By DIONNE SEARCEY
FEBRUARY 28, 2017



MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — A wheelbarrow saved his life.

Sprawled across it, Babagana felt every bump, moaning in pain from four bullet wounds. Covered in his blood, his pregnant wife helped roll him across the Nigerian countryside to a hospital.

Somehow, Babagana survived the makeshift ambulance ride. More than 80 men from his village had been shot to death, he said, all of them forced to strip to the waist and lie face down. The gunmen then burned their small farming village before speeding away.

The attack fit the pattern of rampages by Boko Haram, the terrorist group that has killed poor people in this region for years. But Babagana and multiple witnesses to the attack in June, as well as another one days before in a neighboring village, say the radicals were not to blame this time.

Instead, they say, the massacres were carried out by the Nigerian military.

“They told us they were here to help us,” said a resident, Falmata, 20, adding that soldiers in uniform shouted for villagers to point out the Boko Haram members among them. When none were identified, the killings began, she and other witnesses said.

In recent months, the Nigerian military has made great headway in its war against Boko Haram, the radical Islamist militants terrorizing northeast Nigeria.

But the army’s aggressive sweeps to root out the remaining fighters have taken a toll on more than just Boko Haram. Witnesses are accusing Nigerian soldiers of killing unarmed civilians, as well.

Reports of civilian massacres have emerged in recent weeks as residents from areas previously sealed off by Boko Haram start to stream out.

“As more combatants from Boko Haram have been hiding within the civilian population, the line between who is civilian and who is not has been blurred,” said Agnes Bjorn, a manager for Plan International, an aid group. “It is, however, the responsibility of the Nigerian Army to protect civilians and clearly distinguish between civilians and combatants. Protecting civilians in war is part of international humanitarian law.”

The Nigerian Army has a long record of human rights abuses. In 2013, soldiers burned homes and opened fire in the village of Baga, killing as many as 200 people, survivors said. Civilians have complained for years of arbitrary detentions, torture and killing by soldiers. Worried about such abuses, the American government held up the sale of attack helicopters to the Nigerian military.

President Muhammadu Buhari, a former general elected on promises to defeat Boko Haram and stamp out corruption, pledged to clean up the abuses.

“We are guided by rules and guided by our transparency of operations,” said Brig. Gen. Rabe Abubakar, the director of defense information for the Nigerian military. He denied that the military was responsible for the massacres, contending that insurgents, “criminal elements” or cult members could be to blame.

Many observers give the president credit for pressing the campaign against Boko Haram and taking steps toward professionalizing the military.

Soldiers have pushed into forests that have long hidden Boko Haram fighters. New villages have been freed, and major roads have reopened. The army says it has scattered Boko Haram and encouraged many of the nearly two million people in Nigeria who have been uprooted by violence to go back home.

“What you find now is a collection of ragtags that are running from pillar to post,” Maj. Gen. Leo Irabor, the commander leading the fight against Boko Haram, said of the militants at a recent news conference.

In some areas, soldiers have treated sick residents, helped with food handouts and repaired wells. Here in Borno State, the center of the battle against Boko Haram, one commander even secured a film projector to host a movie night in a displaced persons camp, screening “Tom and Jerry” cartoons and movies in two local languages.

But allegations of abuse continue. The military has detained children and infants for weeks at a time after their families have escaped or been freed from Boko Haram territory. Huge detention centers have been set up to hold families until civilians with perceived sympathies for Boko Haram can be weeded out. Last month, the Nigerian military mistakenly bombed a displaced persons camp, killing at least 90 civilians.

Humanitarian workers for the United Nations said they had heard repeated complaints from civilians that the military had been evacuating villages and burning them to the ground. On a helicopter flight over the area, the blackened remains of small villages were clear.

Inside one enormous camp for displaced persons, on the grounds of an old science-theme high school, several residents said the military ordered them to leave their villages to carry out operations against insurgents.

Shortly after they fled, they said, their villages were set ablaze.

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Military zone keep off!!

buhari maka why

And they want me to start crying abi
The evil dat men do willl come after them.
One day northerners will realize dat until they stop all sorts of religious killings their lands will always be left desolate. When u start reaping d seed of ur wickedness u bcome a refugee in ur own land.
I hope Kaduna indigenes will take a clue and fight to stop all sorts of genocides

Talk about the excessive use of force by Soldiers and they call you IPOB.
According to Afonja and Janajaweedians from North, anybody killed by Army is wrong. Turn by turn,it will get to everyone.