Human rights groups call on Nigerian govt to end sectarian violence

Amnesty International and other human rights groups have condemned the recent attacks in northern Nigeria that left at least 35 people killed and called on the country’s authorities to end the sectarian violence.

At least 366 people were killed in southern Kaduna state in northern Nigeria, between January and July of 2020, Amnesty International (AI) stressed in a statement Sunday (March 12), urging authorities to “immediately and decisively end incessant attacks by gunmen on communities in southern Kaduna.” For many years, the region has suffered from violence involving local farmers and herders, causing thousands of deaths. In the latest attack, armed men at the weekend invaded a village in the local district of Zangon Kataf and killed 15 people, most of them women and children.

“Authorities are not living up to the expectation that they bring perpetrators to justice and conduct investigations on those issues, the fact that these kinds of killings have been going on for quite some time. It is quite unacceptable,” AI’s spokesperson Aminu Hayatu said.

According to local police authorities, the latest attack in Kaduna could have been reprisal for the killing of a herder who was tending to his animals a few days earlier. Nigeria has been battling a range of security challenges including insurgency, kidnappings, and communal clashes. Last month, millions of Nigerians went to the polls to elect a successor to the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari, who, as many hope, could finally do something to rein in the chronic violence and insecurity.