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Nigerian military secretly aborts 10,000 pregnancies of women raped by terrorists

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The Nigerian military has aborted over 10,000 pregnancies secretly of women and girls reportedly raped by Boko Haram terrorists in the North-East.

According to a report by Reuters, many of the women and girls had been kidnapped and raped by the terrorists.

Fati, who was kidnapped by terrorists and later rescued by the military, narrated her ordeal.

She lost contact with her family one night during an attack by insurgents on Monguno.

She was later captured by the terrorists, whipped and shunted into one of two pickup trucks with the other women, she said.

They drove through the night to the shores of the vast Lake Chad, where fighters loaded the women into canoes. As the sun rose, the captives were ferried out toward the lake’s myriad islands.

Fati said she was married off three times, forced to take a new husband whenever the previous one didn’t return from the war. The third, who impregnated her, “was the worst out of all of them,” she said. “He would hit me with the butt of his gun … He would beat me until I was sick.”

Fati was four months pregnant when liberated from the insurgents. Soon after, she says, soldiers medically aborted the pregnancy without telling her. And she was warned: “If you share this with anyone, you will be seriously beaten.” Photo Credit: REUTERS/Paul Carsten

When the Nigerian soldiers came that day about three years ago, she welcomed them.

Now in her 20s, Fati said shortly after being rescued with four months of pregnancy, uniformed men gave her and five other women mysterious injections and pills in a dim room at a military barracks in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.

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After about four hours, Fati, who said she was about four months pregnant, felt a searing pain in her stomach and black blood seeped out of her. The other women were bleeding as well, and writhing on the floor. “The soldiers want to kill us,” she thought.

According to her, the soldiers aborted the pregnancies without telling them. And she was warned: “If you share this with anyone, you will be seriously beaten.”

The abortions mostly were carried out without the person’s consent – and often without their prior knowledge, according to the witness accounts. The women and girls ranged from a few weeks to eight months pregnant, and some were as young as 12 years old, interviews and records showed.

This investigation is based on interviews with 33 women and girls who say they underwent abortions while in the custody of the Nigerian Army. Just one said she freely gave consent. Reporters also interviewed five civilian healthcare workers and nine security personnel involved in the programme, including soldiers and other government employees such as armed guards engaged in escorting pregnant women to abortion sites. In addition, Reuters reviewed copies of military documents and civilian hospital records describing or tallying thousands of abortion procedures.

Three soldiers and a guard said they commonly assured women, who often were debilitated from captivity in the bush, that the pills and injections given to them were to restore their health and fight diseases such as malaria. In some instances, women who resisted were beaten, caned, held at gunpoint or drugged into compliance. Others were tied or pinned down, as abortion drugs were inserted inside them, said a guard and a health worker.

Bintu Ibrahim, now in her late 20s, recounted how soldiers gave her two injections without her consent after picking her up with a group of other women who fled the insurgents about three years ago. When the blood came, and the terrifying pain, she knew she and the others had undergone abortions. The women protested and demanded to know why, she said, until the soldiers threatened to kill them.

“If they had left me with the baby, I would have wanted it,” said Ibrahim, whose account was confirmed by a fellow former captive, Yagana Bukar.

At military facilities and in the field, some abortions proved fatal. Although Reuters could not determine the full scope of the deaths in nearly 10 years of the programme, four soldiers and two security officers said they witnessed women die from abortions, or saw their corpses afterward.

Ibrahim said she also witnessed a woman die after an injection at the time of her own abortion near a small village in the bush – an event corroborated by her companion Bukar.

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“That woman was more pregnant than the rest of us, almost six or seven months,” Ibrahim said. “She was crying, yelling, rolling around, and at long last she stopped rolling and shouting. She became so weak and traumatised, and then she stopped breathing.

“They just dug a hole, and they put sand over it and buried her.”

Reuters was unable to establish who created the abortion programme or determine who in the military or government ran it.

Nigerian military leaders denied the programme has ever existed and said Reuters reporting was part of a foreign effort to undermine the country’s fight against the insurgents.

