LAGOS, Nigeria
One hundred and three people who died in October 2020 during the #EndSARS movement against police violence in Nigeria - and whose bodies at the Lagos morgue have not been claimed - will be buried, local authorities announced on Monday.
This "mass burial"
was confirmed by the authorities after the leak on social networks of a
document from the Ministry of Health, which revived the painful question of the
toll of the repression of a rally in Lagos, which according to the conclusions
of a panel of inquiry, was akin to a "massacre" while the authorities
continue to affirm that there were no victims.
Anti-government protests took
place in October 2020 in major cities across Nigeria to denounce police
brutality, a movement dubbed #EndSARS (“End SARS”), named after a special
police unit accused for years of racketeering, torture and murder.
This movement ended when the
army and the police opened fire on October 20, 2020 at the Lekki toll in Lagos,
an emblematic gathering place for protesters who waved flags, singing the
national anthem.
Many witnesses then claimed
that the security forces had killed demonstrators and taken the bodies with
them in pick-ups. According to local authorities, the 103 bodies to be buried
were not picked up at the Lekki toll, but in other parts of Lagos.
“For the record, the Lagos
State Environmental Health Unit (SEHMU) has collected bodies following the
#EndSARS violence and communal clashes in Fagba, Ketu, Ikorodu, Orile,
Ajegunle, Abule-Egba, Ikeja, Ojota, Ekoro, Ogba, Isolo and Ajah areas of Lagos
State,” according to the authority’s statement.
"There was also an escape
at Ikoyi prison. The 103 victims mentioned in the document are from these
incidents and NOT from the Lekki toll," it added. These statements by the
authorities are, however, the first to recognize such a heavy toll after these
demonstrations which then degenerated into riots.
The repeated denial of the
deaths of people at the Lekki tollgate on October 20, 2020 has sparked outrage
among many young Nigerians who participated in, or supported, these protests
and who continue to demand justice.
"They asked us where the
bodies are? Yet the bodies were with them from the start”, reacted Sunday
evening on Twitter Rinu Oduala, one of the figures of the protest.
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