The Federal Government has labeled a Reuters report accusing the Nigerian Army of infanticide as fake news. Reuters is an international news agency.
This comes as the news organization on Monday released a new report in which it accused the Nigerian Army of killing children while waging the current fight against terrorism.
In its initial story, which was published last Wednesday, Reuters accused the Army of operating a covert abortion program on female terrorist victims, noting that at least 10,000 pregnancies have been aborted since 2013.
Following the Reuters probe, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Nigerian government to look into complaints made against the news outlet.
However, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, accused Reuters of making such a claim without any supporting documentation while speaking at an event in Abuja on Monday intended to highlight the performance of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation under the current administration.
The minister characterized the study as a ruse to undermine military morale, divert attention away from the war against terrorism, and sever Nigeria from international backing.
Meanwhile, Reuters said in a separate story released on Monday that the Nigerian Army had killed children as part of the ongoing fight against terrorism.
The study, according to the organization, is based on the revelations of more than 40 soldiers and civilians who claim to have observed the Nigerian military killing children or seeing children’s corpses following a military operation.
The report states that estimates of the number of children killed by the Army were in the thousands and that six of the cases involving at least 60 deaths were looked into.
One of the victims alleged in the report that her kids were murdered because they belonged to terrorists.
