty accusations are unfounded because soldiers are often the targets of the insurgency and they constantly have to defend themselves.
Military officials have also said they do investigate occasional individual cases of excessive force.
However, Amnesty International has said a wider investigation is needed.
Kamara said, “we think that these allegations of people that died in detention must be investigated as a matter of urgency and  those who are found as suspected perpetrators must be brought to justice in a fair trial.”
Boko Haram has attacked churches, schools, markets, communications networks, government buildings and the local UN headquarters.
The former detainees that spoke to Amnesty International were mostly in Borno and Yobe states, the heart of the insurgency.  But Kamara said many reported that although they were locked up, they were not formally charged with a crime.