54 Soldiers Sentenced To Death By Nigerian Military Allegedly Starved Of Food

54 Nigerian soldiers sentenced to death for refusing to fight Boko Haram, have endured days without food since being transferred from Abuja.

The soldiers, moved from Abuja to a holding cell in Lagos last Sunday, are held under conditions military sources have described as terrible and inhumane.

They are awaiting confirmation of their death sentences by the military council, and thereafter, an appeal that may bring them freedom or the death stake.

Sources said the convicted soldiers, all shackled by their legs since departing Abuja on Sunday, are crammed in two cells without beds or food or any form of care.

“The first cell has 30 soldiers. The second is underground and has 24 soldiers,” our sources said. “There are no beds, no mattresses. The soldiers have not been fed since Sunday.”

 READ MORE AFTER THE CUT.....................................

The soldiers were held without food from Sunday when they arrived Lagos, till Wednesday night.

The convicted soldiers, involved in the fight against the Boko Haram terrorists in Northeast Nigeria, were attached to the 7 Division, Nigerian Army in Maiduguri, Borno State.

A military court sitting in Abuja condemned them to death on December 17 after finding the soldiers guilty of mutiny against the authorities.

All the accused soldiers pleaded not guilty to the charges, and argued that they were prepared to fight but had insufficient equipment.

One of the condemned soldiers, Fahat Fahat, recently took to Facebook where he lamented the death sentences he and 53 colleagues were given.

“I am a soldier and I am sentenced to death by the Nigerian Army, (be)cause we did not go to fight Boko Haram without equipment. We ask(ed) for weapon instead (they) gave (us) death sentence,” he wrote.

The soldiers are the second batch of Nigerian troops condemned to death by military courts for mutiny.

SOURCE