Remorseful Boko Haram terrorists in Maiduguri on Tuesday rejected Reuters’ reports of military abuses of civilian rights in the northeast.
According to a three-part series by Reuters, troops of “Operation Hadin Kai” in the northeast killed insurgent children and performed illegal abortions on 10,000 women.
In order to confirm the Reuters report, the National Human Rights Commission established a Special Independent Investigative Panel on Rights Violations in Counter-Insurgency Operations. The repentant insurgents testified before this panel.
Kaka Mala, Goni Musa, and Mohammed Adam were the three who provided testimony when the panel, led by retired Justice Abdu Aboki, visited their camp in Maiduguri.
Mala explained to the panel that his task was to battle and instruct imprisoned women in the Holy Quran.
He claimed that throughout his affiliation with Boko Haram, he was never made aware of the military’s involvement in widespread abortions or the execution of rebel-parented children.
Musa, who has four wives and ten children, claimed during his testimony that the Reuters report was unfounded.
He claimed that the allegations that the army was murdering children or aborting unborn babies were unfounded because his wives and kids were all alive and well.
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According to Adam’s testimony, he operated in Sambisa Forest and never saw a military massacre of children, with the exception of an incident at Giwa Barracks where some kids perished from overcrowding.
Hajiya Zuwaira Gambo, the commissioner for women’s affairs and social development in Borno, had earlier expressed concern to the panel about the high number of pregnancies among women residing in the camp with their returning husbands.
She claimed that because of their babies’ close-spaced births, the circumstance presented a challenge.
Gambo emphasized that taking care of the infants in the camps puts pressure on the state government to provide for both their needy nursing mothers and care and support for them.
