Nigerian military locking up children released from Boko Haram
Nearly 150 people released by Boko Haram have died in a Nigerian detention centre this year, with 11 of the dead being children under the age of six, according to Amnesty International. As the nation's military pursues fighters with links to Boko Haram, thousands of innocent civilians have been kept in detention centres for extended periods of time, "often with no evidence against them," Amnesty said.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — It had been more than a month, and Dije Ali was still locked in a military prison with her seven children.

She had thought they were being taken to safety. Her family and other villagers had been low on food and feared that Boko Haram was closing in. They ran to Nigerian soldiers for protection.

“Get in the vehicle,” Ms. Ali recalled the soldiers telling them.

But instead of being whisked to freedom, she said, her family wound up in a military detention center with 130 other women and their children, uncertain when they would be released — and why they were there.

“I didn’t know what I’d done wrong,” she said. “I was just praying God would get us out.”

Here in northeastern Nigeria, soldiers are fighting a brutal battle with Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group that has terrorized the region for years with its campaign of murder, kidnapping, rape and thievery.