The human rights organization is demanding an immediate and independent investigation into what it describes as the "arbitrary detention" of 1,500 Fulani pastoralists at the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Orientation Camp in Yikpata.

According to an Amnesty investigation conducted between April 5 and 11, the victims were forced from their homes in January to make way for military operations. Instead of receiving protection from armed groups, they were transported to the Yikpata camp, where they have faced three months of overcrowding, acute malnutrition, and a total lack of healthcare.

Amnesty shows that the researchers who went to the camp said they saw children who were so skinny that their ribs and shoulder bones were sticking out. These children were too weak to walk.

At least 100 pregnant women currently in the camp face life-threatening risks due to a lack of maternal care.

“Members of the Fulani community face persecution on two fronts – from armed groups and the military. Instead of receiving protection, they are being denied their rights to personal liberty, livelihood, movement, education and healthcare.

We met people who described losing parents, siblings, spouses, children and grandchildren at the camp. Such tragedies only add to their suffering,” said Isa Sanusi, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

Survivor accounts: "We Buried Three Corpses in a Single Grave"

Survivors described an environment where families were forced to pool money together just to bury their dead.

One woman currently detained at the camp shared her heartbreak with Amnesty after losing her twin daughters, Hauwa’u and Hajja, to starvation.

“After we fled our villages because of attacks by gunmen, we were called by the government to move to a safe place. So, we gathered at Offa. From there, the Nigerian army conveyed us in their vehicles to Yikpata NYSC camp, where our suffering began,” she shared.

"At the camp, we did not have enough food, sometimes only beans in the evening, and even that was not guaranteed. Starvation claimed the lives of many children and pregnant women. My twin daughters, Hauwa’u and Hajja, died there.

I remember that at the peak of the deaths, we contributed 60,000 naira (US$44) to buy white shrouds for burial because of the increasing number of deaths. We buried three corpses in a single grave.”

A 43-year-old man who managed to escape the facility corroborated the death toll, stating: “I escaped from the camp because of the difficult living conditions. A total of 154 people have died from hunger and disease since we were brought and detained there. On the day I escaped, six children died,” she recalls.

Systematic Profiling

Amnesty International warns that the military is targeting individuals based on their ethnicity. Reports indicate that Fulani people are being singled out on buses, unlawfully searched, and forced to pay bribes for their freedom.

“The Nigerian authorities must end the ongoing arbitrary detention of Fulani pastoralists in Kwara state. It is unlawful for a security operation to target individuals, whole families and whole villages based on their ethnicity,” Sanusi said.

“The existence of the camp puts detainees outside the protection of the law in flagrant violation of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended] and the country’s international human rights obligations,” he added.