Scores of vigilantes arrested, hostages freed

More than 100 members of a vigilante group operating in Nigeria's southeastern Anambra State have been arrested and about 45 of their hostages freed, the police reported on Sunday.

The police had launched operations in several towns in Anambra to shut down the operations of the group known as the Bakassi Boys, which has the backing of the state government, according to a statement by police spokesman Chris Olakpe.

"The (police) team disarmed and arrested all members present and rescued hostages, who had various degrees of injuries caused by prolonged torture and neglect," Olakpe said.

The Bakassi Boys is among several anti-crime vigilante groups that emerged in different parts of Nigeria with the end of a decade and half of brutal military rule in 1999.

The phenomenon arose in response to the perceived ineffectiveness of regular police and security forces in containing a spiraling crime wave in Africa's most populous country.

Originally set up by traders in the southeast trading town of Aba in 1999, the Bakassi Boys were later cultivated by the state governments in Abia and Anambra states.

Human rights groups and other critics have condemned their crude methods, including summary beheadings and the burning of arrested suspects in public. There have also been fears that unscrupulous politicians would convert the vigilantes into private militias.

The latest clampdown on the Bakassi Boys followed the assassination in early September of the local branch chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Barnabas Igwe, and his wife.

Igwe was a prominent critic of the state government and the Bakassi Boys, and early suspicion for about his murder fell on the vigilante group.