Nigeria rights body says no evidence military carried out secret mass abortions

FILE PHOTO: A Nigerian woman, unnamed to protect her identity, who told Reuters she received an abortion under a secret program run by the Nigerian military, poses for a portrait in an undisclosed location in Nigeria, September 28, 2020. REUTERS/Paul Carsten/File Photo

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's human rights commission said on Friday an investigation had found no evidence that the Nigerian military had deliberately attacked women and children or carried out secret abortions in its fight against an Islamist insurgency in the northeast.

The commission had been investigating Reuters reports from December 2022 which found the Nigerian military ran a secret, systematic and illegal abortion programme and massacred children in the northeast, where the insurgency has been going on for 15 years.

The Nigerian military denied the findings in the news agency's reports.

(Reporting by Ope Adetayo and Camillus Eboh, Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe, Editing by Timothy Heirtage)