Concern Mounts Over Rights Abuses in Regional Fight Against Boko Haram

The detention for several months of 84 children in Cameroon has highlighted concern that the regional campaign against Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram is leading to rights abuses. Amnesty International called on Friday for the release of the children, some as young as five, detained by security forces in a raid in December on Islamic schools in Cameroon's Far North Region which authorities said were Boko Haram training camps. A government spokesman was not available for comment. The report came as Niger's National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH), a state body made up of lawmakers, civil society figures, magistrates, lawyers and union leaders, denounced a wave of arbitrary detentions under a four-month-old state of emergency to fight Boko Haram.