Some 150 people, including seven young children and four babies, have died this year in Giwa barracks, many from disease, hunger, dehydration, and gunshots wounds, according to Amnesty. The rights group urged Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari to uphold his promise to investigate the deaths, release the children in detention and shut down Giwa barracks immediately. Some 7,000 detainees have died in military detention in Nigeria since 2011 as a result of starvation, thirst, disease, torture and a lack of medical attention, Amnesty said last year. "People are detained, often with their children, in appalling conditions which do not meet basic human rights, or keep them alive," Amnesty's Nigeria researcher Daniel Eyre said. A regional offensive last year drove Boko Haram from much of the territory it held in northern Nigeria, undermining its seven-year campaign to carve out an Islamist caliphate.

Source: Standard Digital May 11, 2016 01:21 UTC