[ 2013-10-15 ]

Hundreds dead in Nigeria detention, Amnesty says
Hundreds of people have died in detention
facilities in north-east Nigeria as the army tries
to crush an Islamist militant rebellion there,
according to Amnesty International.

The human rights group said some detainees died
from suffocation in overcrowded cells, others from
starvation and extra-judicial killings.

In Wednesday's report, it calls for an urgent
investigation into the deaths.

There has not yet been an official response to
the report.

But the Nigerian army has rejected all previous
accusations of human rights abuses.

A senior Nigerian army officer told Amnesty that
at least 950 people had died in military custody
during the first half of this year, according to
an advance copy of the report seen by the BBC.

Most had been accused of having links to the
Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Amnesty said.

Boko Haram is fighting to overthrow Nigeria's
government to create an Islamic state, and has
launched a number of attacks on schools.

About 50 students were shot dead earlier this
month in their hostel, in an attack blamed on Boko
Haram.

A state of emergency was declared in three
northern states in May - Yobe, Borno and Adamawa -
in response to thousands of deaths in militant
attacks.

But while most of the recent news from has been
about these civilian killings, BBC Nigeria
correspondent Will Ross says this latest Amnesty
report shines a light on another grim side of life
in northern Nigeria.

At times, the number of people killed in these
detention centres was so high that there were
regular mass burials, Amnesty said.

The BBC has seen photos of bodies reportedly
dumped outside the mortuary in the city of
Maiduguri by the military.

The bodies showed no obvious signs of having been
killed in combat.

Amnesty has called for an urgent investigation,
but those who follow events closely in Nigeria
will know that such an investigation is highly
unlikely to happen, our correspondent says.

Source - BBC

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