Children and babies dying in Nigeria military detention center, claims report
The Giwa barracks in Maiduguri, Nigeria, which holds suspected Boko Haram members, has witnessed this year the death of 11 children less than six years of age, including four babies, due to the unsanitary conditions in the military detention center.
The UK-based non-government organization Amnesty International reported these figures among the 149 people who have died this year in the infamous barracks to sound the alarm once more.
"The discovery that babies and young children have died in appalling conditions in military detention is both harrowing and horrifying," according to Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International's Research and Advocacy Director for Africa.
"There can be no excuses and no delay. The detention facilities in Giwa barracks must be immediately closed and all detainees released or transferred to civilian authorities. The government must urgently introduce systems to ensure the safety and well-being of children released from detention," he added.
Belay called on Nigerian President Muhammed Buhari to follow through his promise of launching an immediate investigation into these deaths, to release the children, and to immediately close down the detention center.
"We've spoken to former inmates. They've given us eyewitness accounts of seeing children dying in detention," Colm O Cuanachain, Amnesty International's senior official, told Al Jazeera. "Overcrowding and the conditions there were clearly contributing to a situation where children were dying."
The Amnesty report cites disease, hunger, dehydration, and gunshot wounds as primary causes for the death of the detainees. The previous year, a report indicated that in the past five years, 7,000 detainees had died from starvation, thirst, disease, and torture in the military detention center.
The Nigerian military asserts that the Giwa barracks only holds terrorist suspects but Amnesty claims that more than 120 of the 1,200 detainees in the facility are young children. Most of these children were born in the barracks or detained when their mothers were arrested.
The group also accuses the authorities for arresting thousands of suspects with no evidence against them.