Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee called on President Biden to rescind a nearly $1 billion arms sale to Nigeria following Reuters reports on an illegal abortion program and rights abuses by the Nigerian military
The assistance provided by Washington so far has done little to quell the 14-year conflict between the Nigerian military and Islamist insurgents in the country’s northeast, and there are reports of weapons captured by insurgents, the Congress members added.
The request for a review is the second to come from Congress in recent months. After the Reuters stories appeared in December, U.S. Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, requested a review of U.S. security assistance and cooperation programs in Nigeria and the potential use of sanctions for alleged abuses.
The Reuters investigation found that since at least 2013, the Nigerian military has conducted a secret, systematic and illegal abortion program in the country’s northeast, ending at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls. Many had been kidnapped and raped by Islamist militants. Resisters were beaten, held at gunpoint or drugged into compliance, witnesses said.
Reuters also reported that the Nigerian Army and allied security forces have slaughtered children during their grueling 13-year war against Islamist extremists in the country’s northeast. Nigerian military leaders told Reuters the army has never targeted children for killing.
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