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Nigeria's
military says it has been attacked by pro-Biafra groups. Getty Images
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Amnesty International on
Thursday accused Nigeria's security forces of killing at least 150 pro-Biafra
protesters and injuring hundreds since August 2015.
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Many
ethnic Igbos feel Nigeria's central government does not represent their
interests. BBC
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The
army denied the charge.
"This
deadly repression of pro-Biafra activists is further stoking tensions in the
southeast of Nigeria," Amnesty warned in its report.
"This
reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150
deaths and we fear the actual total might be far higher," said Makmid Kamara,
interim director of Amnesty International Nigeria.
The
watchdog said its report was based on analysis of 87 videos, 122 photographs
and 146 eyewitness accounts relating to demonstrations and other gatherings of
Biafran activists between August 2015 and August 2016.
The
protesters were asking for a separate state for the Igbo people of southeast
Nigeria.
Amnesty
said the military used live ammunition with little or no warning to disperse
the protesters.
In
May 2016, it said, at least 60 people were shot dead and 70 injured in two days
of events to mark Biafra Remembrance Day.
Amnesty
called for an inquiry.
"The
Nigerian government’s decision to send in the military to respond to pro-Biafra
events seems to be in large part to blame for this excessive bloodshed,"
it said.
"The
authorities must immediately launch an impartial investigation and bring the
perpetrators to book."
Nigerian
army spokesman Sani Usman dismissed the allegation.
"We
wish to debunk the insinuation that our troops perpetrated the killing of
defenceless agitators. This is an outright attempt to tarnish the reputation of
the security forces," Usman said in a statement.
He
said the activists had in fact killed five policeman at a protest in May and
attacked military and police vehicles.
"(...)
The military and other security agencies exercised maximum restraints despite
the flurry of provocative and unjustifiable violence," he added.
The
Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has staged series of demonstrations across
the southeast since the arrest in October last year of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu,
who has been charged with treason and still in detention.
Kanu,
who is also head of the banned Radio Biafra, is accused of calling for a
separate republic of Biafra, nearly 50 years after a previous declaration of
independence sparked a civil war.
The
1967-70 conflict left more than a million people dead, most of them from
starvation and disease, as the Igbo nation was blockaded into submission.
Amnesty
and other human rights groups have previously highlighted similar claims
against the military in December last year, when at least 350 Shiite Muslim
protesters were killed in the northern city of Zaria.
The
military has also been accused of a catalogue of abuses against civilians
during Boko Haram's Islamist insurgency in the northeast.
Nigeria Army
Condemns Biafra 'Lies'
BBC News reports that the
Nigerian army has denied allegations by rights group Amnesty that it killed at
least 150 peaceful pro-Biafra protesters, which it called an "outright
attempt to tarnish its reputation".
In
a statement, the army accused the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) group of
carrying out "violent secessionist agitations" and murdering people
who had arrived in south-eastern Nigeria from other parts of the country.
The
army said it had intervened to prevent ethnic clashes, exercised "maximum
restraint" in the face of violence and had itself been targeted by armed
attacks.
It said five police
officers were killed and several soldiers wounded in one incident in May.
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