Amnesty Int’l Report Says Over 1800 Killed, Hundreds “Disappeared” In South-East Nigeria Amid Security Crisis

A latest report by Amnesty International has revealed that both government-backed forces and armed groups have been responsible for a decade-long violent attacks and killings of over 1,800 people and widespread human rights abuses in Nigeria’s South-East.

In the report titled ‘A Decade of Impunity: Attacks and Unlawful Killings in South-East Nigeria’, the global human rights advocacy organisation said the report documented human rights violations and abuses committed by various state and non-state actors in the South-East between January 2021 and December 2024.

The report stated, “The actors concerned include the state-backed paramilitary outfit, commonly referred to as ‘Ebube Agu’, and members of the defence and security forces.

“The non-state actors include the Eastern Security Network (ESN) — the militant arm of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), ‘unknown gunmen’, cult groups, and vigilante group members.”

According to Amnesty International, the period witnessed “violence, unlawful killings, attacks, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detention, internal displacements, and suppression of the right to freedom of movement.”

The organisation estimated that “between January 2021 and June 2023, over 1,844 people were killed in the South-East region of Nigeria,” while attacks on security agents by gunmen “led to the unlawful killing of security agents and residents.”

The report cited incidents involving so-called “unknown gunmen,” IPOB/ESN, cult groups, and herders, including killings over grazing disputes in Enugu and Ebonyi states.

It also highlighted communities “turned into ungoverned spaces” — such as Agwa and Izombe in Imo State and Lilu in Anambra State — where armed groups displaced residents and assumed control.

On cult-related violence, Amnesty International noted that “these cult groups have been responsible for the killing of hundreds of residents in cultism-related clashes” across Anambra State towns like Obosi, Awka, Onitsha, Ogidi, and Umuoji.

The report condemned the enforcement of IPOB’s August 9, 2021, sit-at-home order, which it said “led to violations of the human rights of the people in the region, including the rights to life, freedom of movement, and the right to education.”

Amnesty International also accused the Ebube Agu paramilitary force, established by South-East governors in April 2021, of “arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, unlawful killings and enforced disappearances, extortion, and destruction of homes.”

The Nigerian military was similarly accused of abuses during operations such as “Operation Python Dance” (2016, 2017) and “Operation Udo Ka” (2023), including “arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and destruction of homes.”

The report detailed military airstrikes and reprisal attacks in several South-East communities, and accused authorities of clamping down on IPOB supporters with “unlawful killings, extrajudicial executions, excessive use of force, torture, arbitrary arrests, detention, and unfair trials.”

It concluded that the “security situation in South-East Nigeria involves a hybrid of criminal and political violence”.

It warned that both state and non-state actors exploit the crisis “to suit their interests,” often reducing it to a “singular narrative” of IPOB/ESN insurgency despite its complex realities.