Since 2013, the Nigerian army has systematically and secretly performed abortions on women who have been made pregnant by fighters of the jihadist organization Boko Haram. That appears from an investigation by the Reuters news agency. Many had been kidnapped and raped by members of the Islamist terror group. Nigerian government soldiers terminated the pregnancy of at least 10,000 women and girls.
Reuters spoke to dozens of witnesses, including 33 victims, a number of healthcare workers, soldiers and security guards. For example, they heard that women who did not cooperate with the abortion were beaten, held at gunpoint or drugged. Other women were given an injection or pill without being told it would induce a miscarriage. Some women did not even know they were pregnant. A pregnancy test was taken from them. If it was positive, the pregnancy was immediately terminated.
Some of the women told Reuters journalists that they suddenly had severe abdominal pain and bleeding. A number of sources say they have seen women die during or after an abortion. Some of them buried the women themselves.
‘For your own good’
Soldiers and aid workers Reuters spoke to said the abortions were to prevent new “insurgent” fighters from being born. In addition, it would be for the ‘own good’ of the women: they would be looked down upon if they had a child from a terrorist.
The operation was set up on a large scale, concludes Reuters. Convoys of pregnant women regularly drove under guard to barracks or hospitals to perform the operations. The fact that this was done in secret makes it impossible to find out the actual number of victims. The news agency expects the actual number of women who had an abortion to be even higher than its own estimate.
also watch these portraits of girls kidnapped from a school in Chibok in 2014
The Nigerian authorities deny the results of the investigation. They argue that it is impossible to hide a large-scale operation such as Reuters describes from all international and local aid organizations present in northeastern Nigeria. Abortion is illegal in the West African country unless it is necessary to save the mother’s life.
Terror group Boko Haram is mainly active in northeastern Nigeria, where it regularly commits deadly attacks. The group is notorious, among other things, for the kidnapping of nearly three hundred girls from a school in the city of Chibok.
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