Rights Groups Demand UN Investigation into Middle Belt Killings

The eyeWitness to Atrocities organization, established by the International Bar Association (IBA), and the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON) have jointly submitted a formal appeal to the United Nations (UN), meticulously detailing a pattern of atrocities occurring in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region.

Dependable NG reports that the Joint Urgent Appeal documents grave human rights violations, specifically focusing on the right to life, as well as the right to housing and food, which fall under the right to an adequate standard of living.

The organizations are urgently calling on the UN to take immediate steps, including launching an independent fact-finding mission to Nigeria, as armed violence intensifies and civilian communities face escalating threats. They highlighted the ongoing violent clashes between many herder and farming communities, alongside the recent mass abduction of over 300 children and staff from a Catholic boarding school in Niger State.

These incidents, the groups lamented, underscore the widespread climate of insecurity affecting numerous parts of Nigeria and emphasize the need for decisive action to ensure accountability for all forms of violence.

The appeal was officially submitted to three UN-appointed Special Rapporteurs: Morris Tidball-Binz (on extrajudicial executions), Michael Fakhri (on the right to food), and Balakrishnan Rajagopal (on the right to housing).

The document details how armed attackers have routinely killed civilians, destroyed essential property, homes, crops, food reserves, and storage structures, consistent with patterns of violence between herders and farmers in the Middle Belt. They told the UN special rapporteurs that these attacks are leading to massive displacement, with women and children often the most vulnerable.

eyeWitness and ICON urged the Rapporteurs to demand updates from Nigeria’s federal and state governments on their efforts to thoroughly investigate and prosecute the perpetrators, provide adequate assistance and redress to victims, and address the underlying root causes of the violence.

The current submission builds upon two previous reports submitted to the UN—one in 2022 concerning extrajudicial killings, and another ahead of the 2024 Universal Periodic Review for Nigeria.

According to eyeWitness and ICON, their disturbing findings—which are based on authenticated videos, documenters’ notes, open-source material, and witness accounts—indicate that the attacks have been frequent, targeted, and planned. Since 2019, ICON and its partners have captured over 7,500 photos and videos using the eyeWitness app, showing assailants frequently attacking villages when residents were asleep and unarmed.

Kyle Abts, Director at ICON, noted that the verified documentation of human rights abuses helps ensure that evidence is preserved for future justice and accountability. Carrie Bowker, Director at eyeWitness to Atrocities, added that the scale and brutality of the violence in the Middle Belt, which has persisted for years with little to no accountability, “demand urgent, coordinated action to end impunity, support victims, and tackle the root causes of this violence.”