Hundreds of people have died in
detention facilities in north-east Nigeria as the army tries to crush an
Islamist militant rebellion there, according to Amnesty International.
The human rights group said some detainees died from suffocation
in overcrowded cells, others from starvation and extra-judicial killings.
In the report,it calls for an
urgent investigation into the deaths.
Nigeria's Interior Minister Abba Moro has dismissed the report
as "not true".
"I want to assure you - this government will not take the
lives of any of its citizens... including those who have taken up arms against
the government," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
A senior Nigerian army officer told Amnesty that at least 950
people had died in military custody during the first half of this year.
Most had been accused of having links to the Islamist militant
group Boko Haram, Amnesty said.
Boko Haram is fighting to overthrow Nigeria's government to
create an Islamic state, and has launched a number of attacks on schools.
About 50 students were shot dead earlier this month in their hostel in an attack blamed on Boko Haram.
A state of emergency was declared in three northern states in
May - Yobe, Borno and Adamawa - in response to thousands of deaths in militant
attacks.
Many schools have
been attacked by suspected Boko Haram militants
But while most of the recent news from has been about these
civilian killings, BBC Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says this latest Amnesty
report shines a light on another grim side of life in northern Nigeria.
At times, the number of people killed in these detention centres
was so high that there were regular mass burials, Amnesty said.
The BBC has seen photos of bodies reportedly dumped outside the
mortuary in the city of Maiduguri by the military.
The bodies showed no obvious signs of having been killed in
combat.
Amnesty has called for an urgent investigation, but those who
follow events closely in Nigeria will know that such an investigation is highly
unlikely to happen, our correspondent says.
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