Nigerian Army martyred 100s of Shias: Report

Nigeria’s Army mowed down as many as 347 Muslims last December while swooping on the followers of the country’s leading Shia cleric, a special investigation has found.

A report released late Monday by the government of Kaduna state, where the massacre occurred, found that the army fired at supporters of Sheik Ibrahim Zakzaky, who is currently detained.

The military and government declined to comment on the report on Tuesday.

The report said Zakzaky’s supporters had taken over a highway, blocking a military convoy; and attacked police with improvised explosives.

Those attacked maintain they were parading peacefully.

“There are families who lost children,” the Wall Street Journal quoted Ibrahim Musa, Spokesman for Zakzaky’s Islamic Movement in Nigeria, as saying on Tuesday. “The government is trying to justify the unjustifiable.”

Leading human rights groups have decried the military's attack as "disproportionate" and reported systematic crackdown on Nigerian Shia Muslims.

According to New York-based rights body Human Rights Watch (HRW), Nigerian forces committed several instances of bloodshed against the country’s Shia community in mid-December 2015.

The organization says the Army slew Shia children and opened fire on the unarmed youngsters with no provocation.

ME