Solders, Policemen and Camp Leaders, who are supposed to act as protectors of the venerable and the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, have suddenly turned to marauding beasts; raping helpless Boko Haram victims, a latest international report has revealed.
According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, HRW, “Four of the (IDP) victims, were drugged and raped, while 37 were coerced into sex, through false marriage promises, material, and financial assistance.
“Women and girls, are abused by members of the security forces, and vigilante groups. They feel powerless, and fear retaliation, if they report the abuse.“Many of those coerced into sex, said they were abandoned, if they became pregnant. They and their children have suffered discrimination, abuse, and stigmatisation, from other camp residents.”
Following the report, President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, ordered a probe into the HRW report, which alleges massive sexual, and rights abuses in IDP camps.
On his twitter handle (@MBuhari), the President said: “I have seen the new @hrw report, and asked the Inspector-General of Police, and concerned State Governors, to investigate immediately.”
His position, was reinforced in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, that the President is “worried and shocked”, and that the welfare of the most vulnerable of Nigerian citizens, has been a priority of the government.
The statement added that, “President Buhari has instructed the Inspector General of Police, and the State Governors of the affected States, to immediately commence investigations into the issue.”
Their findings, Shehu said, would determine the next course of action for the government, and define an appropriate response.
Recall, that in the July 2016 NOI Polls, a Nigerian research organisation, reported that 66 percent of 400 displaced people in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe States, said camp officials, sexually abuse the displaced women and girls.
“It is bad enough that these women and girls are not getting much needed support for the horrific trauma they suffered at the hands of Boko Haram,” said Mausi Segun, a Senior Researcher at the HRW.“It is disgraceful and outrageous, that people who should protect these women and girls, are attacking and abusing them,” she added.
The victims, according to the report, were displaced “from Borno towns and villages, including Abadam, Bama, Baga, Damasak, Dikwa, Gamboru Ngala, Gwoza, Kukawa, and Walassa.”
In some cases, the victims had arrived in the under-served Maiduguri camps, where their movement is severely restricted, after spending months in Military screening camps
Boko Haram, has devastated North-East Nigeria, killing over 20,000 people, and displacing 2.6 million from their homes. Since taking up arms against the Nigerian government in 2009, the group has also disrupted trade routes and farms.
Now, nearly 50,000 children face death by starvation, if they do not get food, and almost 250,000 more, are severely malnourished in Borno State, according to UNICEF.
The report said: “Irregular supplies of food, clothing, medicine, and other essentials, along with restricted movement in the IDP camps in Maiduguri, compounds the vulnerability of victims – many of them widowed women, and unaccompanied orphaned girls – to rape, and sexual exploitation by camp officials, soldiers, police, members of civilian vigilante groups, and other Maiduguri residents.“Residents of the Arabic Teachers Village camp, Pompomari, told HRW in July, that the camp had not received any food or medicines, since late May, just before the start of the month-long Muslim fast of Ramadan.”
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