>> NARRATOR: Tonight on Frontline, two exclusive reports out of Africa.

First, in Sierra Leone.

>> People are dying left and right here.

>> NARRATOR: The desperate fight against the Ebola virus as it spreads out of control.

>> And I was thinking, "Oh, my God, we are too late."

>> Yeah, it was like an onslaught of patients.

We're quickly filling up.

>> NARRATOR: On the ground with those risking their lives to track and halt this deadly Ebola outbreak.

>> We've never seen such a large outbreak ever.

>> NARRATOR: And later tonight...

In Nigeria, Boko Haram horrified the world last April when they kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls.

Now Frontline investigates Nigeria's response, their hunt for these Islamist militants.

>> On the one hand, you have the atrocities committed by Boko Haram.

On the other hand, you have the atrocities committed by the security services.

People are scared to death.

>> NARRATOR: Tonight, two new reports, one exclusive hour of Frontline.

>> NARRATOR: In Sierra Leone, West Africa, a catastrophe is unfolding: the world's deadliest outbreak of Ebola.

Sebastian Stein is part of the team at an emergency field hospital that's been built by the relief group Doctors Without Borders.

>> You see patients in the most horrible states, and you can have patients who come in one day, and the next day I'm packing them in a body bag.

People are dying left and right here.

>> NARRATOR: Another patient has just died.

Sebastian, who's in charge of the morgue, must enter the isolation tent to recover the body.

>> You need to be covered everywhere, so you have to have no exposed skin so there's no chance of being in direct contact with a patient or with body fluids from a patient.

>> NARRATOR: The Ebola virus doesn't travel through the air, but through contact with bodily fluids.

>> There's a tiny bit here.

I need to...

It's okay?

>> NARRATOR: The virus causes vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding.

Simply touching a victim can be fatal.

Beyond the orange barrier are the wards holding patients infected with the virus.

The latest victim is a nine-year-old boy.

His body is still highly infectious.

(knocking) >> NARRATOR: Sebastian's morgue ledger is filling up.

>> So we'll put in number 78 now in a few minutes.

So yeah, and that's just since the first registration, the 2nd of July.

So that's, yeah, that's exactly one month tomorrow.

It's not a nice book.

It's thick.

I hope we don't need to fill the whole thing.

(car horn honks) >> NARRATOR: An ambulance brings more victims, six members of the same family.

>> This has spread at an unprecedented level.

I mean, we've never seen such a large outbreak ever in recorded history, and so now we come here to try to do to the best of our ability, but we're overstretched.

>> NARRATOR: Local nurses are on the streets warning the outbreak is worsening.

Even in the Doctors Without Borders hospital, Ebola is killing 70% of those it infects.

Because so few people who go to the hospital ever return, victims are hiding in their homes and infecting their families.

>> NARRATOR: The only way to contain Ebola is to isolate the infected.

>> If we're able to do it... >> NARRATOR: Manjo Lamin works with one of Sierra Leone's disease surveillance teams.

It's their job to find victims and get them to the Doctors Without Borders hospital.

But Manjo and his seven colleagues can't keep up with the number of cases.

>> NARRATOR: Two weeks ago, Manjo went through a terrifying ordeal when he was quarantined with suspected Ebola.

It turned out to be a false alarm, and he returned to work.

Now he's about to head to another contaminated village.

>> NARRATOR: The surveillance team has only four vehicles to monitor the half million people living at the center of the outbreak.

They meet up with the vehicle that's being used to transport Ebola victims.

>> NARRATOR: It's a hearse.

>> NARRATOR: They're heading to a village where Ebola has already killed an old man.

Everyone they encounter, even those who look healthy, could be infectious.

The team used to wear protective clothing, but the suits terrified the villagers, who ran, hid and sometimes even attacked them.

Manjo now relies on keeping his distance from everyone he meets.

>> NARRATOR: A young woman is clearly unwell.

>> NARRATOR: Kadiatu Jusu is 25 years old, the mother of four children.

>> NARRATOR: Her husband Fallah is a farmer.

He's 35.

It was his father who died two weeks ago.

Isheta Conteh can see Kadiatu is almost certainly infected.

