A report by the Wall Street Journal, WSJ, claims that the Nigerian Army has been burying hundreds of soldiers in secret unmarked graves, in a bid to cover up the casualty figures in the ongoing war against insurgency within the North East.
According to the report, on Wednesday, July 31, 2019, at the northern edge of Maiduguri city’s sprawling military base, a vast field of churned soil conceals the hidden toll of a deadly offensive by the allies of Islamic State.
It further states that after dark, the bodies of soldiers are covertly transported from a mortuary that at times gets so crowded the corpses are delivered by truck.
The report says that the bodies are laid by flashlight into trenches dug by infantrymen or local villagers paid a few dollars per shift.
WSJ says its report is based on accounts from Nigerian soldiers, diplomats, and a senior government official.
A soldier who spoke from the Maimalari barracks is quoted as saying, “Several of my comrades were buried in unmarked graves at night,” where more than 1,000 soldiers are based. “They are dying and being deleted from history.”
The secret graveyard at Maimalari isn’t the only one in Nigeria’s troubled northeast, said the senior government official quoted by WSJ.
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