Women and Girls Suffer in Nigeria's War With Biafra Group

Gender-Based Violence has become a painful fallout of the Nigerian government's efforts to quell a secessionist bid by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the South East states of Nigeria, writes Titilope Fadare for the Premium Times.

A collaborative publication by the Canadian government and ActionAid Nigeria on the impact of insecurity on Nigerian women and girls in 12 states of Nigeria showed that women and girls "suffer horrendous violence and abuse that increases mortality rate and vulnerability to exploitation, due to the violence."

At least 210 people documented by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) were killed in 2021 in the protracted violence as security forces tried to suppress the separatist group in southeast Nigeria. IPOB is seeking the secession of the Igbo ethnic group from Nigeria. A federal court proscribed it as a terrorist organisation in 2017.

In December 2020, the group formed the Eastern Security Network, a paramilitary organisation it said would protect local farmers from migrant cattle herders seeking to graze their farmlands. But the unit has attacked and been attacked by security forces.

After the arrest and forced return of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, from Kenya to Nigeria, and his arraignment for treason, IPOB declared a sit-at-home holiday in the region every Monday and on every day Kanu appears in court. This was to force the Nigerian government to release him. This worsened the crisis in the zone as security personnel, the separatist group, and residents have been victims of a war that seems to have no end.