“Babies n adult died in appalling conditions in Maduguri Detention” – Amnesty International

Evidence gathered through interviews with former detainees and eyewitnesses, supported by video and photos, shows many detainees may have died from disease, hunger, dehydration, and gunshots wounds.

Over eleven children under the age of six, including four babies, are among one-hundred-and-forty-nine people who have died this year following their detention in horrendous conditions in Giwa barracks detention centre in Maiduguri, Nigeria, Amnesty International has revealed.

The report titled: ‘If you see it, you will cry: Life and death in Giwa barracks’, also contains satellite imagery which corroborates witness testimonies.

“The discovery that babies and young children have died in appalling conditions in military detention is both harrowing and horrifying. We have repeatedly sounded the alarm over the high death rate of detainees in Giwa barracks but these findings show that, for both adults and children, it remains a place of death,” said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International’s research and advocacy director for Africa.

“There can be no excuses and no delay. The detention facilities in Giwa barracks must be immediately closed and all detainees released or transferred to civilian authorities. The government must urgently introduce systems to ensure the safety and well-being of children released from detention.”

Amnesty International believes that around 1,200 people are currently detained at Giwa barracks in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Many were arbitrarily rounded up during mass arrests, often with no evidence against them.

Once inside the barracks, they are incarcerated without access to the outside world or trial. At least 120 of those detained are children.

One of the detainees, a 20-year-old woman, who had been held in a women’s cell for more than two months in 2016 told Amnesty International: “Three died while we were there. When the children died, the reaction was too much sadness.”

The other witness, a 40-year-old woman detained in Giwa barracks for more than four months, told Amnesty International that soldiers ignored pleas for medical attention: “Measles started when hot season started. In the morning, two or three [were ill], by the evening five babies [were ill]. You will see the fever, the [baby’s] body is very hot and they will cry day and night. The eyes were red and the skin will have some rashes. Later some medical personnel came and confirmed that this is measles.”

After the deaths of these children she says that more regular medical checks began. She told Amnesty International: “Every two days the medical personnel will come to the yard and say ‘bring out the children who are sick’. The doctor will see them at the door and give them medicine through the door.”

Despite these measures, it appears that children have continued to die. Between 22 and 25 April a one-year-old boy, a five-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl died.

Boys over five, arrested alone or with their parents, were held in a single cell. As with all detainees at the barracks, they were denied access to their families and held incommunicado.

Two boys who were detained in this cell told Amnesty International that they got no family visits and they were not allowed out of the cell except to be counted by soldiers. 

One of the boys described how families arrested together were separated on arrival at Giwa. “Their father was in a cell and mother inside the women’s cell and the girls stayed with the mothers.”

Describing conditions of detention he told Amnesty International: “It is hunger and thirst and the heat – these are the main problems.” The other boy detained in the same cell confirmed: “The food was not enough. There was very little food.”

Mass public releases of detainees, including young children and babies, earlier this year, have demonstrated that the detention of children in Giwa barracks is no secret.