Eighteen men allegedly accused of being members of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram were found dead three hours after soldiers arrested them in northeast Nigeria, the BBC reported on Thursday.
Two residents in the town of Potiskum, the commercial center of Yobe State, have said that 18 bodies in the town’s morgue were of men that had been detained by the Nigerian military in a Wednesday search operation.
AFP news reported that a nurse at the morgue confirmed that soldiers brought in the men’s bodies.
The Nigerian Army, for its part, denied its involvement in the suspects’ death. The army also announced the release of more than 40 other suspects who had been suspected of being associated with the militants. [story_link align="left"]35960[/story_link]
A community leader stated that the men were killed because they were a part of the Kanura ethnic group, the group from which Boko Haram gets a large number of its members.
“The government should look into this cold-blooded murder and ensure justice is done because being a soldier is not a licence to kill at well on mere suspicion,” a community leader told the AFP.