Amnesty International has insisted that its report of how security forces rape and starve Boko Haram victims is genuine. The organisation’s Country Director, Osai Ojigho, said the report was an account of eyewitness.
Amnesty had alleged that troops of the Nigerian Army killed many who refused to be moved from territories rescued from the insurgents. But the Nigerian military dismissed the report.
The military is unhappy with what it says is becoming a frequent ritual by the human rights watchdog, which had previously accused it of rights violations.
However, Ojigho said, “We go on mission to these areas, we meet with the victims themselves. In total, we had 250 interviews. Forty-eight of those interviews were with women who had recently been released from Giwa Barracks and it is an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp.
“It was based on eyewitness and personal account. Three of those women were at our report launch today (yesterday); to share their experiences so that they could put a human face to the story.
“These women exist, they are not fictitious, they are not trying to tell a story they have not experienced; it is their personal story,” she added.
He also said the body’s findings were not new, recalling that the National Human Rights Commission, in its 2015 report, “highlighted that there is already pervasive sexual exploitation going on in the camps.”
