Alwaght- Eight months after Zaria massacre, a judicial inquiry acknowledged that the Nigerian army has slaughtered 349 people from the minority Shiite Muslim.
A government-commissioned report, released on Monday, confirmed claims made by the Islamic Human Rights Commission that 347 of those killed were secretly buried in a mass grave.
On December 12, 2015, Nigerian soldiers attacked Shiite Muslims attending a ceremony at a religious center in the city of Zaria, accusing them of blocking the convoy of the army’s chief of staff and attempting to assassinate him.
In the following day, Nigerian forces raided the house of senior Shiite cleric Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), and arrested him after killing those attempting to protect him, including one of IMN's senior leaders and its spokesman.
Amnesty International reported that Nigerian military burned people alive, razed buildings and dumped victims’ bodies in mass graves.
The UK-based rights body said that the Nigerian army killed over 350 members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria and tried to meticulously destroy evidence of the crime by burying the victims in mass graves and limiting access to conflict sites in the city of Zaria, Kaduna State. Amnesty says there was mass slaughter of hundreds of men, women and children by soldiers in Zaria and the attempted cover-up of this crime demonstrates an utter contempt for human life and accountability.
However, a spokesman for the IMN says that over 800 people are still missing or being held in detention since the incident.
The newly released inquiry calls for all those responsible for the atrocity to be prosecuted, noting that Zakzaky is also responsible for not calling his followers to order.
The Nigerian Leader himself was shot seven times during the attacks and blinded in one eye and still remains in custody of the army.
Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky the leader of Nigeria’s Islamic Movement
Mohammed Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, last living son of the leader of Nigeria’s Islamic Movement, has recently written an open letter and voiced deep concerns over his father’s detraining health.
The 30-year-old son of Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky said that his father was systematically and slowly being reduced to a totally blind, crippled, and destroyed man as the Nigerian government prevents doctors from visiting the Shiites’ leader due to ‘Dutifully Protective Custodians.
