Boko Haram abducts women, recruits children - HRW

Boko Haram has abducted scores of women and girls, used children as young as 12 in hostilities, and killed hundreds of people in recent attacks, Human Rights Watch said in a statement yesterday.

The rights group also accused the Nigerian government of failing to account for hundreds of men and boys whom security forces have rounded up and forcibly disappeared during Boko Haram’s four- year insurgency.

In a report released in Abuja yesterday, the body said its findings were coupled based on a nine- day tour of Kano and Maiduguri in November 2013, where it interviewed more than 60 victims and witnesses.

“The rise of an anti- Boko Haram group allied with Nigerian security forces, the so- called Civilian Joint Task Force, has added a worrisome new dimension to the violence. Civilian Joint Task Force members inform security forces about presumed local Boko Haram activity; the Islamist group then retaliates against both the neighborhood vigilante group and the broader community,” it stated.

“For a group that claims to be religious, Boko Haram’s tactics are the most profane acts we can imagine,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa Director at Human Rights Watch”.

It said “the killing and mutilation of ordinary Nigerians, the abduction and rape of women and girls, and the use of children for fighting are horrifying human rights violations.”

The report further disclosed that commanders of the Civilian Joint Task Force, working with security forces, said they had rescued 26 abducted women and girls from a Boko Haram stronghold in Maiduguri and later in Sambisa forest.

“Some of the women and girls were pregnant; others had babies. The commanders told Human Rights Watch that a number of the girls had been abducted while hawking wares on the street or working on farms in remote villages.

“HRW also observed children who appeared to be aged 15 - 17 manning checkpoints for the Civilian Joint Task Force in Maiduguri; other witnesses described seeing children manning checkpoints elsewhere in Borno and Yobe states,” it added.