“Not in Nigeria, not in Nigeria,” said Major General Christopher Musa, who heads the military’s counterinsurgency campaign in the northeast, in a November 24 interview with Reuters that addressed the abortion programme.

“Everybody respects life. We respect families. We respect women and children. We respect every living soul.”

General Lucky Irabor, Nigeria’s chief of defence staff, did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters. On December 2, a week after Reuters sought an interview with Irabor and shared detailed findings and questions with his office, the military’s director of defence information released a five-page statement to reporters, and later posted it on Facebook and Twitter. Major General Jimmy Akpor said Reuters was motivated by “wickedness” and a “bullying” mentality, according to the statement.

“The fictitious series of stories actually constitute a body of insults on the Nigerian peoples and culture,” Akpor added. “Nigerian military personnel have been raised, bred and further trained to protect lives, even at their own risk, especially when it concerns the lives of children, women and the elderly.”

Central to the abortion programme is a notion widely held within the military and among some civilians in the northeast: that the children of insurgents are predestined, by the blood in their veins, to one day take up arms against the Nigerian government and society. Four soldiers and one guard said they were told by superiors that the programme was needed to destroy insurgent fighters before they could be born.

“It’s just like sanitising the society,” said a civilian health worker, one of seven people who acknowledged performing abortions under army orders.

Four of the health workers interviewed by Reuters also said that the programme was for the good of the women and any children they might bear, who would face the stigma of being associated with an insurgent father.

The army-run abortion programme has been in place since at least 2013, and procedures were being performed through at least November of last year, according to accounts from soldiers.

The procedures have occurred in at least five military facilities and five civilian hospitals in the region, according to witness accounts and documentation reviewed by Reuters. Many occurred in Maiduguri, the largest city in Nigeria’s northeast and the command centre of the government’s war on Islamist extremists.

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The Maiduguri sites include the detention centre at Giwa Barracks, where Fati said she was forced to have an abortion. Other sites include the Maimalari Barracks, which is the city’s main military base, and two civilian hospitals – State Specialist and Umaru Shehu. The two hospitals did not comment on this story.

Forced abortions may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to four legal experts briefed by Reuters on its findings. Although forced abortions are not specifically criminalised under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the experts said, they could be construed as torture or other inhumane treatment and be prosecuted as such.

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor found in 2020 that grounds existed to investigate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity by both Nigerian security forces and insurgents. But the court has not opened a probe.

The ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor declined to comment on Reuters’ findings.

SaharaReporters had reported how in April 2014, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in Chibok town in Borno, prompting the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. About 98 of the kidnapped girls are still missing.

Two young women, Felerin and Aisha, described undergoing abortions after being taken into custody by the Nigerian military.

Other women interviewed by Reuters offered similar accounts of captivity and rescue – including being raped by insurgents and escaping with the help of soldiers who took them into custody and transported them under armed guard to military facilities or civilian hospitals. Many said they were made to give urine or blood samples before receiving unspecified injections and pills.

Nigerian facilities often used misoprostol, which helps induce labour or contractions, according to the documentation reviewed by Reuters. The drug is also used to treat ulcers and post-partum hemorrhaging, and is widely available in Nigerian cities, including through unofficial abortion-drug distribution networks. Women sometimes were also given the progesterone-blocker called mifepristone, which in many countries is used in conjunction with misoprostol in medication abortions.

Also given was the drug oxytocin, which is widely used during labour to stimulate contractions and safe to use when under medical supervision. Though experts say it is not recommended for abortions, it was sometimes given at military bases to trigger terminations, said two soldiers who performed the procedures.

Using oxytocin to induce abortion is dangerous, several international medical experts told Reuters, particularly if it is injected intramuscularly, as soldiers involved in the Nigerian programme said it was. If the drug is administered too quickly, the results can be fatal, the experts said.

The medications misoprostol and mifepristone are considered safe for abortions when the standard medical protocol is used, according to the World Health Organization and other authorities.

Among those forced to undergo an abortion was a girl named Hafsat.

