Rights Groups, CSOs Demand Investigation into Alleged Disappearances, Torture, Custodial Deaths in South-east

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Enugu

As families keep asking questions and seeking answers on the whereabouts of their loved ones, a group of human rights organisations has demanded an independent panel to investigate “all reported disappearances, torture, and custodial deaths in the Southeast.”

The call was made at a press conference in Enugu by the Southeast Human Rights Bureau (SEHRB) in partnership with civil society organisations, including the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), and the Oganihu Igbo Development Foundation. They alleged that the incidents occurred during security operations in the Southeast over the years.

In a joint statement read to journalists, the groups said that well-documented evidence has shown that so many people have died in the Southeast at the hands of security agents while others just disappeared without any trace.

The rights groups said that given the mysteries surrounding the recorded deaths and forced disappearances, there was a need for “comprehensive facility audit of all detention centres, including Wawa Barracks, Kuje, Suleja, and DSS facilities, to log every detainee and their legal status.”

Their eight-point demands also include full accounting of the missing by disclosing arrest, transfer, and custody records for all individuals taken by state agents.

Other demands listed are forensic investigation into mortuaries to preserve evidence and identify all unidentified bodies in Imo State and across the region.

The rights groups said that guaranteed judicial safeguards must be put in place to ensure that “all detainees are promptly charged in court, granted legal representation, and protected from torture.”

They stated that prosecution of perpetrators must be carried out in order to “hold both state agents and non-state actors criminally responsible for proven human rights abuses.”

On the aftereffects of torture and detention on survivors, the groups demanded that there should be room for victim remedies and rehabilitation, which would provide compensation, medical care, and psychosocial support to victims and surviving families.

In addition, the rights groups called for the establishment of a Southeast Documentation Mechanism composed of a multi-stakeholder body involving families, legal experts, and civil society to track disappeared persons.

To stem the tide of unchecked security operations, the group called for a civilian oversight initiative to “strengthen independent monitoring and documentation of security agency operations to ensure accountability.”

The rights groups acknowledged “the severe security challenges plaguing the Southeast—where armed separatist elements, criminal gangs, and non-state actors have murdered police officers, soldiers, traditional rulers, and ordinary citizens.”

However, they insisted that “fighting lawlessness cannot justify state lawlessness (hence) there must be no hierarchy of victims.

“The civilian murdered by armed criminals matters. The police officer or soldier unlawfully killed matters. The detainee who disappears in state custody matters. The torture survivor matters. The unidentified dead matter. Every victim deserves truth, justice, and accountability,” the groups said.

The documented testimonies presented at the conference reveal a harrowing picture of night-time raids, arbitrary arrests, and systemic torture by security agencies, particularly the DSS, police tactical units like the infamous ‘Tiger Base’ in Owerri, and the Intelligence Response Team (IRT).

At the press conference, the harrowing testimonies of victims and relatives of persons who disappeared at the hands of security operatives left a common trail of broken families and unmarked graves.

Most of them broke down while recounting what they were made to suffer while being subjected to torture, with some coming out with permanent damage to their brains, limbs, eyes, or other body parts.

Among the most shocking cases was that of Sunday Ifedi and his wife, Calista, who were arrested by the DSS in Enugu in 2021 and transferred to Wawa Barracks. While Sunday regained his freedom after more than four years, Calista never made it out alive.

Grave allegations attributed to Sunday and human rights activist Omoyele Sowore indicate that Calista died in custody and was buried in a shallow grave within the barracks compound.

There was also the case of Ozioma Elizabeth Onyeaka, who walked out of her home for a church vigil five years ago, and her family assumed she would return by dawn with prayers on her lips.

Instead, the 35-year-old schoolteacher from Anambra State vanished into a legal black hole, leaving her relatives to traverse countless police stations, military formations, and mortuaries in a desperate, fruitless search for answers.

Other accounts detail horrifying instances of collective punishment and “arrest in lieu”—where family members are abducted when suspects cannot be found.

According to the coalition of rights groups, the pathetic accounts were “part of a systemic pattern of state-sponsored arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearances haunting Southeast Nigeria.”

On the recently reported large number of unidentified bodies piling up in Imo State mortuaries, the coalition expressed “grave concern that many may be victims of security operations, extrajudicial killings, or custodial deaths.”

They called for an immediate, independent forensic audit, preservation of mortuary registers and autopsies, and transparent DNA identification processes to prevent the destruction of evidence.

”A nation that cannot account for those taken into its custody cannot claim to uphold the rule of law,” the statement asserted.