A controversial Reuters’ report on Wednesday noted that the Nigerian Army ran a secret, systematic and illegal abortion programme in the country’s northeast since at least 2013.
The United Nations’ Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on the Nigerian authorities to investigate allegations of systemic and coerced abortions allegedly perpetrated by the Nigerian Army in the Boko Haram-ravaged North-East region.
A controversial Reuters’ report on Wednesday noted that the Nigerian Army ran a secret, systematic and illegal abortion programme in the country’s northeast since at least 2013.
The programme, according to the report, involved terminating at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls, many of whom had been kidnapped and raped by Islamist militants.
The report according Reuters was based on dozens of witness accounts and documentation reviewed.
The Defence Headquarters, Abuja, had tackled Reuters over the report, describing it as falsehood and blackmail by the foreign news outlet.
“Wickedness really runs in the veins of some people and it surely runs deep in the veins of the Reuters team that concocted such evil for interrogation. The fictitious series of stories actually constitute a body of insults on the Nigerian peoples and culture for, no people or culture in Nigeria practices such evil as dreamt up by the Reuters team,” Major General Jimmy Akpor, director, Defence Information said in a statement.
But the U.N spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, quoted the Secretary General to have asked the Nigerian authorities to investigate the allegations.
“The Secretary-General takes note with concern of the allegations of systemic and coerced abortions reportedly perpetrated by the Nigerian Army against women and girls who had already been victimized by Boko Haram,” Dujarric said in an email to Reuters.
He called for a thorough investigation and “immediate remedial actions and accountability measures,” if such measures were necessary.
“We call on the Nigerian authorities to fully investigate these allegations and make sure there’s accountability,” Dujarric told reporters later on Friday.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said the Biden administration was “deeply troubled.”
“Our embassy in Abuja is seeking further information, including from the government of Nigeria and stakeholders working in this space,” the spokesperson said. “We have encouraged the government of Nigeria to take the allegations seriously and to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation, and we will continue to do so.”
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