Boko Haram sects has kidnapped more than 2,000 girls and women since 2014 –AI

Firstclass Newsline~Amnesty International,which stated this in a
report on Monday, said the abducted women were forced into sexual
slavery and trained to fight.
The report was issued on the first anniversary of the abduction of the
over 200 Chibok schoolgirls on April 14, 2014.
The 90-page report is titled, "Our job is to shoot, slaughter and
kill': Boko Haram's reign of terror."
According to the AI, the report was based on nearly 200 witness
accounts, including 28 with abducted women and girls, who escaped
captivity.
The report which highlighted multiple war crimes and crimes against
humanity committed by Boko Haram, also threw up new light on the
brutal methods used by the sect in the North-East.
It noted that men and boys were regularly conscripted or
systematically executed and young women and girls abducted, imprisoned
and in some cases raped.
The young women, according to the report, were forcibly married and
made to participate in armed attacks, sometimes on their own towns and
villages.
The AI's Secretary General, Salil Shetty , said, "The evidence
presented in this shocking report, one year after the horrific
abduction of the Chibok girls, underlines the scale and depravity of
Boko Haram's methods.
"Men and women, boys and girls, Christians and Muslims, have been
killed, abducted and brutalised by Boko Haram during a reign of terror
which has affected millions.
"Recent military successes might spell the beginning of the end for
Boko Haram, but there is a huge amount to be done to protect
civilians, resolve the humanitarian crisis and begin the healing
process."
The report contains graphic evidence, including new satellite images
of the scale of devastation that Boko Haram had left in their wake.
The abduction of 276 schoolgirls gained global attention with the
help of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
The AI stated that the missing schoolgirls were only a small
proportion of the women, girls, young men and boys abducted by Boko
Haram.
It reported that the sect always took the abducted women and girls
directly to camps in remote communities or to makeshift transit camps
such as the one established in Ngoshe prison.
According to the group, from transit camps, Boko Haram would move them
to houses in towns and villages and indoctrinate them with their
version of Islam in preparation for marriage.
AI made reference to a 19-year-old girl, whose name was given simply
as Aisha, who narrated how she was abducted from a friend's wedding
in September 2014 along with her sister, the bride and the bride's
sister.
According to the AI, one week later, Boko Haram forced the bride and
the bride's sister to marry their fighters. They also taught Aisha and
the other women and girls how to fight.
It quoted Aisha as saying,"They used to train girls on how to shoot
guns. I was among the girls trained to shoot. I was also trained on
how to use bombs and how to attack a village.
"The training went on for three weeks after we arrived. Then they
started sending some of us to operations. I went on one operation to
my own village."
Aisha said that during the three months that she was held captive, she
was raped repeatedly, sometimes by groups of up to six fighters.
She also saw more than 50 people killed by Boko Haram, including her sister.
Aisha added, "Some of them refused to convert. Some refused to learn
how to kill others. They were buried in a mass grave in the bush.
They'll just pack the dead bodies and dump them in a big hole, but not
deep enough. I didn't see the hole, but we used to smell the dead
bodies when they start getting rotten."
Since the start of 2014,Amnesty Internationaldocumented at least 300
raids and attacks carried out by Boko Haram against civilians.
According to the report, Ahmed and Alhaji, aged 20 and 18, were seated
with other men, waiting for their throats to be cut after Boko Haram
took over Madagali on 14 December 2014.
Ahmed told AI that even though his instinct told him to run, he could not.
He said, "They were slaughtering them with knives. Two men were doing
the killing…We all sat on the ground and waited our turn."
Alhaji only managed to escape when a Boko Haram executioner's blade
became too dull to slit more throats.
He said, "Before they got to my group, they killed 27 people in front
of me. I was counting every one of them because I wanted to know when
my turn would come."
He said that at least 100 men who refused to join Boko Haram were
executed in Madagali on that day.
In Gwoza, Boko Haram killed at least 600 people during an attack on
August 6, 2014. Witnesses told AI how anyone trying to escape would be
pursued. One of the witnesses said, "The motorcycles went to
surrounding areas, each street corner, where they will shoot you. They
are only shooting the men.
''Thousands fled to nearby mountains where Boko Haram fighters hunted
them down and forced them out of the caves where they were hiding with
tear gas canisters. The women were then abducted. The men were
killed.''
Satellite imagery commissioned by the AI enabled the organisation to
document the scale of devastation wreaked by Boko Haram.
This includes new before and after images of Bama commissioned for the
report. These show that at least 5,900 structures, approximately 70
per cent of the town, were either damaged or destroyed, including the
hospital, by retreating Boko Haram fighters as the Nigerian military
regained control of the town in March 2015.
Life under Boko Haram
The report documents the reign of terror for those under Boko Haram rule.
Soon after taking control of a town, Boko Haram would assemble the
population and announce new rules with restrictions of movement,
particularly on women.
Most households became dependent on children to collect food or on
visits by Boko Haram members who offered assistance, distributing
looted food.
Boko Haram enforced its rules with harsh punishments. Failure to
attend daily prayers was punishable by public flogging.
A woman who spent five months under Boko Haram control in Gamborou
toldAmnesty Internationalhow she had seen a woman given 30 lashes for
selling children's clothes and a couple executed publicly for
adultery.
A 15-year-old boy from Bama, spared by Boko Haram due to his
disability, toldAmnesty Internationalthat he had witnessed 10 stonings
Firstclassnewsline.net