The Commander of Joint Investigation Centre (JIC) of Operation Hadin Kai in Giwa Barracks, Maiduguri, Lt. Col. A.U. Ahmed said that contrary to Reuters’ report of forced abortion, pregnant women rescued by the military in the frontline were supported to deliver their babies safely.
Ahmed represented by his second in Command, Capt. Olugbenga Adeniyi made this known while testifying before the Special Independent Investigative Panel on Human Rights Violations in Counter-Insurgency Operations in North East Nigeria (SIIP North East) under the chairmanship of Justice Abdu Aboki (rtd).
He insisted that Reuters’ report seeking to indict the military of human rights infractions was unfounded, adding that the military won’t have children with their mothers in the facility if pregnancies were terminated.
He observed that it was ironic for Reuters’ to alleged abortions of 10,000 pregnancies, infanticide, and other forms of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) against the military which has successfully conducted several antenatal and postnatal services.
“How can we have all these children here if we terminate pregnancies?, he said citing an example of an infant delivered two days ago in the facility
Also in his submission before the panel, the Head of Records at the JIC, Lt. Sadiq Ahmed Ogoshi, said that the centre has not recorded any death or abortion of pregnancies.
On how the centre manages cases of pregnancy involving women and girls, Ogoshi explained that they have medical personnel including nurses and community health workers who take care of such cases.
According to him, when such women and girls brought into the facility are due for delivery, they were conveyed by the Clinic’s ambulance to the 7 Division Hospitals at Maimalari Cantonment where they are given the required medical care.
A nurse at the JIC medical facility, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, Hyplapamduwa Wakawa said that she ensures that any drugs administered to patients are recorded in line with standard medical practices.
She also informed the panel that she is not aware that certain drugs like oxytocin were used between 2017 and 2019 to terminate the pregnancies of 30 girls (less than 18 years) so as to stop them from giving birth to children fathered by the Boko Haram insurgents.
Meanwhile, a member of the investigative panel, Dr Maisaratu Bakari, a Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynecologist, has observed the need to ensure that proper and timely immunization programme are carried out in the detention facility so that babies and children who are in the facility get immunized against various deceases.
The JIC facility have 2,048 detainees comprising 35 are women including those who are pregnant at the time they were rescued from the battlefield as well as those rescued with their children.
