Gone: The lost victims of Nigeria’s ‘most brutal’ police station

For more than a decade, young men have disappeared or lost their lives at the hands of Awkuzu SARS, a notorious police station in southeastern Nigeria. For victims and their families, it is an arduous road to justice.

Awkuzu, Nigeria – Behind a metal gate on the southern flank of the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway, stands a boxy hay-coloured building set in the dense clay earth of Awkuzu town. For more than 10 years, it has been at the centre of incredulous tales of torture and extrajudicial killings in this part of southeastern Nigeria’s Anambra State – tales that have spread beyond the region and across the country. Throughout the building’s dark history, blood stained its floors and guttural screams from those detained there rang out deep into the night. Today, a gloomy aura hovers over the building as cars and pedestrians pass by.