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- Soldier filmed colleagues killing captives in Maiduguri – Report
Posted by : Unknown
Monday, November 19, 2012
November 19, 2012 byBayo-mutualbenefit.blogspot.com
international news agency, REUTERS,
on Sunday reported that it was in possession of an amateur video
showing Nigerian soldiers shooting unarmed captives in broad daylight in
Maiduguri, Borno State.
It said the video was sent to it by a soldier, who claimed to have witnessed the shooting. Reuters quoted the unnamed soldiers as saying that he was present when the soldiers shot the captives about two weeks ago.
Maiduguri is the seat of the violent
Islamic sect, Boko Haram, and there have been many clashes between
military operatives and the sect members.
The report said, “In the grainy footage,
a man sits down next to three or four corpses piled together on the
roadside. He pleads for his life while soldiers shout at him and a crowd
looks on a few metres away. “Please don’t fire,” the man says in Pidgin
English.
“He tries to stand up and get onto the
back of a pickup truck to the left. A Nigerian soldier shouts “come
out”, and drags him off it, shoving him on the ground.
“One of them kicks him in the head. Then
he and another soldier aim assault rifles at him. Four gunshots are
heard and the man lies still next to the others.”
According to Reuters, another
video from the same source, which he said was taken after the
executions, shows soldiers piling up about 24 bodies in two heaps on the
ground from the back of a military truck.
Nigerian army spokesman, Colonel Mohammed Yerima, told Reuters that he had not seen the video but that the events must have been staged.
“How can they do that? It is not
possible. This is the Boko Haram tactics. They will do the killing, say
it’s the military and then Amnesty International and so on will blame
us. It’s not possible for Nigerian troops to act in this way,” Yerima
was quoted as saying.
There have been several allegations of
improper conduct against the Nigerian soldiers in the Joint Task Force
in charge of maintaining peace in the North-East where Boko Haram
members have staged many attacks.
But the military has always denied complicity in the crisis in the zone.
The Guardian of London on
November 2, 2012 reported a similar case of soldiers shooting dead many
during raids in Maiduguri, quoting witnesses and hospital staff.
According to the reports, three
witnesses said soldiers from the JTF raided several neighbourhoods in
Maiduguri late on November 1 and arrested or shot dead dozens of young
men.
“More than 30 bodies were brought in by the JTF and most of them were young men,” The Guradian quoted one nurse at a hospital in the town, Yagana Bukar, as saying.
Amnesty International said in a report
released on Nov. 1 that the JTF had committed human rights abuses in its
fight against Boko Haram.
The report said the JTF had carried out executions in the streets and tortured people without charges ever being brought.