Boko Haram: Older people killed disproportionately in North East – Amnesty

Amnesty International has said that Boko Haram has killed many aged citizens at disproportionate levels due to their feeble state to flee attacks.

In a 67-page report it released titled ‘My heart is in pain: Older people’s experience of conflict, displacement, and detention in Northeast Nigeria’, the organisation disclosed that older people were killed both in the hands of Boko Haram and the Nigerian military.

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The report, which was made available to Daily Trust by the Media Manager, Amnesty International Nigeria, Isa Sanusi, also revealed that humanitarian response got to them only as “an afterthought.”

The report indicated that the organisation reviewed more than 120 images of corpses brought from the barracks to a local mortuary, and spoke to individuals with insider knowledge who estimated that 15-25% of those who have perished are older men.

“This is disproportionately high, as older men appear to account for no more than 4% of the population in North-East Nigeria. In April 2017 alone, 166 corpses were transferred from Giwa to the mortuary,” the report stated.

The report further stated that humanitarian agencies estimate that older people account for around 150,000 of the 2.1 million people displaced by the conflict in Northeast Nigeria.

The research, carried out between November 2019 and October 2020, involved 62 older women and 71 older men affected by the conflict.