This guys are no longer smilling.it is war.
According to an AFP report, on Wednesday,
5 November, after morning prayers, Nigerian
soldiers rounded up 17 people, including an
imam, from the Dogo Tebo area of
Potiskum in Yobe state.
The 16 men who were arrested by the
soldiers were found dead hours later with
bullet wounds.
Residents and hospital staff said the bodies
of the men, except the Imam were later
found in the morgue at the Potiskum
General Hospital.
A nurse who asked not to be identified
because he was not authorised to speak to
the media told AFP that, “All the bodies
have gunshot wounds on them.”
“The bodies had been brought in by soldiers
and were formally identified by community
leaders and residents from Dogo Tegbo.”
A resident, Tukur Danu, said the cleric was
not among the dead, saying: “We are
worried about what they could do to him.”
According to leaders of the community, the
16 men were picked up and killed because
they were from the Kanuri ethnic group that
forms the majority of Boko Haram’s
membership.
A community leader in Dogo Tebo, asked for
a probe, while commenting on the killings.
He said, “We demand a probe into this
unjustifiable murder. We believe they were
killed on suspicion of being Boko Haram
because they were Kanuris. ”
“The government should look into this cold-
blooded murder and ensure justice is done
because being a soldier is not a licence to
kill at will on mere suspicion,” he added.
“Our fear is we don’t know what they will do
next,” he said, adding that three more
people were arrested late on Wednesday in
the same area.
On Monday, at least 15 people were killed
and some 50 others were injured in a
suicide bombing targeting a major Shia
Muslim festival in Potiskum.
Nigeria’s military have been previously
accused of carrying out extra-judicial
killings in the fight against Boko Haram,
by Human rights groups in Nigeria and
beyond.
In March, Amnesty International said that
there was “credible evidence” that more
than 600 people were summarily executed
in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, after a
Boko Haram jail break.
In August, a video was released by the
organisation, where some “soldiers” were
caught on camera slitting the throats of
rounded Boko Haram suspects, one after
the other, and dumping them en masse into
graves. The Nigeria Army would however,
release a statement, saying that the men in
uniform were not members of the Army.
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