Rights Group Urges Boko Haram to Stop Attacking Civilians

Human Rights Watch on Friday called for Boko Haram to stop targeting ordinary Nigerians, claiming the banned Islamist group had abducted scores of women and girls and used children as young as 12 in fighting.

The organization also called on the Nigerian government to investigate the forced disappearances of hundreds of men and boys at the hands of security services, as well as "credible" claims of torture and death in custody.

"Many Nigerian families have suffered, even lost loved ones, at the hands of both Boko Haram and the security forces," said the Africa director at the global rights monitor, Daniel Bekele.

"Boko Haram must desist from waging war on ordinary Nigerians, while the government should take urgent steps to hold to account soldiers who have tortured, disappeared and killed, regardless of rank."

Boko Haram, whose name translates from the Hausa language of northern Nigeria as "Western education is sin", has been blamed for thousands of deaths since 2009.

The shadowy group aims to impose a strict form of Islamic law or sharia on northern Nigeria and has attacked schools following a Western-style curriculum as well as churches.

Its offshoot, Ansaru, has claimed a number of kidnappings of Westerners and has cited French intervention against Islamists in Mali earlier this year as a motivation.

Both were made international pariahs on November 13 when the United States declared them terror groups, in a move designed to cut off global funding sources and isolate them from a wider Islamist network.

"For a group that claims to be religious, Boko Haram's tactics are the most profane acts we can imagine," Bekele said in a statement.

"The killing and mutilation of ordinary Nigerians, the abduction and rape of women and girls and the use of children for fighting are horrifying human rights violations."

HRW based its claims on a nine-day fact-finding mission this month to the largest city in northern Nigeria, Kano, and Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state which is considered Boko Haram's stronghold.

Researchers interviewed more than 60 "victims and witnesses", plus medical personnel, local human rights groups, heads of the civilian vigilante group and government officials, it added.

Among its wide-ranging conclusions were that civilian vigilantes allied to the military had provoked revenge attacks by Boko Haram for informing on supposed militant activity.

It also called for vigilantes who had committed abuses to be put on trial and urged the group to stop using minors in counter-intelligence and security operations.

Nigeria first imposed a state of emergency in three northeastern states considered a hotbed of Boko Haram activity in May this year, flooding the area with troops and cutting communications to the wider country.

Parliament has since approved the extension of the powers for a further six months.