NAIROBI (AlertNet) - More than 200,000 poor waterfront residents in the Nigerian oil hub of Port Harcourt face losing their homes in forced and potentially violent evictions planned by the local government under a scheme to clean up the troubled city, a report from Amnesty International said on Thursday. The rights group is concerned that protesting residents could be injured or killed in skirmishes with the security forces who will be deployed alongside the bulldozers. It called on local authorities to suspend the evictions until they meet international human rights standards. The Rivers State government has already destroyed several of the 40-plus informal settlements on Port Harcourt's waterfront as part of a major urban redevelopment project launched in 2009. "The evictions are increasingly being accompanied by an excessive use of force by Nigerian security forces," Amnesty researcher Lucy Freeman told AlertNet.
via alertnet.org
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