A 14-year-old girl attending a math class told Human Rights Watch on December 18 that she was shot as she walked out of the center with other children.

Faced by angry IMN members protesting the shooting, the soldiers at the mosque retreated out of sight. The group members erected a barricade of stones, blocking the road to stop the soldiers from approaching the mosque again.

Shortly thereafter, at about 2:30 p.m., a convoy with the army chief of staff was halted at the barricade. A video of the December 12 events on Sokoto Road, near the Hussainniyah mosque, was released by the military on December 16. It shows men in military uniform attempting to talk to scores of angry young men, some holding stones, sticks and, in one case, a machete. The video does not show what happened next, only the convoy driving through a cleared road.

Later that day (December 12), the military spokesperson said, “The Shiite Sect on the orders of their leader, Ibrahim Alzak-zaky today [this] afternoon in Zaria attacked the convoy of the chief of army staff….The barricade was obviously a deliberate attempt to assassinate the chief of army staff and members of his entourage.” The military video shows no attempts by sect members to attack the army chief of staff nor how the road was cleared.

A sect member who was at the barricade said the young men “tried to explain why we were concerned that they seemed to be focusing on us. But before long they just started shooting their way through the barricade.” Witnesses described soldiers opening fire on the crowd, which included women and children. Some of the soldiers did not leave with the convoy but continued to fire, including into the mosque, where hundreds sought refuge for the next 30 hours.

At around 10 p.m., soldiers also advanced to Gyellesu neighborhood, about 10 kilometers from the mosque, toward Zakzazy’s house. Fearing Zakzazy might be arrested or killed, hundreds of sect members gathered at his house to protect him. Witnesses said soldiers fired at random on the large crowd of men, women, and children, some of whom were throwing stones and carrying sticks. The firing continued throughout the night, intensifying in the early morning until Zakzazy and his wife, Zeenatu, were arrested on December 14. Witnesses said that both had multiple gunshot wounds. Both remain in custody.

Soldiers also deployed to Daral-Rahma cemetery, an important Shiite religious location with a number of Shia shrines, 12 kilometers from Zaria.

On December 14, in a news conference after the events, Major General Adeniyi Oyebade, responsible for the 1 Mechanized Army Division in Kaduna, said he had deployed more troops to the three sites after receiving information that IMN members were mobilizing there. He said he gave instruction “to secure the three sites and bring the sect leader into custody.” He said his forces “came under attack and the resulting confrontation led to casualties on both sides.” He did not provide any figures or further information about government casualties. He claimed that Zakzaky and his wife were taken into “protective custody.” The chief of army staff said on December 17 that that the military handed the couple over to appropriate authorities for prosecution. He did not say for what offence they would be charged.

Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the military detained hundreds of IMN members, many of whom were later transferred to police custody. The police released 191 sect members between December 15 and 18, including 61 non-Shia Almajiri boys – Koranic school pupils – and women with babies and small children. The police also released 46 others who had been transferred to the police headquarters in Kaduna. Many of sect members who spoke to Human Rights Watch said they had been detained with serious gunshot wounds and other injuries and that they received little or no medical treatment.

The 14-year-old girl who was shot said that soldiers picked her up, put her in a military vehicle, and took her to a nearby military base where she was given basic medical treatment to stop the bleeding. Soldiers took her to the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital the next day, December 13, with 16 other wounded Shiite detainees. The injured said they were transported in the same military truck with at least 100 corpses from the shootings, which were deposited in the hospital morgue.