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Incident on 29 July 2013 [+] Print this page

Location: Bama, Borno [+]

Country: Nigeria [+]

Violation types: Extrajudicial Execution [+]

Perpetrator classifications: Military [+]

Location


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

Description


According to Amnesty International: "In Bama, a town 70km south-east of Maiduguri, Nigerian soldiers detained 35 men after a screening operation on 23 July 2013. They killed all of them less than a week later. Residents of Bama told Amnesty International that on 23 July a large number of Nigerian soldiers and Civilian JTF from Maiduguri arrived in the town at about 11am and gathered a large group of men behind the central market. According to eyewitnesses, the men were told to take off their clothes. Wearing only their trousers, they were lined up and, one by one, told to close their eyes as they were pushed in front of a man seated in a vehicle. The man then indicated left or right. Thirty-five men were sent to the left, and the remaining 300 or so were sent to the right. Eyewitnesses told Amnesty International that the soldiers and members of the Civilian JTF then ordered the 35 men, whom they accused of being Boko Haram members, to lie down side by side on the ground, and started beating them with sticks and machetes. One eyewitness told Amnesty International that he heard one of the military officials shouting: “You have to beat, even kill these; they are Boko Haram.” The men, eyewitnesses said, were then loaded into a single military truck and taken away. Video footage from the operation recorded on 23 July and later obtained by Amnesty International corroborates these accounts. The two videos clearly show the faces of the soldiers and Civilian JTF members who took part in this operation. They also show the victims, lying on the ground, being beaten by soldiers and Civilian JTF members. The video shows the arrival of a military truck and car, coming to collect the detainees. It then shows Civilian JTF members ruthlessly beating the detainees as they climb into the truck. Another video taken later that day in Bama shows approximately 10 of the arrested men sitting on the ground, outside Kuru Mohammad military barracks, while soldiers and Civilian JTF members continue to beat them. Two men can be seen lying on the ground, apparently unconscious or dead, with blood pouring out of one man’s head. A third video, also taken near the barracks, shows another 16 men seated. A little further away lies a man, seemingly unconscious or dead. At least 50 Civilian JTF members and bystanders watch four soldiers beat and kick a man who appears to be unconscious; they roll him through a large puddle of water and as he regains consciousness, they continue to beat him. Several days later, on the afternoon of 29 July, military personnel took the men out of the barracks and brought them to their communities, where they shot them dead, several at a time, before dumping their corpses. One local resident told Amnesty International that gunshots rang out from around 2pm into the evening as soldiers shot and deposited the bodies in different places around the town." [+]

Sources

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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