Apart from the abduction of 276
Chibok School girls nearly two years ago, the Human
Rights Watch (HRW) asserts that ‘’about 400 women and children, including
at least 300 elementary school students were also abducted by Boko Haram from
the town of Damasak in Borno State between March 13 and 15, 2015’’. HRW
recounts that the Damasak abduction is the largest documented school abduction
by Boko Haram militants even though it drew less public attention and outrage
than that of the Chibok girls in April 2014.
The Nigerian government should
take urgent steps to secure the release of about 400 women and children,
including at least 300 elementary school students, abducted by Boko Haram from
the town of Damasak in Borno State a year ago. It is unclear whether the
Nigerian government has made any serious effort to secure their release.
“Three hundred children have
been missing for a year, and yet there has been not a word from the Nigerian
government,” said Mausi Segun,
Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities need to wake up and
find out where the Damasak children and other captives are and take urgent
steps to free them.”
On November 24, 2014, Boko Haram
attacked Damasak, a trading town about 200 kilometers northwest of Maiduguri,
near the border with Niger, blocking all four roads leading into the town and
trapping residents and traders. The insurgents quickly occupied Zanna Mobarti
Primary School, shutting the gates and locking more than 300 students, ages 7
to 17, inside, according to a teacher at the school and other witnesses Human
Rights Watch interviewed. The Boko Haram militants then used the school as a
military base, bringing scores of other women and children abducted across the
town there as captives.
In February 2016, a woman who
was at home in Damasak that morning told Human Rights Watch what happened:
It was early morning when I
heard gunshots and chaos. My husband had already left home for the market so I
grabbed my two children, a boy age four years and a girl age two years, and
ran. But we ran into Boko Haram and they detained us in the middle of the town.
They brought more and more women and children to where we were kept. Then they took
all of us to Zanna Mobarti Primary School…I have not seen my children since
then.
The insurgents separated the
women from the children and the boys from the girls. Some of the women held
captive later told Human Rights Watch they could hear the screams and cries of
the children, but they were not permitted to go to them. Over the following
weeks and months, the militants forced their captives to learn the Quran. A
number of women and children died in captivity after they were fed putrid food,
which caused severe vomiting and diarrhea.
The men who were captured by
Boko Haram were kept at different locations, including an estimated 80 men in
the house of the district head, a witness said. In the days and weeks following
the attack, some of the men were forced to dispose of bodies left on the
streets and in the market area. Scores of bodies were dumped into a nearby
river and makeshift graves, among other locations. A witness forced to
participate in the operation said he saw hundreds of bodies.
One teacher who had escaped
from the primary school but was recaptured soon after told Human Rights Watch,
“I was held captive by [Boko Haram] for at least six days…Corpses were on the
street. They forced us to carry [the corpses] and go and dispose of them in the
river and there is nothing one could do about it.” The insurgents shot several
people who tried to escape by jumping into the river. One man who escaped by
swimming across the river said, “Those that were able to swim escaped and those
that couldn’t held on to the grass, and they were shot.”
Video footage and satellite
imagery taken in late December 2014, obtained and analyzed by Human Rights
Watch, confirms the presence of corpses in the riverbed.
Nigerian soldiers turned back a
number of those who tried to flee to Maiduguri and other locations. The
soldiers apparently were suspicious that Boko Haram insurgents might be hidden
among those fleeing. A farmer who attempted to reach Maiduguri in a vehicle
said that soldiers at a military checkpoint forced him and others back: “The
soldiers turned people back to Damasak. They would not allow you to leave and
if you tried, [the soldiers] would smash your car and burst your tires. So you
had to look for another way out around the town or [try to cross] the river, if
you can swim. It was terrible.”
Between March 13 and 15, 2015,
soldiers from neighboring Chad and Niger advanced on Damasak as part of a
cross-border military operation against the insurgents. As the troops
approached, Boko Haram fled from Damasak, taking with them the 300 children and
an estimated 100 more women and children they had been holding captive there.
The soldiers from Chad and
Niger discovered scores of decomposing bodies near a bridge. Days later they
brought journalists to the town to film and photograph the bodies. At least 70
bodies were counted in that one location. A local government assessment team
discovered another 400 bodies in shallow graves and on the streets of the town
a month later. When Nigerien and Chadian forces left the town, Boko Haram
returned. The Nigerian government claimed in December that Boko Haram had been
“technically defeated.” But former residents said the insurgents were still
occupying Damasak.
Six witnesses now in Maiduguri
whose children or other relatives were among those abducted told Human Rights
Watch than none had been returned. Some parents have received information from
Nigerian refugees in Chad that their children were seen with Boko Haram in Mari
and Dogon Chikum, near the Nigerian border with Chad, though Human Rights Watch
could not independently confirm this information. “There is no one you can go
and cry to since the military have not gone to attack those places,” said one
man who had lost relatives.
The Nigerian government has an
obligation under domestic law as well as under international human rights law
to take measures to protect its citizens from Boko Haram’s serious human rights
abuses. The government has a corresponding responsibility to take effective
steps to secure the release of the people Boko Haram has abducted from Damasak.
Boko Haram has committed widespread
abuses during its six-year conflict with the Nigerian government. Its forces
have indiscriminately killed civilians, abducted hundreds of women and girls,
and destroyed villages and towns, as well as more than 900 schools.
“Whatever its grievances
against the Nigerian government, Boko Haram cannot justify the abduction of
young children,” Segun said. “Boko Haram leaders should immediately release
everyone the group has abducted, cease all attacks on civilians, and stop using
schools in support of its military efforts.”
Culled from: Human Rights Wacth
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