Hundreds of boys and young men rescued from ‘house of torture’
They had been tortured, sexually abused, starved and prevented from leaving.
Some 400 boys and young men have been rescued from a ‘house of torture’ where they had been detained and abused for years.
Children as young as five were found in chains stuffed into a small room in the ‘most debasing and inhuman conditions.’
They had been tortured, sexually abused, starved and prevented from leaving the Islamic School in the Nigerian city of Kaduna.
Police raided the building on Friday morning and rescued ‘400 captives’ after they were alerted by suspicious neighbours.
Officers arrested the head and six members of staff at the school, which claimed to be reforming young people.
Many of those rescued bore scars on their backs and serious injuries, police said.
Some had their ankles manacled together and others were chained by their legs to large metal hubcaps.
Kaduna Police spokesman, Yakubu Sabo, said the adults and minors were kept in ‘the most debasing and inhuman conditions in the name of teaching them the Koran and reforming them.’
He added: ‘The victims were abused. Some of them said they were sodomised by their teachers.’
The school which has been operating for a decade, enrolled students brought by their families to learn the Koran and be rehabilitated from drug abuse and other illnesses, police said.
But during the raid they found a ‘torture chamber’ where they said students were chained, hung and beaten.
One inmate was quoted by Nigerian media describing his horrific treatment.
He said: ‘I have spent three months here with chains on my legs.
‘This is supposed to be an Islamic centre, but trying to run away from here attracts severe punishment; they tie people and hang them to the ceiling for that.’
Most of the people rescued were from Nigeria but at least two are from neighbouring Burkina Faso.
Parents of some of the victims have said they were ‘shocked and horrified’ when they saw the condition of their children as they had no idea what was happening inside the school.
Parents were allowed to visit their children every three months, but only in select areas of the premises.
Mr Sabo added: ‘They were not allowed into the house to see what was happening… the children are only brought to them outside to meet them.
‘All they thought was their children are being taught the Koran and good manners as they looked subdued,’ he added.
The children and young men are now being looked after at a temporary camp in a nearby stadium while police attempt to find relatives.
Private Islamic schools, known as Almajiris, are common across the mostly Muslim north of Nigeria – a country that is roughly evenly split between followers of Christianity and Islam.
Parents in northern Nigeria, the poorest part of a country in which most people live on less than $2 a day, often opt to leave their children to board at the schools.
Over the years there have been allegations levelled at some of them over abuse and accusations that children have been sent onto the streets to beg.
Earlier this year, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, himself a Muslim, said it planned to eventually ban the schools, but would not do so immediately.