About 150 agitators for the Republic of Biafra have been killed by Nigerian security operatives, especially the Nigerian army.
This much was contained in a new report by Amnesty International (AI), detailing how the pro-Biafrans met their death through extrajudicial killings and torture by the security forces.
Over 150 Biafrans were reportedly killed between August 2015 and August 2016 according to the report titled: "Bullets Were Raining Everywhere" and obtained by Premium Times.
This stats was said to have depended on an analysis of 87 videos, 122 photographs and 146 eye witness testimonies which showed the soldiers were firing live ammunition to disperse some of the agitators without a prior warning.
For instance, no fewer than 60 defenceless protesters of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) were killed within two days ahead of the May 30 Biafra Remembrance Day celebration.
This also confirmed Premium Times's earlier report about the massive clampdown and inexplicable killings of IPOB members by soldiers, police officers and operatives of the State Security Services (SSS).
In a statement issued alongside the report, AI wrote: "On Remembrance Day itself, the security forces shot people in several locations. Amnesty International has not been able to verify the exact number of extrajudicial executions, but estimates that at least 60 people were killed and 70 injured in these two days. The real number is likely to be higher."
A woman simply identified as Ngozi, during an interview with AI, recounted some of the incidents that occurred during the Remembrance Day celebration.
The 28-year-old wife of a late IPOB protester explained to the Amnesty that her hubby had informed her that day shortly after leaving for work that he had been shot in the abdomen by the soldiers but that he was in a military vehicle with six other members (four already dead).
She added: "He started whispering and said they just stopped [the vehicle]. He was scared they would kill the remaining three of them that were alive… He paused and told me they were coming closer. I heard gunshots and I did not hear a word from him after that."
It was not until the next day that the woman found her husband's corpse in a mortuary not far from their place of residence. And the mortuary attendant explained how the man had been brought (with three gunshot injuries - one in the abdomen and two on the chest) alongside six others.
Another witness, identified as Chukwuemeka (pseudonym) explained how he was shot and taken to the barracks with other corpses.
"They dumped us on the ground beside a pit. There were two soldiers beside the pit. The pit was very big and so many dead people were inside the pit. I cannot estimate the number of people in the grave. … We were dumped on the ground," the 25-year-old trader said.
The BBC also quotes Makmid Kamara, Amnesty's interim director for Nigeria, as saying: "This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths, and we fear the actual total might be far higher."
It also reported that a 26-year-old man was reportedly shot in Nkpor area of Anambra state but did not die. And when some soldiers found him again, they poured acid on him in a bid to have him die slowly.
The Nigerian army has denied killing members of the Movement for the Actualisation of a Sovereign State Of Biafra (MASSOB) and the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) and accused them of committing heinous crimes.
In a statement by Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman who is the spokesperson of the army, he reacted to a planned release of Amnesty International that reportedly accused the army of carry out extra-judicial killing of member of the separatist groups.
Usman however accused the international group of peddling lies and said it was an attempt to tarnish the image of the army.
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