Rights group investigation says military and police received at least five calls hours before the attack by gunmen.
Nigeria’s security forces failed to respond to warnings that armed men were on their way to a town where 110 schoolgirls were abducted last month, a human rights group alleged.
Amnesty International on Tuesday cited security sources, parents, and escapees as saying the military and police received at least five calls in the hours before the February 19 attack, which reminded many of the abduction of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram in 2014.
Amnesty interviewed 23 people who recounted how about 50 fighters arrived in a convoy of nine vehicles as villagers attended evening prayers in the northern town of Dapchi, in Yobe state.
The first warning of the attack came hours earlier, when a phone call was made to the Nigerian army command about 50km away to say gunmen had been spotted in a village near Dapchi. The military commander responded by saying he was aware and monitoring it, the sources told Amnesty.
When the fighters later arrived in another village some residents called people in Dapchi to warn the convoy was headed their way, and one villager said he told the police.
Amnesty International had claimed that the federal government-controlled security forces got advanced warning but failed to prevent the abduction of schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe State. Amnesty equally alleged that a police source disclosed that officers fled the town over the fear that Boko Haram may “overpower them”.
“Evidence available to Amnesty International suggests that there are insufficient troops deployed in the area, and that an absence of patrols and the failure to respond to warnings and engage with Boko Haram contributed to this tragedy,” Osai Ojigho, AI director in Nigeria, said in a statement.
Nigerian Army replies Amnesty International, seeks evidence of allegation
The Nigerian Army has replied Amnesty International over a statement credited to it claiming that troops failed to protect Dapchi school girls from terrorists.
It challenged the group to provide evidence of its claims, alleging that Nigerian troops knew about the invasion and fled.
In view of the above statements, Nigerian army head quarter in a statement signed by the Acting Director Defence Information, Brigadier General John Agim, denied this claim and said that they were not informed by Amnesty International.