A new report has revealed how the Nigerian Army resorted to killing children fathered by insurgents to tackle terrorism in the beleaguered north eastern part of the country.
Top army commanders allegedly ordered soldiers to âdeleteâ children born to insurgents, Reuters disclosed in its In the investigation published on Monday.
According to the report, the directive was issued âbecause the children were assumed to be collaborating with militants in Boko Haram or its Islamic State offshoot, or to have inherited the tainted blood of insurgent fathersâ.
The international news agency disclosed that more than 40 soldiers and civilians interviewed for the investigation said they witnessed officers of the Nigerian military âkill children or saw childrenâs corpses after a military operationâ.
âIntentional killings of children have occurred with a blurring frequency across the region during the war, according to witnesses interviewed by Reuters,â the investigation reads in part.
âMore than 40 sources said they saw the Nigerian military target and kill children or saw the dead bodies of children after a military operation.
âThese sources included both parents and other civilian witnesses, as well as soldiers who said they participated in dozens of military operations in which children were slaughtered. Together, their estimates added up to thousands of children killed.â
Reuters said it could not independently verify the estimate that thousands of children were killed during military operations against insurgency.
But the news agency said six specific incidents investigated by reporters indicated that at least 60 children were killed in those incidents.
In the investigation, Yagana Bukar, a mother of twins, narrated how soldiers âsmotheredâ her four-month-old twin boys after she and a group of other women and children escaped from Boko Haram fighters.
âThe soldiers said they killed those children because they are children of Boko Haram â they are not human beings,â Bukar said.
âThey threatened me that if I wasnât careful and didnât keep quiet, they would kill me as well.â
In another witnessâ testimony, a soldier reportedly said he enjoys killing children who were suspected to be fathered by insurgents due to the belief that they may grow up to become insurgents.
âSoldiers often cited as a reason for killing children the belief that if their fathers were insurgents, then they would grow up to be the same,â the report reads.
âThe killing was also a way for some officers to avenge heavy losses in fighting with Islamist insurgents, or for soldiers to vent their anger over the deaths of their comrades.
âOther soldiers said they had adopted a kill-or-be-killed attitude toward children because insurgents used them as fighters, informants and suicide bombers.â CONTINUE READING…………………………………
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