The hardline Islamist group Boko Haram's murderous rampage through the country’s north recently came to worldwide attention after the kidnap of more than 200 schoolgirls.
But according to evidence handed to Dateline’s Evan Williams, the Nigerian Government’s fightback against Boko Haram could be responsible for many more deaths and injuries.
“If they find a single Boko Haram, they will burn the village, they will kill the majority of youths in the village,” said a teacher after a visit by the civilian militia recruited by the Nigerian military.
“They don’t have any reason to prove that these are Boko Haram,” he says. “They didn’t see them with guns, they didn’t see them participating with Boko Haram.”
The methods used to identify suspected Boko Haram members were revealed to Dateline by militia insider ‘Abdul’.
“They all pass by. When it’s your turn, the boy looks for a few seconds. If he raises his hand, then they will capture you,” he says of a method where boys were reportedly used to identify Boko Haram members using little hard proof.
Video evidence from mobile phone footage seen by Dateline appears to show the torture and executions that can follow this kind of identification.
In the footage, some too graphic to be shown, groups of mostly men are seen being detained and beaten, while others are seen being hacked to death with knives.
Some of the videos show men wearing Nigerian armed forces uniforms, and the evidence is supported by eyewitness testimonies.
“We tie their hands and legs together and place them in the sun. We beat them with a stick until they scream,” said another militia insider ‘Mohammed’.
“Then they will tell us everything… he will tell us if he is Boko Haram.”
Dateline showed the evidence to international human rights lawyer Mark Ellis, who was appalled by what he saw.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as disturbing as this,” he says. “It constitutes war crimes without question.”
“The international community has a responsibility to step in and put pressure on this, because this is absolutely unacceptable.”
But Nigeria’s government claims the videos are fake.
“Nothing of the sort is being perpetrated in Nigeria,” it says, adding that it dismisses “the purported cases of human rights abuses and war crimes.”
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