Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the government of Niger to prioritise accountability for alleged war crimes committed by all sides in the country’s armed conflict.
Since January 2021, attacks by armed groups in the West African country have resulted in the death of more than 300 people.
On 15 March, armed men, in the deadliest attack on civilians in Niger’s recent history, attacked several villages and hamlets in the Tillia area of Tahoua, killing at least 137 people, according to official reports.
‘With a rising civilian death toll, scores of disappeared people, and increasing unlawful attacks by armed Islamist groups, it is clear that abuses by one side beget abuses by the others’, HRW Crisis and Conflict Researcher, Jonathan Pedneault, said in a letter to the new justice and defense ministers.
‘President [Mohamed] Bazoum’s government should take urgent and bold action to reverse this trend by aggressively pursuing justice for all war crimes, whether by Islamist fighters or the security forces’.
The rights organisation urged the new administration to investigate 18 serious allegations of abuses by armed Islamist groups and government security forces in the border regions of Tillabéri and Tahoua since October 2019.
‘Human Rights Watch found that the security forces were allegedly responsible for at least 185 of the 496 deaths reported’, it noted.
The Tillabéri region, which borders Mali and Burkina Faso, is a focal point of armed Islamist group activity in Niger, as well as of national, regional, and international counterterrorism operations. The Tahoua region, bordering Mali, has also faced attacks by Islamist fighters.
Since 2015, armed Islamist groups in Niger have allegedly killed hundreds of villagers, executed aid workers and village leaders, attacked election officials, and targeted schools.
‘Human Rights Watch is only aware of one government investigation into allegations of war crimes by the security forces’, HRW said.
‘In April 2020, the previous defence minister ordered an investigation into the alleged enforced disappearance of 102 men in Inatès commune in the Tillabéri region in March and April 2020.
‘While investigators found no credible evidence of security force involvement in these incidents, it provided no reasonable explanation for the men’s disappearances, claiming that armed Islamists dressed in stolen military fatigues may have been responsible’.
Under international humanitarian law, which is applicable in Niger, all parties to armed conflict are prohibited from executing, torturing, or forcibly making anyone in their custody stay out of sight.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Photo source: Issouf Sanogo/AFP
