While investigation into the death of terrorist suspects continues, the authors of the new human rights report are emphasising for the need for the demilitarisation of the power in the region.
 

In Chad, forty-four suspected terrorist of the Islamist group Boko Haram have been found dead in their cell. The prisoners' bodies were found in the N'Djamena detention centre on Thursday, Central African country attorney general Youssouf Tom stated on Monday. They belonged to a group of fifty-eight jihadists who had been captured in an army operation nearby Lake Chad in late March.

Four bodies were autopsied. The coroners suspect that the detainees had ingested a "deadly substance" that attacked the heart of some and choked others.

Boko Haram originally tried to take control over the northeastern Nigeria. However, the conflict has now spread to Chad and the other neighbouring countries Cameroon and Niger. Attacks by the terrorist group have killed between 20,000 and 35,000 Nigerians since 2009. According to the UN, almost two million people have fled the Islamic violence in Nigeria.

The specialists from Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence of the United Nations University, in the recently published report "Hybrid Conflict, Hybrid Peace", indicated that the crisis "affects the legitimacy of the Nigerian state, security elsewhere, and the broader distribution of power across the country."

The history of violence perpetrated by the Boko Haram began in the previous decade, but the conflict intensified about five years ago.

Since 2016 Nigeria's communities has been under attack of one more terrorist group that with a blessing of so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria splinted from Boko Haram and adopted name of ISWAP.


Failed counter-terrorism efforts of dysfunctional state

According to the specialists the group can total 10, 000 fighters. "ISWAP has become a particularly potent, effective, and increasingly entrenched armed group, even while further factionalising. In addition to building up significant political capital among local populations, it has led many successful military operations ," report stated.

According to the Brookings Institute expert Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, who is also one of the authors of the report, stated that despite Nigerian government and military mobilisations against the group between 2015 and 2018, intense insecurity and violence not only persist, but have actually increased since 2018.


The Military Control A Source of Human Disaster

The strategies aimed to defeat the terrorists introduced by the Nigerian military severely compounded food insecurity and famine. Farmers cannot cultivate the land due to the ban on sharp and heavy equipment including agricultural one. The military also prohibited planting tall crops to deny Boko Haram hiding opportunities. Curfews have similarly hampered access to food and economic activities

With these limitations the monopoly has been introduced. According to the authors of the report, the military decides who can fish and whose trucks can travel on roads, enter towns, and access markets; the military often collects illegal tolls and rents. The Nigerian military demands that merchants buy fish only from fishermen and traders it certifies, claiming that such controls deprive Boko Haram of resources.

The militias that were formed to protect the region against the Boko Haram and the ISWAP group have been conducting intelligence gathering, defensive operations, holding territory, and even offensive actions on behalf of the Nigerian army. Although local communities frequently see the militias as being closer to them they are also perpetrating serious human rights abuses, the authors of the report emphasised.

Such an economic and military control of the population must result in the humanitarian disaster, the specialists concluded. The authors the report recommend strategies that would lead de-militarisation of the regions including the job training, human rights education and putting the fighters on the legal payroll system.


Christians systematically killed by the jihadis militants

Sadly the Boko Haram, ISWAP terrorist groups and the militia that is supposed to fight with them together with Nigerian military but are often cause of the exploitation and serious violations of humans rights, Nigerians have been also attacked by the Foujani jihadis.

The jihadists, according to the Christian Solidarity International experts, murdered 17,000 Nigerian Christians between 2010 and 2020. But this number maybe bigger because no one really knows the precise numbers thanks to mass burnings, chaotic aftermaths, disappearances, and population displacement, stated Ms Lela Gilbert from the Centre for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

On April 20, the terrorists armed with AK-47 machine guns killed three women and a man in Southern Kaduna, razing over 60 houses, the report stated. On April 14, local newspaper Morning Star reported that six children and a pregnant woman were among nine people that Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed in north-central Nigeria Tuesday night. Previous week Fulanis killed at least twenty villagers in two predominantly Christian regions.

One recent media report quoted a Local Government Official of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Rev. Bitrus Nga who suggested that the attacks bear marks of "religious cleansing".

“We have Muslim neighbours who are farmers but each time they come, they kill only Christians." stated Rev. Nga.