Since 2009, a Nigerian army run forced abortion programme has terminated 10,000 pregnancies: Report

For the last nine years, the Nigerian Army has allegedly run a "secret, systematic and illegal" abortion programme in the country's northeast. A report claims that the army forcefully terminated close to 10,000 pregnancies.

The Reuters investigation alleges that many of the women, and girls involved in this abortion programme were victims of rape and kidnapping at the hands of Islamic militants.

Most of these abortions were performed without the pregnant woman or girl's consent, many of which were as young as 12 years. Pregnancies ranging from two weeks to eight months were terminated.

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The campaign relied on deception and physical force against women who were kept in military custody for days or weeks. Three soldiers and a guard said they commonly assured women, who often were debilitated from captivity in the bush, that the pills and injections given to them were to restore their health and fight diseases such as malaria.

In some instances, women who resisted were beaten, caned, held at gunpoint or drugged into compliance. Others were tied or pinned down, as abortion drugs were inserted inside them, said a guard and a health worker.

The campaign included intimidation and physical force against women who were detained by the military for days or weeks.

Women who resisted were "beaten, caned, held at gunpoint or drugged into compliance. Others were tied or pinned down, as abortion drugs were inserted inside them," said the report citing a guard and a health worker.

As per the report, central to this programme is the idea that the offspring of rebels are predestined by the blood in their veins to one day take up guns against the Nigerian government and society.

The alleged abortion programme is believed to have been in place since at least 2013, and procedures were carried out up to at least November of last year.

According to eyewitness statements and records examined by Reuters, the procedures have taken place in at least five military facilities and five civilian hospitals in the area. Maiduguri, the largest city in northeastern Nigeria and the nerve centre of the government's fight against Islamist radicals, was allegedly the scene of many of these abortions.

Quoting sources the report claims that the programme is secret and is occasionally kept a secret from coworkers in the same hospital.

In an interview with Reuters, the Nigerian military vehemently denied ever having such a programme. They asserted that the report was a part of an international plot to jeopardise the nation's campaign against militant groups.

"It has never happened, it is not happening, it will not happen. It is not in our character. We are highly professional. We are human beings, and these are Nigerians that you have been talking about," Major General Christopher Musa, who is in charge of the military's counterinsurgency effort in the northeast, remarked during an interview in November.

Amnesty International took to Twitter and said that it was "deeply concerned by the findings" of the investigative report. The human rights organisation has called on the Nigerian authorities to investigate and take action.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Wednesday called the report "harrowing" and said that his country is seeking further information.

"My reaction to it in the first instance was a personal one in that I read it and was deeply disturbed by it," he said. "It was a harrowing report. ... It's a concerning report and for that reason we are seeking further information."