In a 67-page report published on Tuesday, December 8, Amnesty International Nigeria is concerned about the fate of elderly people exposed to violence from Boko Haram and the Nigerian army in the state of Borno in the northeastern part of the country.
This report describes the double punishment of this population persecuted by jihadists and victims of army abuse. A population completely invisible, according to this report entitled “My Bleeding Heart: The Lives of the Elderly Facing Conflict, Expulsion and Detention in Northeastern Nigeria”.
The treatment of the elderly in the Borno state amounts to “war crimes, even crimes against humanity”, according to Joanne Mariner, head of crisis situations at Amnesty International.
When people flee their villages, threatened by the jihadist, the elderly often stop there in the hope of continuing to cultivate their fields for food. But “many of them died of starvation in their homes or were massacred there,” according to the Amnesty report.
Too weak to escape, “many elderly people with reduced mobility” “were shot or seriously injured by soldiers as machine-shot houses”, NGO research indicates. “Others were burned alive […] when the army burned villages, ”suspected of supporting the Boko Haram group.
Scary conditions for separation
Amnesty International spoke to men and women who were arrested and then “illegally detained in particularly inhumane conditions, for periods ranging from four months to five years” as they fled areas controlled by Boko Haram.
The NGO estimates that 10,000 people have died in custody since 2011, in the gloomy barracks of Giwa, Maiduguri and other places where the army is imprisoned. Older men are overrepresented, as they account for 15% to 25% of deaths, linked to the “terrible conditions” of inclusion.
