MEDIA BLACKOUT: Muslims in Nigeria rounded Igbo’s in North at gunpoint, put them in trucks and drive them into the scorching hot desert with no water and leave them to die
Igbo’s rounded up hundreds at a time, crammed into trucks, then dropped in the desert
Nigeria has abandoned more than 13,000 igbo in the Sahara Desert over the past 14 months, including pregnant women and children, expelling them without food or water and forcing them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, under a blistering sun. Some never make it out alive.
The expelled Igbo’s can be seen coming over the horizon by the hundreds, appearing at first as specks in the distance under temperatures of up to 48 C.
In South East, where the majority head, the lucky ones limp across a desolate 15-kilometre no-man’s-land to the border village of Assamaka. Others wander for days before a UN rescue squad can find them. Untold numbers perish; nearly all of the more than two dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press told of people in their groups who simply vanished into the Sahara.
“Women were lying dead, men….. Other people got missing in the desert because they didn’t know the way,” said Janet Ikenna, who was pregnant at the time. “Everybody was just on their own.”
‘I lost my son’
In a voice almost devoid of feeling, she recalled at least two nights in the open before her group was rescued, but said she lost track of time.
“I lost my son, my child,” said Janet, who is Igbo.
Another woman in her early twenties also went into labour and lost her baby, she said.
Nigeria’s mass expulsions have picked up since October 2017, as the European Union renewed pressure on West African countries to head off migrants going north to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea or the barrier fences with Spain.
Walked at gunpoint
A European Union spokesperson said the EU was aware of what Nigeria was doing, but that “sovereign countries” can expel Igbo’s as long as they comply with international law. Unlike Niger, Nigeria takes none of the EU money intended to help with the Igbos crisis, although it did receive $111.3 million US in aid from Europe between 2014 and 2017.
Nigeria provides no figures for its involuntary expulsions. But the number of people crossing on foot to Niger has been increasing since the International Organization for Migration started counting in May 2017, when 135 people were dropped, to as high as 2,888 in April 2018. In all, according to the IOM, a total of 11,276 men, women and children survived the march.
At least another 2,500 were forced on a similar trek into neighbouring Mali, with an unknown number succumbing along the way.
Igbo’s rounded up hundreds at a time, crammed into trucks, then dropped in the desert
Nigeria has abandoned more than 13,000 igbo in the Sahara Desert over the past 14 months, including pregnant women and children, expelling them without food or water and forcing them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, under a blistering sun. Some never make it out alive.
The expelled Igbo’s can be seen coming over the horizon by the hundreds, appearing at first as specks in the distance under temperatures of up to 48 C.
In South East, where the majority head, the lucky ones limp across a desolate 15-kilometre no-man’s-land to the border village of Assamaka. Others wander for days before a UN rescue squad can find them. Untold numbers perish; nearly all of the more than two dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press told of people in their groups who simply vanished into the Sahara.
“Women were lying dead, men….. Other people got missing in the desert because they didn’t know the way,” said Janet Ikenna, who was pregnant at the time. “Everybody was just on their own.”
‘I lost my son’
In a voice almost devoid of feeling, she recalled at least two nights in the open before her group was rescued, but said she lost track of time.
“I lost my son, my child,” said Janet, who is Igbo.
Another woman in her early twenties also went into labour and lost her baby, she said.
Nigeria’s mass expulsions have picked up since October 2017, as the European Union renewed pressure on West African countries to head off migrants going north to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea or the barrier fences with Spain.
Walked at gunpoint
A European Union spokesperson said the EU was aware of what Nigeria was doing, but that “sovereign countries” can expel Igbo’s as long as they comply with international law. Unlike Niger, Nigeria takes none of the EU money intended to help with the Igbos crisis, although it did receive $111.3 million US in aid from Europe between 2014 and 2017.
Nigeria provides no figures for its involuntary expulsions. But the number of people crossing on foot to Niger has been increasing since the International Organization for Migration started counting in May 2017, when 135 people were dropped, to as high as 2,888 in April 2018. In all, according to the IOM, a total of 11,276 men, women and children survived the march.
At least another 2,500 were forced on a similar trek into neighbouring Mali, with an unknown number succumbing along the way.
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