Nigeria has denied allegations it has detained thousands of children for suspected links to Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
A report released by US-based group Human Rights Watch says children have been held for years in “horrific conditions”.
The group has urged the country to release the children.
But the military said the report was “false”, saying they were treated as “victims of war and not as suspects”.
While the army does detain women and children they say have been indoctrinated by Boko Haram, the children are “adequately fed, profiled and de-radicalised before their release”.
Boko Haram militants have been waging an insurgency in north-east Nigeria since 2009.
More than 30,000 people have died in the uprising, which has now crossed borders into Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
What does the report say?
Human Rights Watch (HRW) released their report on Tuesday. It claims the military has been arresting and detaining children as young as five “with little or no evidence”. Most are then reportedly transferred to Giwa military barracks in the town of Maiduguri.
Children interviewed by HRW who spent time in the camp described “squalid, severely overcrowded conditions”. None of those 32 children said they had been taken before a court or a judge, and none knew what they had been charged with. None,…