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The Police in Kaduna, in northern Nigeria, has released more than 500 people, according to the chain BBC, of “different nationalities”, mostly minors, victims of torture and rape in an alleged koranic school. The owner of the building and its six assistants have been detained.
The raid occurred Thursday night before the complaints repeated the neighbors in the neighborhood of Rigasa in the northern city of Kaduna. “We received information that something was happening in this center. Upon arriving here we discovered that this is not a rehabilitation centre or an islamic school,” confirmed to the press after the rescue the chief of Police in Kaduna, Ali Janga, in statements collected Friday by the local press. The local police discovered then hundreds of young people who were living “in inhumane conditions and degrading treatment and punishment under the pretext of teaching them the Qur’an and set you straight”, said the spokesman of police in Kaduna, Yakubu Sabo, and collects Afp. We found a “torture chamber”, where the students were hanging from chains and beaten when their teachers considered that they had committed a fault and were tortured while they were forced to recite the Quran. At the time of the raid a hundred young people were chained, some of which had only nine years. The anxious images shared by the police show shackles around the ankles and the wrists of the victims, some of whom had serious wounds and scars all over the body. The leaders of the Church “held captive to the homeless and forced to beg”, collected the authorities. In addition, some of the victims reported after being released to have been raped by their teachers.
Chained up in the koranic school – ReutersUna house of torture
For the chief of police in Kaduna, Ali Janga, it was a genuine “house of torture” and complaint that “no parent reasonable would take their children to a place like this.” Janga has promised an investigation to “get to the root of the matter” and has assured the BBC that they are treating it as if it were a case of slavery. However, the head of the local police has stressed that the priority was to evacuate children, take them to a safe place and locate their relatives. The children released by the police were transferred to a temporary camp in a stadium in the same town while they try to locate their parents. The government is providing food to all the victims, some of whom have only five years. “The victims were of different nationalities and two of them said that their parents had brought from Burkina Faso. Most of those rescued belong to different regions of the north of Nigeria, there is a Mali and Ghana,” added the police spokesman.
trespassing
parents of some of these victims have been “shocked and horrified” when they have known the conditions in which they lived their children, according to the police spokesman.
“we didn’t know that they were subjected to this type of severe conditions” , said one of the parents after knowing the news. Some parents have explained to the authorities that they were only allowed to see them once every three months and that used to bring them food. In addition, have reported that they were not allowed to enter the house to see what was going on: “The students were moved out of the center to meet up with his family for a scant few minutes,” explained the spokesman.
Bello Hamza , a man of 42 years, explained the atrocities that he had witnessed since he was taken to the centre deceived by her family three months ago. Even claims to have witnessed “the death of a person by torture” “Others had been killed before my arrival by torture and health problems,” he explained. “It is assumed that it is an islamic center, but try to escape from here leads to a severe punishment,” explained Hamza.
One of the guys freed by the Police in Nigeria – ReutersCierre of the “school”
For his part, the owner of the center has denied all allegations of torture and other abuses: “The only thing we do here is teach people the islam”. As explained, “the chains are the more obstinate they tried to escape. Those who do not try to escape are not chained,” he qualified.
According to the authorities, the school opened a decade ago and housed students brought by their families to learn the Qur’an and, above all, to rehabilitate petty criminals, drug addicts or sick. In your door could be read a sign that said “Center Imam Ahmad Bun Hambal for islamic studies”.
In northern Nigeria, mostly muslim, there are plenty of “corrections” -some more formal than others – that provide a strict religious education, in the absence of public facilities that take care of these young people.
Islamic School, also known as “Almajiri” is an educational system of the quran that is used in the north of Nigeria. The nigerian government recently criticized publicly and announced that it plans to ban it.
The koranic school in Nigeria where more than 500 people have been released by Police – Reuters
