Southeast group raises alarm over alleged ethnic cleansing in Igbo land

A group of elite organizations in Igboland comprising of the Association of South East Town Unions (ASETU), World Igbo Congress, Igbo World Assembly, Alaigbo Development Foundation among others have raised an alarm over reported ethnic cleansing allegedly being perpetrated by the federal government through its security agencies in the southeast.

In a communiqué issued at the end of a one-day emergency security meeting of the group in Enugu the groups alleged that apart from killing innocent youths in the southeast, several cases abound where security operatives kill innocent Igbo youths and set their corpses and houses ablaze in order to obstruct traces of the act.

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The Communique, read president of ASETU, Chief Emeka Diwe, the Igbo groups said they had launched the Igbo Human Rights Violations Portal (IHRVP) with which to collate details of the various extra-judicial killings and abuses and use same to petition the ICC.

The communiqué also expressed disappointment over what it termed the genocidal comments credited to President Buhari, describing it as another act of insensitivity from the president.

It stated, “We are appalled by the statement made by President Muhammadu Buhari in which he threatened to respond to Ndigbo in the language of the genocidal civil war of 1967-1970 which consumed over three million innocent Igbo lives. This is just another strong act of insensitivity from the President given his litany of non-inclusive and discriminatory actions against Ndigbo. It is appalling that President Buhari, who has never spoken strongly against the atrocities of the Fulani herdsmen and bandits, is threatening to visit another festival of blood on Igbo people.

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“We demand that he retracts that statement, tenders an apology to Ndigbo and puts off all arrangements geared towards enforcing that genocidal threat.

“We equally wish to put the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the African Union, ECOWAS, United States of America, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Israel on notice of the public encouragement given by the president to uniformed officers and the general public to engage in genocidal behavior against Ndigbo.”

The communiqué, which totally condemned the killing of policemen, soldiers and other law enforcement personnel as well as the burning of key national security and political infrastructure recently witnessed in Igboland, described the acts as very reprehensible.

It equally condemned the continued attacks by killer herdsmen in Igboland, expressing worry at the inability of the security operatives “to track and bring these merchants of death to justice over the years… This has fuelled deep anger and mistrust in our land.”