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11 children and infants were among those killed due to overcrowding, hunger, disease and dehydration
Daud Olatunji
According to data from Amnesty International, at least 149 people, including children and infants, died during military detention in Giwa barracks in Maiduguri, Borno state, between January and May 2016..
The rights organization said the deaths occurred in what it described as severely overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at the military detention facility, where detainees were reportedly subjected to inadequate food, water and medical care.
Amnesty International’s findings, contained in the report “Nigeria: ‘If you see it, you will cry’ – Life and death in Giwa barracks,” documented at least 149 deaths during the period. The organization said at least 12 children and infants were among those who died.
The report said witnesses identified starvation, dehydration and disease, linked to overcrowding, as likely causes of the deaths, although Amnesty noted it could not independently establish the precise cause of each death.
The organization also reported that 65 inmates died in March 2016 alone, making the month one of the deadliest periods documented at the facility.
According to Amnesty, the deaths include children held with their mothers, as well as children born while their mothers were detained.
The organization said children under five were held in extremely overcrowded female cells, with witnesses reporting that the section contained at least 250 women and teenage girls, along with many young children.
Amnesty also documented the detention of over 120 boys, aged between five and 16, in a separate cell in the Giwa barracks.
The boys, according to the organization, were held incommunicado and were not allowed to leave the cell, except occasionally, when soldiers called them to count.
Amnesty said conditions inside the facility were particularly harsh, with detainees crammed into cells so narrow they could not lie down properly.
The organization also said that detainees do not have sufficient access to food and drinking water, while sanitation facilities are grossly inadequate.
According to the report, inmates only had communal buckets for feces and urine, while cells were rarely cleaned and inmates were rarely allowed to wash.
The combination of overcrowding, poor hygiene, inadequate food and water and limited medical care created conditions in which diseases spread rapidly, Amnesty said.
The rights group said witnesses reported that some children may have died of measles or other communicable diseases.
It also noted that no autopsy had been conducted on the bodies and that, at the time of the investigation, no adequate investigations had been conducted into deaths in custody.
Amnesty’s findings were part of its wider documentation of deaths in military detention during Nigeria’s fight against the Boko Haram insurgency.
The organization had previously reported that thousands of people had died in military detention in the northeast, attributing the deaths to conditions such as starvation, extreme overcrowding and denial of medical care.
In a subsequent 2016 presentation to the UN Human Rights Council, Amnesty said the number of deaths recorded in Giwa had risen to 168, following a further 19 deaths since the May 2016 report.
Amnesty later reported that at least 580 people had died in Giwa barracks since 2016, including 29 children and infants, according to data cited in its 2018 complaint.
The organization has consistently called for investigations into deaths in military custody and for detainees, particularly children, to be held only in humane conditions and with adequate legal safeguards.
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