A special Nigerian human rights panel began investigating on Tuesday Reuters reports that the army massacred children and ran a secret abortion program when fighting Islamist insurgents and said it would refer for prosecution those it considered guilty of rights violations.
The panel's chairman Justice Abdu Aboki, who retired from the Supreme Court bench last year, told reporters, "It is now our job as a panel to investigate all the allegations of gross human rights violations raised in the reports."
The government-appointed National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has no powers to prosecute human rights violators but can recommend prosecution for offenders. Although largely independent, rights groups say the NHRC is inadequately funded and its lack of prosecuting powers has weakened its ability to effectively bring offenders to book.
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