Many of the bodies came in from the Giwa military barracks, where thousands of victims of arbitrary arrests have been detained since the start of the Boko Haram insurgency.
Military ambulances transported them to the morgue at the Borno State Specialist Hospital. A lot of times, corpses taken to the morgue were so many that some of them had to be dumped out in the open. Satellite images from 2013 show what appears to be this pile of bodies close to the morgue.
Images from a later period showed that the area continued to receive a different type of deposit, possibly medical and solid waste.
The Borno State Environmental Protection Agency (BOSEPA) conveyed the bodies from the hospital to Gwange Cemetery, where they are buried.
There are multiple satellite shots showing heaps of dead bodies at the cemetery, followed by freshly dug gravesites, between August 2014 and December 2015. The graves are unmarked. Sources told us several bodies were buried in each one.
Satellite imagery in January 2015 shows "unusual coagulation" on cemetery grounds.
This was succeeded by new gravesites in February 2015.
The December 2015 images show a similar coagulation.
By February 2016, there would be fresh gravesites over the area.
Not all the bodies of people who died in detention or were killed extrajudicially made it to Gwange Cemetery. Many others are buried in locations scattered around Maiduguri and surrounding areas.
Between 2011 and 2012, soldiers dumped bodies in multiple places at Moduganari Bypass. We noted near-surface disruptions in these places from satellite data analysis that are consistent with burials.
“They would come in the night around 7:30 p.m., bringing like seven to 10 people. We would hear gunshots. In the morning, we would move the bodies closer to the road, thinking they would not bring them again if people saw the corpses. We believe some of those people are innocent. Some were elderly,” one witness told us.
We found similar patterns in other locations, such as one site close to a trench inside the University of Maiduguri. “They dug graves by that tree. There is no sign of it again because of rainfall,” a source said.
Some of the other sites are situated in places that have ditches suitable for dumping bodies. These include a place in Shuwari, another in Kalleri ward, as well as sites close to the Maimalari Barracks.
Shuwari
Kalleri
Maimalari Barracks
“The area was not developed 10 years ago. There were bushes everywhere. Trucks dumped an uncountable number of bodies here. The people now say it is polluting the area and might invite evil spirits. They want the government to fill up the ditch and build a dispensary,” said a resident of Kalleri.
