The Nigerian security forces, led by the military, embarked on a chilling campaign of extrajudicial executions and violence resulting in the deaths of at least 150 peaceful pro-Biafra protesters in the south east of the country, according to an investigation by Amnesty International published today.

Analysis of 87 videos, 122 photographs and 146 eye witness testimonies relating to demonstrations and other gatherings between August 2015 and August 2016 consistently shows that the military fired live ammunition with little or no warning to disperse crowds. It also finds evidence of mass extrajudicial executions by security forces, including at least 60 people shot dead in the space of two days in connection with events to mark Biafra Remembrance Day.

“This deadly repression of pro-Biafra activists is further stoking tensions in the south east of Nigeria. This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths and we fear the actual total might be far higher,” said Makmid Kamara, Interim Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

“The Nigerian government’s decision to send in the military to respond to pro-Biafra events seems to be in large part to blame for this excessive bloodshed. The authorities must immediately launch an impartial investigation and bring the perpetrators to book.”

This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths and we fear the actual total might be far higher Makmid Kamara, Amnesty International Nigeria's Interim Director

Since August 2015, there has been a series of protests, marches and gatherings by members and supporters of IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) who have been seeking the creation of a Biafran state. Tensions increased further following the arrest of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu on 14 October 2015. He remains in detention.

Extrajudicial executions

By far the largest number of pro-Biafra activists were killed on Biafra Remembrance Day on 30 May 2016 when an estimated 1,000 IPOB members and supporters gathered for a rally in Onitsha, Anambra State. The night before the rally, the security forces raided homes and a church where IPOB members were sleeping.

On Remembrance Day itself, the security forces shot people in several locations. Amnesty International has not been able to verify the exact number of extrajudicial executions, but estimates that at least 60 people were killed and 70 injured in these two days. The real number is likely to be higher.

Ngozi (not her real name), a 28-year-old mother of one, told Amnesty International that her husband left in the morning to go to work but called her shortly afterwards to say that the military had shot him in his abdomen. He said he was in a military vehicle with six others, four of whom were already dead. She told Amnesty International: “he started whispering and said they just stopped [the vehicle]. He was scared they would kill the remaining three of them that were alive... He paused and told me they were coming closer. I heard gunshots and I did not hear a word from him after that.”

He started whispering and said they just stopped [the vehicle]. He was scared they would kill the remaining three of them that were alive... He paused and told me they were coming closer. I heard gunshots and I did not hear a word from him after that "Ngozi", a 28-year-old mother of one whose husband was killed

The next day Ngozi searched for her husband and finally found his body in a nearby mortuary. The mortuary attendants told her that the military had brought him and six others. She saw three gunshot wounds: one in his abdomen and two in his chest, which confirmed her fear that the military had executed him.

Amnesty International has also reviewed videos of a peaceful gathering of IPOB members and supporters at Aba National High School on 9 February 2016. The Nigerian military surrounded the group and then fired live ammunition at them without any prior warning.

According to eyewitnesses and local human rights activists, many of the protesters at Aba were rounded up and taken away by the military. On 13 February 13 corpses, including those of men known to have been taken by the military, were discovered in a pit near the Aba highway.

“It is chilling to see how these soldiers gunned down peaceful IPOB members. The video evidence shows that this was a military operation with intent to kill and injure,” said Makmid Kamara.

Deadly repression

Eyewitness testimony and video footage of the rallies, marches and meetings demonstrate that the Nigerian military deliberately used deadly force.

In many of the incidents detailed in the report, including the Aba High School protest, the military applied tactics designed to kill and neutralize an enemy, rather than to ensure public order at a peaceful event.

All IPOB gatherings documented by Amnesty International were largely peaceful. In those cases where there were pockets of violence, it was mostly in reaction to shooting by the security forces. Eyewitnesses told Amnesty International that some protesters threw stones, burned tyres and in one incident shot at the police. Regardless, these acts of violence and disorder did not justify the level of force used against the whole assembly.

Amnesty International’s research also shows a disturbing pattern of hundreds of arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment by soldiers during and after IPOB events, including arrests of wounded victims in hospital, and torture and other ill-treatment of detainees.

