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26 November 2025
[1/3] Damage to building after attack in Kaduna State, Nigeria 2022 | Photo captured by a partner in Nigeria with the eyeWitness to Atrocities App
[2/3] Fire-damaged house after attack in Kaduna State, Nigeria 2022| Photo captured by a partner in Nigeria with the eyeWitness to Atrocities App
[3/3] Bullet remnants, Kaduna State, Nigeria, 2022| Photo captured by a partner in Nigeria with the eyeWitness to Atrocities App
eyeWitness to Atrocities (eyeWitness) and International Committee On Nigeria (ICON) have submitted a Joint Urgent Appeal to United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs, calling for attention to grave human rights violations occurring in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region.
The submission, sent to the UN Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the right to adequate housing, and the right to food, outlines clear violations of the right to life and the right to an adequate standard of living, including the rights to housing and food.
According to the Urgent Appeal, armed attackers have carried out widespread violence against civilians, destroying homes, farmlands, and food stores in a series of coordinated assaults between certain herder and farming communities. These attacks have resulted in mass displacement, with women and children often particularly affected.
The Urgent Appeal builds on two previous reports submitted by eyeWitness and ICON to the UN - the first, an urgent appeal to the UN regarding extrajudicial killings in Nigeria, and the second, a joint submission in advance of the 2024 Universal Periodic Review of Nigeria.
“For years, communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region have faced deadly attacks with little to no accountability. The scale and brutality of the violence demand urgent, coordinated action to end impunity, support victims, and tackle the root causes of this violence” said Carrie Bowker, Director at eyeWitness to Atrocities.
Violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt has escalated in recent years, increasingly taking on ethnic and religious dimensions. The Urgent Appeal, based on footage verified through the eyeWitness App, witness statements, and open-source research, reveals that many of these attacks appear frequent and organised.
The Urgent Appeal indicates that assailants often struck at night when residents were asleep and unarmed, setting villages ablaze and killing civilians. Some victims appear to have been killed by gunshots and possible cutting weapons, while others were burnt.
Since 2019, ICON and other local partners trained by eyeWitness have submitted over 7,500 photos, videos and audio recordings documenting violence in the Middle Belt. The current Urgent Appeal focuses on a selection of the most serious incidents between January 2022 and March 2025. eyeWitness’ legal team, supported by pro bono lawyers, analysed 3,276 verified items of footage relating to 113 potential incidents. Each piece of evidence was captured using the eyeWitness App, which locks in metadata, including date, time, and GPS coordinates, at the moment of capture. This ensures that footage is authentic, traceable, and admissible in legal proceedings.
Once uploaded, all material is stored on eyeWitness’ secure server hosted by Lexis Nexis, maintaining the chain of custody so that it can be used in future investigations and prosecutions.
Kyle Abts, Director at ICON said:“The eyeWitness to Atrocities App empowers our reporters to safely document human rights abuses and religious freedom concerns, ensuring that evidence is preserved for justice and accountability. ICON believes that every verified report is a step toward exposing injustice and mobilising global awareness. Silence stifles security, this App helps break that silence.”
eyeWitness and ICON call on the Special Rapporteurs to seek updates from Nigeria’s federal and state governments on their efforts to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators, provide rehabilitation and redress to victims, and address the root causes of the violence. In addition, given minimal action to prosecute perpetrators in Nigeria, the submission calls for the establishment of a UN inquiry or fact-finding mission and a UN Special Rapporteur with a country mandate on Nigeria.
eyeWitness to Atrocities continues to stand with partners and survivors working to expose human rights violations in Nigeria and advance accountability. By enabling the capture of trusted digital evidence and facilitating engagement with UN Special Rapporteurs and other relevant mechanisms, eyeWitness supports efforts to bring human rights violations to light and move justice forward.
Images captured by ICON and Lannap Ki Icu with the eyeWitness to Atrocities App.
Photo and video analysis conducted by eyeWitness and a roster of pro bono lawyers.
Open-source research conducted by eyeWitness.
