Amnesty International Nigeria has released a new report exposing the scale of the security and human rights crisis gripping the country’s South-East region, where thousands have been killed and hundreds subjected to enforced disappearance or displacement.
According to the report, “A Decade of Impunity: Attacks and Unlawful Killings in Southeast Nigeria”, a brutal clampdown on pro-Biafra protests beginning in August 2015 triggered a cycle of violence that has left communities trapped in fear. The document details widespread assassinations, attacks on highways, and assaults on security personnel and facilities, underscoring the region’s deep insecurity.
Between January 2021 and June 2023, at least 1,844 people were killed in the region, Amnesty said, attributing the violence to both state and non-state actors. In Imo State alone, over 400 people were killed between January 2019 and December 2021 in raids by armed groups on residents, police stations, and vigilante offices—often carried out in broad daylight. Many of these attacks sparked reprisal killings, further escalating the bloodshed.
The report documents a disturbing pattern of unlawful killings, torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, and forced displacement, involving rampaging gunmen, state-backed paramilitary units, vigilantes, criminal gangs, and cult groups between January 2021 and December 2024.
Amnesty International called on Nigerian authorities to step up protection for civilians, end the climate of impunity, and ensure that all perpetrators of human rights violations—regardless of affiliation—are brought to justice through fair and transparent trials.
