Horrific details of Chibok girls’ abuse, by Human Rights Watch

THE Human Rights Watch has given horrific details of how kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls were abused by Boko Haram members.

In its newly released report, the rights group said its report on the girls’ abuse was made up of first-hand accounts from some of the schoolgirls who escaped after April’s Chibok kidnappings.

It described the revelations which emerged from the girls interviews as “shocking details.”

The report, entitled: “Those Terrible Weeks in Their Camp: Boko Haram Violence against Women and Girls in North-East Nigeria,” includes evidence the group said it got from 46 witnesses and victims of the sect.

Expressing the “shocking details,” the human rights group, sharing the experiences of some girls who escaped from terror group, said many of them suffered physical torture, rape and forced marriage, which they endured in their secret forest camps.

The report said some victims were also forced to take part in attacks and carry ammunition for fighters during battle, adding that “others have been used as bait to lure Christian men to their deaths.”

Daniel Bekele, Africa Director at Human Rights Watch, said Nigerian government must do more to protect and rehabilitate the girls, and also to track down those behind the abuse.

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“The Nigerian government and its allies need to step up their efforts to put an end to these brutal abductions and provide for the medical, psychological, and social needs of the women and girls who have managed to escape.

“The girls were held for several days in the Sambisa forest and only released after they promised to convert to Islam and give up school,” he said.

The Human Rights Watch, in a Sky News report, said the government “rarely, if ever, interviews the girls.”

It said “the group targets students and Christians, threatening them with whipping, beating, or death unless they convert to Islam, stop attending school, and wear the veil or hijab.”

The Agence France-Presse (AFP), taking excerpts from the report, quoted a 19-year-old student from Borno State, who described how militants ambushed her and five friends and threatened to kill them for going to school.

According to the news agency report, one of the men shouted: “Aha! These are the people we are looking for, so you are the ones with strong heads who insist on attending school when we have said ‘Boko’ is ‘Haram.’ We will kill you here today.”

Girls who escape the group’s clutches are often ignored despite having vital intelligence about Boko Haram’s inner workings, the report said.

For example, they often have information on chain of command, ammunition, and how the fighters keep tabs on Nigeria’s military.

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