Security operatives have arrested three Israeli filmmakers over alleged ties with the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry confirmed the arrest of their citizens, who are being interrogated on suspicion that they had come into contact with IPOB members on Tuesday.
According to The Guardian, the arrested are Israeli, Rudy Rochman, Noam Leibman and French-Israeli journalist E. David Benaym.
Family members of one of the Israelis, however, told the Israeli daily that the allegations were entirely unfounded and that separatist social media accounts took advantage of the Israelis’ trip to claim that the three were supporting Biafran separatist groups.
The Israelis were in Nigeria to film “We Were Never Lost,” a documentary exploring Jewish communities in African countries such as Kenya, Madagascar, Uganda, and Nigeria.
They arrived in Nigeria Tuesday, July 6, a day after they departed Ben Gurion Airport in Isreal.
Eyewitnesses said the Israelis were arrested in Ogidi village, Anambra State, Southeast, Nigeria by security operatives and were later taken to Abuja.
Their arrest occurred about two weeks after Nigerian authorities announced the rearrest of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu who jumped bail in 2017 after his first arrest in 2015.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the Israeli Embassy in Abuja is following the case closely and is in contact with Nigerian authorities.