16th December, 2017
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
The Boko Haram crisis in Northeast Nigeria has claimed 32,842 death in 10 years, says a report by the Nigerian Watch Project.
The report is the 6th Annual Report on lethal violence in Nigeria covers the period between 1 January and 31 December 2016. It has been written at the University of Ibadan, with the support of the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme (NSRP) and the French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA-Nigeria).
According to the report, in ten years, from 1 June 2006 to 31 May 2016, the Boko Haram conflict has caused a total of 32,842 fatalities, almost one-third of the 101,480 deaths recorded during this period in the Nigeria Watch database.
“Roughly the same numbers of people were killed directly by the insurgents (16,666) and by security forces (16,182). At first glance, Boko Haram members seemed to be more focused on attacking civilians than the army. Out of 16,666 fatalities, 1,073 could not be identified as civilians or combatants, and 1,689 were military, police, spies, prison wardens, or militiamen of the CJTF (Civilian Joint Task Force).
“Most of the victims (13,904) were civilians, including 25 foreigners and 582 women and children. During the same period, the security forces killed ‘only’ 1,309 civilians, including 96 women and 31 children, while 1,445 casualties could not be identified. Most of their victims (13,428) were considered as ‘terrorists’. This is because the military usually do not admit killing civilians.
“For instance, people who die in detention are assumed to be terrorists, even though they have received no trial. To recover their bodies and bury them properly, family members have to sign forms acknowledging that their relatives were insurgents. On the other hand, the army tends to report Boko Haram atrocities against civilians while denying the victories of the group when it succeeds in killing soldiers,” the report said.
The report quoted an interviews conducted by Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos in Maiduguri in 2015 and 2016, which said the total number of victims could actually have reached 70,000 people in ten years, because the Nigerian media do not report from rural areas they could not access.
It added that in Borno, retired civil servants who witnessed extra-judicial killings confirmed that the security forces had in fact a more deadly impact, as they argued that the insurgents did not have the same firepower and that Boko Haram targeted only individuals, especially public officials, until the emergency rule in 2013 and the campaign of terror launched by Abubakar Shekau to deter people from joining the CJTF.
“Between 2010 and 2012, the military may have killed thrice the number of civilians killed by Boko Haram members,” it said.