“Serious abuse”: armed groups kill and recruit children in Niger

The human rights organization Amnesty urged the government to take urgent action to warn of “damaging effects on children.”

A human rights organization said on Monday that as conflicts in the Tillabéry region in the west of the country bordering Mali and Burkina Faso have deteriorated significantly, more and more children are being killed and abducted in Niger.

“Niger is on the edge of a cliff. In parts of the country, an entire generation has grown up surrounded by death and destruction,” said Amnesty International’s Matt Wells, emphasizing a 57-page release report.

“The Niger government and its international partners must act urgently to monitor and prevent further abuse in Tillabéri and protect the basic rights of all people affected by this deadly conflict, especially children.”

The London-based human rights group accused the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and Al Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) of causing “destructive effects on children.” The area.

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLD) cited by Amnesty International, violence against civilians resulted in 544 conflict-related deaths between January and August, up from 397 people killed in similar incidents in 2020.

The report stated that armed groups killed more than 60 children in Niger’s trilateral border area in 2021, adding that ISGS appeared to be responsible for most of the killings.

Amnesty International spoke to 16 boys who were almost spared from an attack on their village by an armed group. “We are all used to hearing gunfire and seeing [dead] Layers of people [dead] People,” a teenage boy told Rights.

Another boy witnessed the murder of his 12-year-old friend in March. He said: “I thought about Wahab and how he was killed. Sometimes I have nightmares, dreaming of being chased by people on motorcycles. Or see Wahab pleading [attackers] again. “

The report also found that as of June, the conflict had forced the closure of at least 377 schools in Tillabéri, affecting more than 31,700 students. This figure shows that since November 2020, more than 100 schools and nearly 10,000 out-of-school students have been added.

‘We are abandoned’

According to Amnesty International, ISGS has become the main armed group along the Niger-Mali border in the past three years, recruiting recruits from impoverished and marginalized communities.

According to the report, at the same time, on the border with Burkina Faso, JNIM has also stepped up recruitment since the beginning of the year, focusing on young people and boys.

Amnesty International said these armed groups found it easy to carry out activities in the border area of ​​Niger because they had been evacuated by government forces.

“At first, we will call FDS [Niger’s armed forces] But now maybe two days later, they won’t come,” said a 50-year-old man from Torodi near the Burkina Faso border. “We were abandoned. “

Amnesty International warned that if the government and international participants do not take “urgent action” to prevent further abuse, “the situation of children and the wider population may deteriorate further, and armed groups have taken advantage of the absence of the state to carry out brutal abuse.” .