Vincent Ogbodo (not his real name), a 26-year-old trader, said he was shot on Remembrance Day in Nkpor and hid in a gutter. When soldiers found him they poured acid on him. He told Amnesty International:

“I covered my face. I would have been blind by now. He poured acid on my hands. My hands and body started burning. The flesh was burning… They dragged me out of the gutter. They said I’ll die slowly.”

I covered my face. I would have been blind by now. He poured acid on my hands. My hands and body started burning. The flesh was burning… They dragged me out of the gutter. They said I’ll die slowly A 28-year-old man who had acid sprayed on him by a soldier

A man who was detained in Onitsha Barracks after the Remembrance Day shooting on 30 May 2016 told Amnesty International: “Those in the guard room [detention] were flogged every morning. The soldiers tagged it ‘Morning Tea’.”

No action by authorities to ensure accountability

Despite this overwhelming evidence that the Nigerian security forces committed gross human rights violations including extrajudicial executions and torture, no investigations have been carried out by the authorities.

A similar pattern of lack of accountability for gross violations by the military has been documented in other parts of Nigeria including the north east in the context of operations against Boko Haram.

“Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the government of Nigeria to initiate independent investigations into evidence of crimes under international law, and President Buhari has repeatedly promised that Amnesty International’s reports would be looked into. However, no concrete steps have been taken,” said Makmid Kamara.

In the very rare cases where an investigation is carried out, there is no follow up. As a result of the apparent lack of political will to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of such crimes, the military continues to commit human rights violations and grave crimes with impunity.

In addition to investigations, the Nigerian government must ensure adequate reparations for the victims, including the families. They should end all use of military in policing demonstrations and ensure the police are adequately instructed, trained and equipped to deal with crowd-control situations in line with international law and standards. In particular, firearms must never be used as a tool for crowd control.

Background

The findings of this report involved an analysis of 87 videos and 122 photographs showing IPOB gatherings and members of security forces in the process of committing violations and victims of these violations. 193 interviews were conducted.

On 30 September 2016, Amnesty International shared the key findings of this report with the Federal Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Interior, Inspector General of Police and the Director-General of the state Security Services. Responses were received from the Attorney General and Inspector General of Police but neither answered the questions raised in the report.

IPOB emerged in 2012 and campaigns for an Independent Biafran state. Almost fifty years ago, an attempt to establish Biafra state led to a civil war from 1967 to 1970.

TAKE ACTION</s>Image caption Recurring protests seeking an independent Biafra have been seen in the past year

Nigeria's security forces have killed more than 150 peaceful protesters since August 2015, a human rights group has claimed.

Amnesty International said the military used live ammunition and deadly force against pro-Biafra protesters who were campaigning for an independent state in the south-east.

Nigeria's police denies allegations that it used unnecessary force.

The country's army said Amnesty was trying to tarnish its reputation.

Amnesty's report is based on interviews with almost 200 people, alongside more than 100 photographs and 87 videos.

Among the allegations contained in the report are what Amnesty called "extrajudicial executions", when 60 people were shot and killed in south-eastern Onitsha city, in the two days surrounding Biafra Remembrance Day in May 2016.

"This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths, and we fear the actual total might be far higher" said Makmid Kamara, Amnesty's interim director for Nigeria.

Other victims detailed in the report include a 26-year-old man who was shot in Nkpor, but hid in a gutter, still alive. He said when soldiers found him, they poured acid over him, and told him he would die slowly.

Image copyright Amnesty Image caption This photo from Amnesty International shows a man who said soldiers poured acid on him after he was shot

Another woman said she had been speaking to her husband on a mobile phone when he told her he had been shot in the abdomen. He was calling from a military vehicle, she said, and she heard gunshots. She later found his body in a morgue with two more wounds in his chest, leading her to believe he had been executed after the call.

'Unimaginable atrocities'

The human rights organisation said pro-Biafra protests had been "largely peaceful" despite occasional incidents of protesters throwing stones and burning tyres - and one occasion when someone shot at police.

"Regardless, these acts of violence and disorder did not justify the level of force used against the whole assembly."

But army spokesman Sani Usman that "the military and other security agencies exercised maximum restraints despite the flurry of provocative and unjustifiable violence".

The two main secessionist groups in the south-east, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, had committed "unimaginable atrocities", he said.

