Thread by @WritesRights

BREAKING: @amnesty reveals shocking new evidence that Nigerian military razed villages & forced hundreds of inhabitants on trucks before burning their homes to the ground. The fight against #BokoHaram should not be like this. Civilians must be protected. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

@amnesty #Nigeria's military burned and forcibly displaced entire villages in response to a recent escalation in attacks by the armed group Boko Haram in Borno State. @amnesty interviewed 12 displaced villagers & analysed satellite imagery corroborating their testimonies.

@amnesty Witnesses described the military raid on 3-4 January. Villagers were rounded up & forced to board military trucks that whisked them away to an IDP camp as their homes & were torched. "We saw our houses go into flames. We all started crying" one older woman said. 400+ displaced.

@amnesty Witnesses told @amnesty they could not bring belongings with them, so lost everything – homes, jewellery, clothes, and, most devastatingly, the crops they stored after the harvest. “Everything we harvested was destroyed, and some of our animals died,” said a farmer in his 60s.

@amnesty Ordering the displacement of the inhabitants of these villages, where their security or imperative military reasons did not demand so, constitutes a war crime. The subsequent burning of their homes may amount to a war crime as well. #Nigeria

@amnesty Besides trucking hundreds of homeless villagers away, Nigeria's military also arrested six young men, seemingly at random. They were blindfolded, beaten & held for almost a month in dire conditions in a military barracks before being released w/ out charge on 30 Jan.

@amnesty Nigerian army statements, reported by @allafrica, indicate soldiers from Brigades 5 and 29, along with Special Intervention Battalion 2, carried out the operations between Jakana and Mainok in Borno on 3 January. allafrica.com/stories/202001…

@amnesty @allafrica Nigeria's military tried to paint it as an operation to rescue villagers from #BokoHaram - but witnesses who spoke to @amnesty strongly denied this. "They say they saved us from Boko Haram, but it’s a lie. Boko Haram isn’t coming to our village," one said.

@amnesty @allafrica The military raids come amid a surge in #BokoHaram attacks in the area - the group allegedly killed 30 civilians in a particularly brutal assault on Auno village, its deadliest so far this year, and sixth attack there in 10 months.

https://twitter.com/AmnestyNigeria/status/1227335048447320064?s=20

@amnesty @allafrica Such attacks demonstrate #BokoHaram's disregard for the sanctity of human life as well as the increasing danger for civilians living along this vital route connecting Borno state to the rest of Nigeria.

@amnesty @allafrica But that does not give Nigeria's military free rein to carry out scorched earth tactics against the civilian population. Nigeria's government must not brush these violations under the carpet. They must be investigated, & alleged perpetrators brought to justice.

@amnesty @allafrica Read the full investigation here 👇 /END amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

@amnesty For the satellite analysis: Image © 2020 CNES/Airbus