Police freed 46 captives — many of them chained and badly beaten — in raids on five ”torture centres” run by an increasingly feared Nigerian vigilante group, a police representative said on Thursday.
The vigilantes, known as the Bakassi Boys, were initially considered heroes by many in Nigeria for their citizen’s campaign against armed robbers in the country’s crime-ridden southeast.
But human rights organisations, and some residents, say the vigilante groups have gone out of control, and have denounced them as ruthless killers.
Police and Bakassi Boys exchanged gunfire during Wednesday’s raids in the southeastern towns of Umuahia, Ossisioma, Akwete, Ogbor Hill and Aba in Abia state, police representative Haz Iwendi said.
One bystander was killed and 11 officers injured in the sweep, he said.
Police said they launched the raids after receiving numerous complaints that people were being held illegally by the vigilantes.
Many of the people released by the police were bleeding from severe beatings and needed hospital treatment, Iwendi said. They included eight women.
Police arrested 33 people and seized dozens of guns as well as more than 50 machetes and swords, he said.
”It’s the first major operation against the Bakassi Boys. There will definitely be more,” Iwendi said.
The Bakassi Boys are former market traders who became vigilantes after the under-funded and often corrupt police force proved unable to stem crime in the region.
Amnesty International says the vigilantes have summarily executed more than 1 000 people since forming in 1998. The New York-based Human Rights Watch says they have also tortured hundreds of people to force confessions.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed fears vigilante groups could be transformed into private armies during next year’s governors’ elections, since governors are the vigilantes’ main patrons.
Wednesday’s raids came as Bakassi Boys in neighbouring Anambra state resumed decapitating and burning suspected criminals in the streets of the southeast market city of Onitsha for the first time in more than a month, police and residents said.
On Thursday, residents said the vigilantes left at least three decapitated bodies burning in the streets of Onitsha.
”They are still burning, and people are just walking by,” a journalist said on condition of anonymity. Onitsha police commander Ola Taiwo confirmed the Bakassi Boys were linked to the bodies but could not confirm the number of people killed.
”It is barbaric. If they arrest people, they should bring them to the police,” Taiwo said.
A Bakassi Boy member, who identified himself only as
”Schwarzenegger”, admitted that a number of suspected criminals were killed on Wednesday, but denied the vigilantes were responsible.
”About 15 armed robbers were killed, but it was by the masses,” he said.
Nigeria’s human rights groups commended the police raids but said much remained to be done by the police to curb the Bakassi Boys’ abuses and to win back public confidence.
”The police must sustain the tempo,” said Ubgochukwu Okezie, representative for the Civil Liberties Organisation. ”But until they prove they can protect life and property, people will crave other protection.” – Sapa-AP