This included burning and killing people from other parts of Nigeria and forcing them to flee, Col Usman added.

In the past year there has been a series of protests to demand the creation of the state of Biafra in the south-east, home to the Igbo people.

Prominent IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu has been detained without trial since October 2015, with the government defying a court order to release him.

Analysis: Martin Patience, BBC News, Lagos

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Nigeria's Biafra leader in 1969 urges on his 'brave boys'

The mention of Biafra continues to trigger powerful emotions in Nigeria - and memories of the country's darkest chapter.

In 1967, nationalists attempted to create the independent state of Biafra in the south-east. It was to be a homeland for the Igbo people, one of the country's largest ethnic groups.

But the bid for independence plunged the nation into a three-year civil war that killed at least a million people.

Almost 50 years on and the bitterness of that period still lingers. Many Igbos claim they are still being punished for the conflict.

In the past year that anger has manifested itself in a younger generation who have staged a wave of protests, fuelled, in part, by high unemployment and anger about official corruption - issues that are hardly unique to the Igbos.

But IPOB appears to have gained momentum after the Nigerian authorities detained Mr Kanu, accusing him of treason.

It is this heavy-handed approach, say human rights groups, that is inflaming the tensions.</s>In May 2016, it said, at least 60 people were shot dead and 70 injured in two days of events to mark Biafra Remembrance Day.

Amnesty said the military used live ammunition with little or no warning to disperse the protesters.

"This deadly repression of pro-Biafra activists is further stoking tensions in the southeast of Nigeria," Amnesty warned in its report.

"This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths and we fear the actual total might be far higher," said Makmid Kamara, interim director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

The watchdog said its report was based on analysis of 87 videos, 122 photographs and 146 eyewitness accounts relating to demonstrations and other gatherings of Biafran activists between August 2015 and August 2016.

Amnesty said the military used live ammunition with little or no warning to disperse the protesters.

In May 2016, it said, at least 60 people were shot dead and 70 injured in two days of events to mark Biafra Remembrance Day.

"The Nigerian government's decision to send in the military to respond to pro-Biafra events seems to be in large part to blame for this excessive bloodshed," it said.

"We wish to debunk the insinuation that our troops perpetrated the killing of defenceless agitators. This is an outright attempt to tarnish the reputation of the security forces," Usman said in a statement.

He said the activists had in fact killed five policeman at a protest in May and attacked military and police vehicles.

"(...) The military and other security agencies exercised maximum restraints despite the flurry of provocative and unjustifiable violence," he added.

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has staged series of demonstrations across the southeast since the arrest in October last year of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, who has been charged with treason and still in detention.

Kanu, who is also head of the banned Radio Biafra, is accused of calling for a separate republic of Biafra, nearly 50 years after a previous declaration of independence sparked a civil war.

The 1967-70 conflict left more than a million people dead, most of them from starvation and disease, as the Igbo nation was blockaded into submission.

Amnesty and other human rights groups have previously highlighted similar claims against the military in December last year, when at least 350 Shiite Muslim protesters were killed in the northern city of Zaria.

The military has also been accused of a catalogue of abuses against civilians during Boko Haram's Islamist insurgency in the northeast.</s>Demonstrators from the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group wave flags and hold a sign reading "Freedom for Biafra" during a protest in Abidjan on September 23, 2016 calling for the release of pro-Biafra leader Nnamdi Kanu (AFP Photo/Sia Kambou)

Lagos (AFP) - Amnesty International on Thursday accused Nigeria's security forces of killing at least 150 pro-Biafra protesters and injuring hundreds since August 2015.

"This deadly repression of pro-Biafra activists is further stoking tensions in the southeast of Nigeria," Amnesty warned in its report.

"This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths and we fear the actual total might be far higher," said Makmid Kamara, interim director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

The watchdog said its report was based on analysis of 87 videos, 122 photographs and 146 eyewitness accounts relating to demonstrations and other gatherings of Biafran activists between August 2015 and August 2016.

The protesters were asking for a separate state for the Igbo people of southeast Nigeria.

Amnesty said the military used live ammunition with little or no warning to disperse the protesters.

In May 2016, it said, at least 60 people were shot dead and 70 injured in two days of events to mark Biafra Remembrance Day.

