Human rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety) says no fewer than 2,000 law abiding citizens of Eastern Nigeria have since January 2021 been abducted by soldiers of the Nigerian Army, operatives of the Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Navy, Department of the State Security Service and others.

Intersociety disclosed this in a report jointly signed by its principal officers, Emeka Umeagbalasi, Barr Chinwe Umeche, Barr Obianuju Igboeli and Barr Chidimma Udegbunam on Wednesday in Onitsha.

The group claimed that out of the reported number, at least, 500 have disappeared or feared killed in secret custody of the Army or made victims of unlawful executions.

The report also revealed that no fewer than 140 who were killed in the two regions by the named security operatives especially soldiers and police since January 2021, at least 120 are independently found to be combatively uninvolved or victims of extra-judicial killings and that the military and police killings involved not less than 40 killed in Imo, 30 in Akwa Ibom, 20 in Abia, 15 in Rivers, 13 in Anambra, 10 in Ebonyi, 8 in Cross River, 5 in Enugu and none in Delta.

It said all the states mentioned are collectively the victims of the military abductions and disappearances.

Intersociety said that the latest findings followed the recent review of the ongoing ethnic and religious profiling and cleansing embarked upon by Nigerian military in the East particularly in the states of Imo, Abia, Rivers, Ebonyi, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Delta and Cross River states code-named “Operation Restore Peace”.

In the new review, Imo State topped the list of the abductees with no fewer than 500, followed by Abia, Ebonyi, Rivers and Akwa Ibom with average of 300 abductees; Anambra 200 and average of 100 abductees each Cross River, Enugu and Delta states.

“Intersociety did not find any evidence showing that such violent clampdowns are also extended to members of Fulani Muslim population resident in the East whose jihadist elements have since 2016 killed over 400 rural and urban Igbo Christians and their neighbors and forcefully occupied over 500 of their farmlands, bushes and forests. Further checks also indicated that the non-indigenous Muslim population in the regions are pampered and treated sacredly by the drafted Muslim dominated and controlled security heads,” the group stated in its report.

The Human rights group also claimed in its report that the Nigerian Army accounted for many of the killings and most of the disappearances. In Imo State alone, soldiers accounted for many, if not most of the 40 deaths including ten passersby or residents of the State killed at Army roadblock checks and during patrols. Soldiers also accounted for most of not less than 20 killings in Abia State; falsely labeled “IPOB/ESN members”.

The report further revealed that soldiers, police and DSS shared responsibility for abducting no fewer than 2,000 Easterners since January 2021. This they jointly did through late night house raids, house-to-house search, stop-and-search and other forms of operational patrols. While police personnel abducted and kept most of the abductees alive amidst torture and other inhuman treatments including detention without trial; soldiers and DSS are notoriously known to abducting and taking the abductees to their secret dungeons where access to their families, physicians and lawyers is totally blocked and denied.

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