South-East 32,000 civilians massacred in in 9 years – Intersociety alleges

A civil rights group, International Society for Civil Rights and Rule of Law, Intersociety, on Sunday alleged that over 32,300 unarmed civilians have been killed in the South-East by state actors and local vigilantes within the past nine years.

This was contained in a report presented to journalists in Enugu Signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chair, Intersociety, Chidinma Udegbunam, Deputy Leader/Head, Campaign and Publicity Department, Chinwe Umeche, Head, Democracy and Good Governance Program, Obianuju Joy Igboeli, and Head, Civil Liberties and Rule of Law.

In the report titled: “Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In Eastern Nigeria”, the group alleged how security agencies and killer-vigilantes “used ‘IPOB/ESN/BIAFRA terrorism’ as a pretext to secretly massacre 22, 500 unarmed civilians and openly killed 9,800 others (totaling over 32,300) in the past nine years and four months (August 2015-Dec 2024).”

Intersociety further alleged that thousands were unlawfully detained and tortured, whereas over 6000 were blindfolded or face-bagged and bundled at late night from the East and dumped uninvestigated in seven Northern States of Niger, Kogi, Nasarawa, Benue, Kaduna, Zamfara And FCT (Abuja).

It said over 300 Igbo communities were raided within the same period, and 6000 civilian houses razed, 180,000 displaced, one million frightened and forced to abandon their homes and flee.

According to the group, “The Special International Report further catalogued and exposed massive arbitrary arrests, perpetual detentions arising from uninvestigated and un-triable phantom allegations, kangaroo arraignments, late night abduction and face-bagging of unarmed Igbo civilians to secret military detention facilities in northern Nigeria, torture and bodily lacerations, open killings and secret executions, enforced disappearances, dead body persons’ disappearances and criminal interments.”

Other allegations included: “perpetual concealment of arrested and abducted citizens’ whereabouts and denial of access to their families, lawyers and physicians; invasion and wanton destruction of civilian dwelling houses, false labeling, mass and class criminalization and stigmatization, ethno-religious profiling, prosecutorial vindictiveness, hearsay conclusions, military and police roadblock and barrack-extortions and selective law enforcement operations, etc, all arising from the ongoing military siege and terror in Eastern Nigeria, using ‘IPOB/ESN/Biafra Terrorism’ as a pretext.

“In statistical conclusion, therefore, all the above indicated that the deployed Nigerian Security Forces sub-State actor Vigilantes and Paramilitaries, in the East atrociously killed members of defenseless civilian population dominated by Igbo citizens more than twice higher than (32,300) those killed by armed criminal entities (14,500).

“The deployed security forces and their officers and personnel and high commands were also found to have violently seized and illicitly pocketed, by way of extortion and looting, criminal monies and other properties (over N3 trillion) belonging to defenseless Easterners almost six times higher than those seized and stolen by criminal entities (N550 billion).

“The drafted security forces were further found to have burned down or destroyed civilian houses and other properties (N450 billion) over seven times higher than those burned down or destroyed by criminal entities (about N60 billion).”

Security agencies are yet to react to the allegations.