Amnesty Int’l Report Says Over 1800 Killed, Hundreds “Disappeared” In South-East Nigeria Amid Security Crisis
Amnesty International: Over 1,800 Killed in Decade of Violence in South-East Nigeria
A new Amnesty International report has accused both government-backed forces and armed groups of carrying out a decade-long wave of violence, resulting in more than 1,800 deaths and widespread human rights violations in Nigeria’s South-East.
The report, titled “A Decade of Impunity: Attacks and Unlawful Killings in South-East Nigeria”, covers incidents between January 2021 and December 2024, documenting abuses by state and non-state actors.
According to Amnesty, perpetrators include the state-backed paramilitary group Ebube Agu and Nigeria’s defence and security forces, as well as the Eastern Security Network (ESN) — the militant arm of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) — “unknown gunmen,” cult groups, vigilantes, and armed herders.
Between January 2021 and June 2023 alone, more than 1,844 people were killed in the region. The organisation also cited attacks on security personnel, deadly grazing disputes in Enugu and Ebonyi states, and entire communities turned into “ungoverned spaces” — including Agwa and Izombe in Imo State, and Lilu in Anambra — where armed groups displaced residents and seized control.
Cult-related clashes, particularly in Anambra towns such as Obosi, Awka, Onitsha, Ogidi, and Umuoji, were blamed for hundreds of additional deaths.
The report condemned IPOB’s August 9, 2021 sit-at-home order, saying it violated residents’ rights to life, movement, and education. It also accused Ebube Agu, formed by South-East governors in April 2021, of arbitrary arrests, torture, unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, extortion, and destruction of property.
The Nigerian military was similarly implicated in abuses during operations including Operation Python Dance (2016, 2017) and Operation Udo Ka (2023), involving arbitrary detentions, torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and airstrikes on communities.
Authorities were further accused of targeting IPOB supporters with excessive force, unfair trials, and other violations.
Amnesty concluded that insecurity in the South-East is driven by a mix of political and criminal violence, warning that both state and non-state actors exploit the situation to serve their own interests — often oversimplifying it as solely an IPOB/ESN insurgency despite its complex root.