"The Nigerian government’s decision to send in the military to respond to pro-Biafra events seems to be in large part to blame for this excessive bloodshed," it said.

"The authorities must immediately launch an impartial investigation and bring the perpetrators to book."

"We wish to debunk the insinuation that our troops perpetrated the killing of defenceless agitators. This is an outright attempt to tarnish the reputation of the security forces," Usman said in a statement.

He said the activists had in fact killed five policeman at a protest in May and attacked military and police vehicles.

"(...) The military and other security agencies exercised maximum restraints despite the flurry of provocative and unjustifiable violence," he added.

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has staged series of demonstrations across the southeast since the arrest in October last year of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, who has been charged with treason and still in detention.

Kanu, who is also head of the banned Radio Biafra, is accused of calling for a separate republic of Biafra, nearly 50 years after a previous declaration of independence sparked a civil war.

The 1967-70 conflict left more than a million people dead, most of them from starvation and disease, as the Igbo nation was blockaded into submission.

Amnesty and other human rights groups have previously highlighted similar claims against the military in December last year, when at least 350 Shiite Muslim protesters were killed in the northern city of Zaria.

The military has also been accused of a catalogue of abuses against civilians during Boko Haram's Islamist insurgency in the northeast.</s>(CNN) Nigerian security forces have killed at least 150 people in a series of attacks against the largely peaceful pro-Biafra secessionist movement, according to a report by Amnesty International .

The report finds "overwhelming evidence that Nigerian security forces committed gross human rights violations" at a number of public gatherings in the country's southern region since August 2015.

In what the human rights group calls "a chilling campaign," security forces were apparently responsible for the extrajudicial killings, detentions, and torture of supporters of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a group that is pushing for an independent Biafran state in Nigeria's oil-rich southeast.

"This deadly repression of pro-Biafra activists is further stoking tensions in the southeast of Nigeria," said Makmid Kamara, Interim Director of Amnesty International Nigeria

"This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths and we fear the actual total might be far higher," Kamara said.

The report was based on the analysis of 87 videos and 122 photographs, along with 146 witness interviews.

It states that many of the abuses occurred around the Biafra Remembrance Day celebrations on May 30, 2016, in Onitsha, Anambra State. Security forces raided homes the night before the event and then opened fire the next day with live ammunition on a crowd of approximately 1,000 people, the report says.

A 26-year-old man interviewed in the report said was at the rally when he was shot and then hid from security forces in a gutter.

He said that when soldiers found him they poured acid on him.

"I covered my face. I would have been blind by now," he told Amnesty International. "He poured acid on my hands. My hands and body started burning. The flesh was burning... They dragged me out of the gutter. They said I'll die slowly."

The report acknowledges that some protesters threw stones, burned tires and in at least one incident, shot at police.

"These acts of violence and disorder did not justify the level of force used against the whole assembly," the report reads.

Nigerian military spokesman Colonel Sani Usman said: "We wish to debunk the insinuation that our troops perpetrated the killing of defenseless agitators.

This is an outright attempt to tarnish the reputation of the security forces in general and the Nigerian Army in particular, for whatever inexplicable parochial reasons.

"For umpteenth times, the Nigerian Army has informed the public about the heinous intent of this Non-Governmental Organisation," Usman added, "which is never relenting in dabbling into our national security in manners that obliterate objectivity, fairness and simple logic."

The Biafra movement calls for an independent state in the majority Igbo region in Nigeria's oil producing southeast. Supporters of the independence movement claim the region has been marginalized from government participation and development.

The Igbo are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa's most populous nation, and their historical grievances carry over after the Nigerian Civil War, which started in 1967 and was largely fought to repress the Igbo secessionist movement. The Igbo lost the war, which ended in 1970.

For more than a year the IPOB have been staging a series of rallies seeking the establishment of a Biafran state.

Protests intensified in October 2015 when Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the IPOB, was arrested. He remains in detention.

The rights group calls for reparation for the victims as well as impartial investigations into those who perpetrated the abuses, which it says have not been adequately addressed by Nigerian authorities.

"Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the government of Nigeria to initiate independent investigations into evidence of crimes under international law, and President (Muhammadu) Buhari has repeatedly promised that Amnesty International's reports would be looked into," said Amnesty's Kamara.

