Thousands of women and girls in Nigeria have been raped by members of the government army. Amnesty International writes this in a report that was published on Thursday.
The report They Betrayed Us states that women and girls were brought to remote camps. There they were raped, sometimes in exchange for food. This was done by both Nigerian soldiers and members of the militia Civilian Joint Task Force, with which the army cooperates.
According to the human rights organization, it is mainly women and girls who previously lived in villages owned by the Islamic terrorist movement Boko Haram, but have been recaptured by the army. Residents of these villages were forced to go to these camps.
The report came about through 250 in-depth interviews with victims. These have been held in a period of two years, between June 2016 and April 2018.
The report also states that thousands of people have died of hunger. Especially when the camps just existed, there was hardly any food. In that period, according to the report, most people died. From the talks Amnesty International had, it appears that every day fifteen to thirty people die every day due to hunger.
Shocking
“It is absolutely shocking that people who have already suffered so much under Boko Haram are being sentenced to abuse by Nigerian soldiers,” says the director of Amnesty in Nigeria. Amnesty also claims that, since 2015, thousands of people have died of starvation in camps in the northeastern state of Borno.
The human rights organization calls on the Nigerian authorities to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in north-east Nigeria and to publish earlier investigations.
According to the Nigerian president, the report has no credibility.