She arrived at an army base in March 2019, a skinny teen of 14 or 15, clad in a turquoise dress and covered in mosquito bites, according to a soldier present that day.

The soldier said he and other troops injected Hafsat and three others with oxytocin while they lay on the ground outside the army clinic.

Within an hour, the soldier said, he heard cries and turned to see Hafsat bleeding heavily from between her legs. He grabbed her a cloth to stanch the blood.

Hafsat began crying out for a man named Ali, and for her mother. “Half an hour later, maybe, she just went quiet,” he said. “She died.”

The soldier said he and his comrades wrapped her in her turquoise dress and buried her. The memory haunts him.

“I can’t forget her name,” he said.

The details of the soldier’s account were corroborated by a second soldier at the base, who said he also witnessed the girl’s abortion and death.

In all, eight sources, including four soldiers, said they witnessed deaths or saw corpses of women who died from abortions performed at military barracks or administered in the field.

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State Police Reform: FG Invites Nigerians to Submit Policy Proposals as Draft Bill Nears September Deadline

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19 hours ago

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August 4, 2026

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State Police Reform: FG Invites Nigerians to Submit Policy Proposals as Draft Bill Nears September Deadline
Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to the President and Chairman of the Presidential Working Group on the National Policing Bill

State Police Reform: FG Invites Nigerians to Submit Policy Proposals as Draft Bill Nears September Deadline

The Presidential Working Group on State Policing has opened a two-week public submission window for memoranda and policy proposals, setting the stage for a landmark legal framework that could redefine security architecture across Nigeria.

The Federal Government has officially called on Nigerians at home and in the diaspora, civil society organisations, security agencies, academics, professional bodies, and sub-national governments to contribute to the drafting of the proposed National Policing Bill, which seeks to establish a legal and operational framework for state police in Nigeria. The call was made public on Monday by Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to the President and Chairman of the Presidential Working Group on the National Policing Bill, following a high-level meeting at the State House, Abuja. The announcement was contained in a statement issued by the Presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, who confirmed that all submissions will be reviewed and integrated into the draft bill, which will then be subject to further national consultation before being finalised and sent to the National Assembly. The development comes weeks after the National Assembly passed the bill following its transmission by President Bola Tinubu, signalling strong political will to actualise one of the most debated governance reforms in Nigeria’s recent history.

This public consultation exercise is critical because the Working Group is currently reviewing the Police Act 2020, the Police Service Commission framework, police regulations, and other relevant laws to develop a modern, effective, and accountable policing system. The proposed framework is expected to set national minimum standards for policing across all states, define state readiness and certification requirements before any state can operate its own police service, and clarify jurisdictional responsibilities between federal and state police forces. Additionally, the bill will ensure independent oversight and safeguard human rights, guarantee sustainable funding and financial accountability, and prevent the use of state police as a tool for political persecution – a concern earlier raised by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, who stressed that the legislation is designed to protect citizens from potential abuses of power at the sub-national level.

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Nigerians have until August 13, 2026, to submit their memoranda and policy proposals through the dedicated portal at www.nationalpolicingbill.com, marking the close of a two-week submission window. The Presidential Working Group has adopted a seven-week, milestone-driven work programme running from July 27 to September 14, 2026, with the draft Executive Bill scheduled for presentation to President Bola Tinubu on September 3, 2026. Following this, national consultations will be held on the completed draft before it is finalised and transmitted to the National Assembly. All Nigerians, including professionals, academics, security experts, state and local governments, and civil society groups, are encouraged to participate in this historic policy-shaping process.

The new policing framework will impose strict operational readiness requirements on any state seeking to establish its own police service. According to Gbajabiamila, a proposed State Police Service must demonstrate credible arrangements in recruitment and vetting processes, training and capacity development, pay, pensions and welfare, equipment and logistics, custody and detention standards, complaints and discipline mechanisms, data management and reporting, firearms control and regulation, independent oversight bodies, and financial sustainability plans before it begins policing. These stringent criteria are designed to ensure that only states with the institutional capacity and financial resilience can operate their own police forces, thereby preventing a patchwork of poorly equipped or unaccountable state-level security services.

