Thousands of women and girls who were rescued by Nigerian military soldiers from the clutches of the Boko Haram terror group have been betrayed and raped, a major report by Amnesty International has claimed.
“The soldiers, they betrayed us, they said that we should come out of from our villages. They said it would be safer and that they would give us a secure place to stay. But when we came, they betrayed us,” a 35-year-old woman named Yakura said in the 89-page report published on Thursday.
“They detained our husbands and then they raped us women.”
Yakura, who fled her home in December 2016, was one of more than 250 people that Amnesty interviewed over a two-year period.
Some of the women and children said they were raped by Nigerian military and Civilian Joint Task Force, while others were starved and experienced other forms of abuse.
Amnesty said that the victims told them that Nigerian soldiers “unlawfully beat women in the camp with impunity, and did so regularly, and women knew that if they refused sex they may be beaten.”
What is more, provisions of food, water and health care at the refugee camps were offered sometimes only if women agreed to demands for sex, which they did in order for their families to survive.
The watchdog group said that in the Bama Hospital camp in particular, half of all women aged under 30 said that they have been raped, or forced to have sex under circumstances that amounted to rape.
“Moreover, there appears to be an arrangement between the soldiers and the Civilian JTF members to identify women to be brought to the soldiers for the…
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