Nigerian Army Running Secret Mass Abortion Programme – Reuters Alleges
An international news agency, Reuters, has accused the Nigerian Army of running programme where forceful abortions were carried out on female victims of Boko Haram/Islamic State in West African Province.
The report claimed that the Army carried out the abortions without the persons’ consent and that at least 10,000 pregnancies had been illegally terminated.
These were contained in an investigation published on Wednesday.
The probe, according to Reuters, was based on the accounts of 33 victims, hospital staff, and security officials, as well as documents gathered.
The report partly read, “Since at least 2013, the Nigerian Army has run a secret, systematic, and illegal abortion programme in the country’s northeast, terminating at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls, many of whom had been kidnapped and raped by Islamist militants, according to dozens of witness accounts and documentation reviewed by Reuters.
“The abortions were mostly carried out without the person’s consent—and often without their prior knowledge, according to the witness accounts. The women and girls ranged in age from a few weeks to eight months pregnant, and some were as young as 12 years old, interviews and records showed.
“This investigation is based on interviews with 33 women and girls who say they underwent abortions while in the custody of the Nigerian Army. Only one person stated that she freely consented. Reporters also interviewed five civilian healthcare workers and nine security personnel involved in the programme, including soldiers and other government employees such as armed guards engaged in escorting pregnant women to abortion sites. In addition, Reuters reviewed copies of military documents and civilian hospital records describing or tallying thousands of abortion procedures.”
The report quoted a guard and a health worker as saying women who resisted were beaten, caned, held at gunpoint, or drugged into compliance.
The investigation linked the abortion programme to a belief widely held within the military and among some civilians in the northeast that the children of insurgents are predestined, by the blood in their veins, to one day take up arms against the Nigerian government and society.
Military denies allegations
However, the military denied infanticide allegations, days before it was published, and accused the news agency of ‘wickedness.’