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum, represented by Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, has described the state police initiative as one of the defining reforms of President Tinubu’s administration, expressing the forum’s commitment to ensuring the success of the policy. The Working Group is also considering recommending federal grants to assist states with limited financial capacity in establishing their police services, acknowledging the fiscal disparities among the 36 states. States that are not yet ready to establish their own service will continue to rely on the Nigeria Police Force until they meet the required standards, ensuring that no state is left without adequate security coverage during the transition period.

The final submission to the President will go beyond a conventional bill and is expected to include schedules and explanatory memoranda, a legal audit of existing policing laws, a state readiness framework, a fiscal and implementation note, and a risk register with transition arrangements. This comprehensive approach is designed to ensure that the reform is defensible, auditable, and capable of implementation across Nigeria’s diverse states, addressing everything from constitutional alignment to practical logistics on the ground.

The government has emphasised that this is a people-driven process, and by inviting input from all segments of society – including ordinary citizens, diaspora communities, and professional bodies – the Working Group aims to build a policing system that reflects the aspirations and realities of all Nigerians. As a senior official close to the Working Group noted, this is not just a government bill but a national project in which every Nigerian has a stake in how they are policed. Interested individuals and organisations are encouraged to visit www.nationalpolicingbill.com before August 13, 2026, to submit their memoranda and policy proposals, with all submissions to be reviewed and incorporated into the draft bill ahead of further national consultations.

State Police Reform: FG Invites Nigerians to Submit Policy Proposals as Draft Bill Nears September Deadline

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Biafra Civil War: Gowon says Igbo bank depositors were fully paid, defends Awolowo over £20 policy

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19 hours ago

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August 4, 2026

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Biafra Civil War: Gowon says Igbo bank depositors were fully paid, defends Awolowo over £20 policy
Yakubu Gowon and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu

Biafra Civil War: Gowon says Igbo bank depositors were fully paid, defends Awolowo over £20 policy

Former Nigerian Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (retd.), has defended the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo against long-standing criticism over the controversial post-civil war £20 policy, saying the decision was taken collectively by the Federal Government and was not Awolowo’s personal policy.

Gowon also stated that people from the former Biafran territory who could provide evidence that they had money in Nigerian banks before or during the Nigerian Civil War received the full value of their deposits, including accrued interest.

The former Head of State made the clarification in his memoir, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, where he revisited the circumstances surrounding the currency policy introduced after the end of the civil war in January 1970.

The £20 policy has remained a subject of public debate for decades, with critics accusing Awolowo, who served as Federal Commissioner for Finance during the war, of restricting people from the former Biafran territory to a flat payment of £20, regardless of the amount they had held before the conflict.

However, Gowon said Awolowo had been unfairly blamed for a policy that was approved by the Federal Government after consultations and consideration of the economic challenges facing Nigeria at the end of the war.

According to Gowon, the Central Bank of Nigeria established a panel to examine the possible consequences of converting the Biafran pound into Nigerian currency.

He explained that the exercise was difficult because the Biafran currency was not recognised by the Federal Government as legal tender during the war.

Gowon said the large volume of Biafran currency in circulation also created concerns that exchanging all the notes at the same value as the Nigerian pound could have caused serious economic disruption.

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Economic advisers subsequently recommended that the Federal Government provide a uniform payment of about £20 to each adult from the former Biafran territory, regardless of the quantity of Biafran currency presented.

“We agreed to the proposal and made it our official policy,” Gowon wrote, adding that the government faced major difficulties in determining the volume of Biafran currency in circulation and establishing a practical basis for converting it.

He maintained that the decision was made by the Federal Government and should not be attributed solely to Awolowo.

Gowon further stated that people who had left Nigeria but could provide proof that they held funds in Nigerian banks received the full value of their deposits, including interest, in Nigerian currency.

“Everyone who left Nigeria but had proof that they had money in Nigerian banks got the full amount of their money plus the interest it earned, all in Nigerian currency,” he said.

