Ololade Adeyanju/
Military authorities today justified the killing of scores of members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria last week in Abuja with President Donald Trump’s video warning that soldiers deployed to the Mexican border could shoot Central American migrants who throw stones at them while attempting to cross illegally
No fewer than 40 members of the movement were reportedly shot dead during a three-day protest to demand the release of their leader, Sheik El Zakzaky, who had been in detention along with his wife since 2015.
The army posted the viral video on its verified Twitter handle, @HQNigerianArmy, with the caption: “Please watch and make your deductions.”
AFP reports that Trump told journalists yesterday at the White House that a group of several thousand migrants walking through Mexico towards the US border had thrown rocks “viciously and violently” at Mexican police.
“We’re not going to put up with that. They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back,” he said.
“I told them (troops) consider it (a rock) a rifle. When they throw rocks as they did at the Mexican military and police, I say consider it a rifle.”
Trump spoke during a presentation of his controversial policy on cracking down against what he says is uncontrolled illegal immigration.
Trump has ramped up the rhetoric daily ahead of next Tuesday’s midterm congressional elections, accusing the opposition Democrats of wanting to throw open the borders to floods of “tough people,” “rapists” and other types of threats.
The current focus of the president’s repeated claim to be acting against “an invasion” is the dwindling group of a few thousand impoverished migrants trying to get north, but still far from the US border.
Trump said that from now on, the United States will stop its policy of allowing people to claim political asylum at the border unless they have first gone through an official border post.
Those caught at the border will be held in tent camps or other facilities until they can be deported or have their requests approved, he said.
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