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Incident on 15 February 2012 [+] Print this page

Location: Kukawa, Borno [+]

Country: Nigeria [+]

Violation types: Extrajudicial Execution [+]

Location


This incident took place in Kukawa, Borno, Nigeria [+]

Description


According to Amnesty International: "On 15 February, around 100 soldiers from the Multinational JTF Headquarters in Baga arrived in Duguri on boats. The soldiers entered the town and opened fire on civilians and burned the majority of the town to the ground. According to the witnesses, they killed more than 200 people. Ahmed Bukar (not his real name), a 55-year-old business man told Amnesty International: “They [soldiers] started shouting that all of us were Boko Haram members and supporters and they were going to teach us a lesson. Before we could realise, they started shooting and killing people… I saw them shooting at close range, shooting into people’s houses and shooting at the roof of houses to burn them with people inside.” Ahmed fled the town and hid in a boat. The next day, once soldiers had left, he worked with other survivors to bury the dead. “We buried 80 people in my locality, while others buried their corpses in their localities as well. Some in the cemetery. The others that were badly burnt, we just managed to dig a hole near where they were lying and bury them there. Some even in their house. Some in their compound. Among those I buried, some had gunshot wounds in their backs, and some were burnt to death. You could hardly tell who they were. We knew them because they were burnt in their own houses. I remember pulling one woman and her small baby from the ashes. The baby was 18 months old.” Abdullah Umar (not his real name), a 42 year-old fisherman, was at a friend’s shop drinking tea when the shooting started. He also managed to flee the town and hide in an empty boat. The next day, he participated in the burials. “In my locality alone, I helped to bury 17 people. Some were killed by bullets, others were burnt to death in their houses. The entire town was destroyed by the army. I helped to bury five teenagers. All between the ages of 15 and 17. The other seven people I buried were five men and two women.” Abdullah also told Amnesty International that the military killed one of his neighbours with his four young children. Other residents drowned while trying to escape the attack. Eyewitnesses estimated that more than 200 people were killed in the attack. The majority of the residents left after the attack, according to Ahmed and the other former residents, Duguri is now a “ghost town”. Satellite imagery confirms that as of January 2015, the town remains largely deserted. A committee was set up to investigate the attack, comprising local government officials, members of the Nigerian military and the police. Residents compiled the names of those killed in the attack and presented the list to the committee. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether the committee submitted a report. According to the witnesses no steps were taken to hold anyone accountable for these extrajudicial executions." [+]

Perpetrator units

Name Other Names Classification
Multinational Joint Task Force [+] MN-JTF
MNJTF
MNTJTF
MTJF
Multi National Joint Task Force
Multi-National Joint Task Force
Multinational JTF
Army [+]
Joint Task Force [+]
Military [+]

Sources

List of all sources used to evidence the data in this record Click the "+" symbol next to every data point in the record to see the sources used for that data point.

Publication Date Publisher Publication Title Access Date Archive Link
02 June 2015 Amnesty International Stars on their shoulders. Blood on their hands. War crimes committed by the Nigerian military. 44/1657/2015. 27 September 2018