The
US government has dispatched a team of State Department officials to
meet with top Nigerian government officials this week in Abuja to
determine the actual circumstances of the Baga massacre between Boko
Haram terrorists and the Nigerian military, Empowered Newswire reports.
While the US-based Human Rights Watch,
has accused the Nigerian military for the massacre claiming that over
185 people were killed and thousands of houses destroyed, the Nigerian
Ambassador to the US, Prof. Ade Adefuye, said the satellite pictures
released by the human rights organisation were insufficient to determine
who was responsible for the carnage.
The Empowered Newswire report indicated that US officials were in a dilemma over which of the disparate accounts to believe, hence the team’s visit.
Adefuye, according to the report, has
confirmed that the US government’s team would be meeting in Abuja with
officials of the Nigerian foreign affairs ministry, Ministry of Justice
and the National Security Adviser, among others over the Boko Haram
issue and especially the recent Baga massacre.
The ambassador said the Nigerian Embassy had also met with the US team that visited Nigeria last week to review the situation.
“When they came here to meet with us at
the embassy we made it clear that the claims on the casualties have been
excessively exaggerated,” he said.
Meanwhile, the National Space Research
and Development Agency on Monday presented to a meeting attended by top
security chiefs images of Baga captured before and after the April 15
confrontation between insurgents and the Multinational Task Force.
However, the presentation of the images
to the media, which was to hold in Abuja on same Monday, was put off
with officials citing the meeting of the satellite agency with security
chiefs as the reason for the postponement.
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