Boko Haram: Controversy as army allegedly plans secret burial for soldiers killed by terrorists in Dikwa, Borno

The Nigerian Army will on Tuesday give soldiers recently killed on the front in the fight against insurgency a ‘secret and undignified burial.’

This development is barring any unforeseen event.

According to SaharaReporters, remains of the over 30 soldiers, who were killed during an ambush at Dikwa town in Borno would not be released to their families for internment

The online platform quoted sources as saying that that plans had been concluded by the military authorities to conduct a ‘secret’ burial on Tuesday for some of the dead soldiers whose bodies are still in the mortuary.

“They will be buried on Tuesday at a cemetery here in Maiduguri. Unfortunately, the military failed to open up on the fates of most of these fallen soldiers to their families. The army authorities have yet to inform families of some of these dead soldiers who they plan to bury tomorrow, how will you bury someone whose family members think is still alive? Even those that were informed were not given the bodies of their loved ones,” as source was quoted as saying.

A brother of one of the dead soldiers said the family got to know about his death from his colleague as the army authorities initially failed to inform them.

He said, “The army initially didn’t inform us. It was one of his colleagues that told me he had been killed by Boko Haram, so I spoke to someone from our town who is a major general, I think he made some moves. So we got a call from them on Saturday night informing us he is dead. Imagine, without his colleague telling us, we wouldn’t have been aware at all.

“So we asked them the process to move his corpse back home for burial but they told us they wouldn’t release his body to us. We explained to them it’s a taboo in our village to be buried in a foreign land but they insisted his body would not be released to us. It was later they informed us that his next of kin and one other family member should come to Maiduguri cause he would be buried on Tuesday.”