However, "no concrete steps have been taken," he said.</s>LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria's military has killed at least 150 peaceful protesters in a "chilling campaign" to repress renewed demands to create a breakaway state of Biafra in the southeast, Amnesty International said Thursday.

The military denied any "killing of defenseless agitators." Security forces have "exercised maximum restraint" in response to violent protesters who in May killed five police officers and wounded several soldiers, said army spokesman Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman.

The London-based human rights organization said an analysis of 87 videos, 122 photographs and testimony from 146 witnesses showed "the military fired live ammunition with little or no warning" into crowds protesting in several cities between August 2015 and August 2016.

Hundreds of people have been arbitrarily detained and some tortured, Amnesty said.

The report quotes one woman in Onitsha city who said her husband called her May 30 to say a soldier had shot him in the stomach and he was in a military truck with six others, four already dead, and then whispering that the vehicle had stopped. Then she heard gunshots. The woman later found her husband's body at a mortuary with three gunshot wounds, one to the stomach and two in the chest, the report said.

Amnesty said it has "evidence of mass extrajudicial executions by security forces," including at least 60 people killed at a May 30 rally in Onitsha to commemorate the 1967-1970 civil war to create a Biafran state for the Igbo people. One million people died in that war.

Usman accused the secessionists of targeting other tribes in "a reign of hate, terror and ethno-religious controversies ... (threatening) national security."

Protests have increased, along with military violence, since the October 2015 arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, a leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, who has broadcast incendiary statements in southeast Nigeria through the group's London-based clandestine Radio Biafra.

Amnesty said that Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to investigate but done nothing about its previous reports documenting the December 2015 military killings of more than 300 Shiites and the deaths in military detention of some 8,000 people in the war to curb Boko Haram's Islamic.</s>Nnewi—The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, and its Directorate of State, DOS, said it totally agreed with Amnesty International reports concerning the incessant killing of Biafrans.

IPOB in a statement signed by its Media and Publicity Secretary Mr. Emma Powerful said the report has proved IPOB right, but added that they will continue to be in the forefront of the struggle for the restoration of Biafra nation in spite of the incessant killing of their members.

“However, the 150 people killed which was given by the Amnesty international was not the accurate number of IPOB and Biafrans killed since August 2015 till date. The number is uncountable. They are also involved in secret kidnapping and killing of Biafrans.”

IPOB statement read in part: “IPOB’s records and statistics department gathered from all parts of Biafraland, revealed that we have over 2000 members killed, 750 missing since then till date, we have not seen their dead bodies and we are still searching for them. We also have 567 members under-going medical treatment in different hospitals.”

“In the same vein, we have 370 people undergoing severe torture in different prisons and security cells across the country from the hands of security agents.

“As we are talking now, the DSS and other security agencies in Nigeria are still searching for the members of IPOB across the country. Some are still in the DSS secret cells for over six months without being taken to court.”</s>Amnesty International, Thursday, released a video to back its report stating that the Nigerian security forces led by the military, embarked on a chilling campaign of extrajudicial executions and violence resulting in the deaths of at least 150 peaceful pro-Biafra protesters in the South Eastern part of the country.</s>The South East caucus in the Senate has said that the Federal Government should immediately constitute a judicial panel to probe the report of the Amnesty International, which indicated that no fewer than 150 innocent and defenceless members of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), have been killed by security operatives.

A statement by the chairman, South East Senate caucus, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, indicated that the report by the Amnesty International, which painted a very chilling picture of the killing of peaceful protesters allegedly by the Nigerian Army, is not only embarassing, but one that cast doubts on the operational modus of the military in handling civil protest in a constitutional democracy

“It is not enough for the military to debunk the report, we, as a caucus, demand an independent inquiry in the mould of a judicial panel and urgently, too. “It is our candid view that such panel would reassure the Igbo that the Federal Government is alive to its responsibilities one of which is the protection and respect of the fundamental rights of all people irrespective of tribe or religion.

“Unraveling the authenticity of the report would help to prevent a re-occurence, just as it will engender unity in our country. But the most important to us now is that the report must be probed and those implicated must be made to face justice.”
Amnesty International reports Nigerian security forces have killed more 150 pro-Biafra demonstrators since August 2015.