The former military leader argued that adopting a different approach could have created significant economic and administrative challenges during Nigeria’s post-war recovery.

The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafra War, began in 1967 and ended in January 1970 following the surrender of Biafran forces.

After the war, Gowon declared a policy of “no victor, no vanquished” and introduced the Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation programme, widely known as the 3Rs.

The programme was designed to promote national unity, rebuild war-affected communities and support the reintegration of the former Eastern Region into Nigeria.

Despite the government’s post-war reconciliation agenda, the £20 policy remains one of the most debated aspects of Nigeria’s post-civil war history.

Critics have argued that the policy caused financial hardship for many people in the former Biafran territory, particularly those who lost access to savings, could not provide documentation for their bank deposits or were unable to recover the value of assets affected by the war.

Some historians and commentators have also questioned whether the post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes adequately addressed the economic losses and long-term effects experienced by communities affected by the conflict.

Gowon’s account has renewed public discussion about the Biafra Civil War, the post-war currency policy and Awolowo’s role in the Federal Military Government.

While Gowon maintains that verified Nigerian bank deposits were fully repaid with interest and that Awolowo should not be held personally responsible for the £20 policy, the issue continues to generate debate over post-war justice, economic recovery, historical memory and national reconciliation.

Biafra Civil War: Gowon says Igbo bank depositors were fully paid, defends Awolowo over £20 policy

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How 15-year-old allegedly staged his own kidnapping to extort N200,000 from father

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20 hours ago

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August 4, 2026

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How 15-year-old allegedly staged his own kidnapping to extort N200,000 from father

How 15-year-old allegedly staged his own kidnapping to extort N200,000 from father

The Niger State Police Command has arrested a 15-year-old boy who allegedly staged his own kidnapping in an attempt to extort N200,000 from his father in Suleja.

The teenager was arrested alongside a 17-year-old alleged accomplice after police traced him to a hotel in Suleja, days after his family reported him missing.

The spokesperson for the Niger State Police Command, SP Wasiu Abiodun, disclosed the development in a statement issued on Monday.

According to the police, the 15-year-old left home after attending church on July 20, 2026, but failed to return, prompting concern among his family members.

The following day, the family reportedly received a telephone call from someone who claimed that the teenager had been kidnapped and demanded a ransom of N200,000 for his release.

The matter was subsequently reported at the B Division of the Nigeria Police Force in Suleja, leading to the launch of an investigation.

Police detectives reportedly acted on credible intelligence and traced the teenager to a hotel in Suleja on July 25, where he was found with the 17-year-old.

“On receipt of the information, police operatives of the division commenced an investigation and, acting on credible intelligence, the said Kelvin was found at a hotel in Suleja on July 25, 2026, with his accomplice,” the police spokesperson said.

According to the command, the two teenagers allegedly confessed during questioning that they planned the incident to obtain N200,000 from the boy’s father.

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The police said the money was to be shared between them after the ransom had been paid.

“The suspects confessed that they planned to extort the sum of N200,000 from Kelvin’s father, after which they would share the proceeds of the crime,” Abiodun said.

The police said the alleged plan was uncovered before the family paid the requested ransom.

Both teenagers are currently in the custody of the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID, in Minna, where further investigations are ongoing.

The command said the suspects would be taken through the appropriate legal process after the investigation had been concluded.

The incident has renewed concerns over staged kidnapping, particularly the emotional and financial impact such incidents can have on families.

Security experts have repeatedly warned that fake kidnapping claims can cause panic, place families under severe emotional pressure and divert police resources from genuine cases involving missing or abducted persons.

The case also highlights the importance of reporting suspected kidnappings promptly to security agencies and allowing investigators to handle ransom demands and related threats.

Residents have been encouraged to provide timely and credible information that could help security agencies prevent crime and respond quickly to reports involving missing persons.

The Niger State Police Command said investigations into the alleged self-kidnapping plot were continuing.

How 15-year-old allegedly staged his own kidnapping to extort N200,000 from father

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