>> She actually fits into the case definition because she was the one taking care of the old man, feeding him, cleaning where the old man was vomiting, and there was direct physical contact.

>> NARRATOR: Manjo disinfects Kadiatu's home with chlorine.

Everything she touched could have been contaminated.

Isheta notes the names of everyone who's been in close contact with Kadiatu.

Her children and husband are at the top of the list.

>> Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12... Seventeen.

>> NARRATOR: Fallah can't risk touching his wife to say goodbye.

>> I just feel sorry because people are dying.

>> We are on our way with a patient with a suspected case-- well, it's a probable case, actually-- to the center.

>> NARRATOR: They begin the two-hour journey to the Doctors Without Borders hospital.

The local hospitals are barely functioning because so many doctors and nurses have died from Ebola.

>> (voice muffled) >> ...because she is vomiting, she said.

>> Okay.

>> NARRATOR: The team at the hospital quickly begins to treat Kadiatu.

Although there are no known cures for Ebola, sometimes the body can fight it off, especially if the victim can stay hydrated.

A Canadian doctor, Tim Jagatic, passes anti-nausea drugs into the isolation ward.

>> You're welcome.

>> We just gave her a medication to prevent the vomiting and the RS solution just to rehydrate her because she's losing a lot of fluid and electrolytes.

Our job here is just to kind of keep the body at an optimal state of health so that the immune system can kind of do its work, find the virus, create the antibodies, kill off the virus.

We're just trying to clear the path for the immune system to get to that point.

>> NARRATOR: The van is disinfected, ready to pick up the next Ebola case on Manjo's list.

The hospital is busy through the night.

The pain and the symptoms caused by Ebola mean its victims get little sleep.

>> I need a flashlight.

>> You need a flashlight?

Some nights are different than others.

It all depends.

Last night was kind of quiet.

The night before, we had one death.

>> NARRATOR: When the hospital was built four weeks earlier, 64 beds seemed more than enough.

That's no longer the case.

>> There's like an onslaught of patients.

We're quickly filling up.

We're getting a lot more patients coming in now.

>> This is another problem because one doctor was treating the patient as typhoid.

>> NARRATOR: Anja Wolz, from Germany, is the Doctors Without Borders emergency coordinator.

She says the Sierra Leone government and the international community were slow to react to the virus when it initially appeared.

>> To be honest, I feel helpless and frustrated.

I always think about my first day.

One guy came to me and told me, like, "My brother died, my sister died, my wife died, "my child died.

"Nobody came to disinfect the houses, "and I got three body bags for four people, but I don't know how to use it."

And I was thinking, "Oh (bleep), we are too late."

>> NARRATOR: An ambulance arrives, bringing a woman and her little girl.

The mother has died on the journey.

As the body is carried to the morgue, the girl cries out.

>> NARRATOR: Her name is Fatmata.

She's seven years old.

Her grandmother died of Ebola at home.

As is customary in Sierra Leone, Fatmata touched her body at the funeral.

>> NARRATOR: Sebastian has just been inside the wards to retrieve another body.

He saw Fatmata.

>> Another patient passed away on the floor right next to this poor little girl.

So she's been through a lot now.

We come in dressed up like spacemen, and we can try and say nice things, but the fright and the terror of being alone as a child in a hospital, especially in these circumstances, is just... it's too much for any small child.

(knocking) >> NARRATOR: Later that day, Fatmata died.

Nearby, Kadiatu's symptoms are growing worse.

And now the hearse that doubles as an ambulance has arrived with another case from her village.

It's her husband, Fallah, whose father died in this hospital two weeks ago.

>> NARRATOR: He's left their four children in the village and joins his wife in the isolation ward.

>> This man!

>> NARRATOR: Manjo wants to talk to the couple.

The fence keeps them six feet apart.

>> Hello, Kadiatu.

>> You found this body in the center of town?

>> Yes.

>> In Kailahun?

>> Yes.

>> NARRATOR: A dead girl has just been brought to the field hospital.

>> You came here and you spoke to the doctor.

Yes.

But before?

>> NARRATOR: But nobody knows who she is.

>> Just hold on and I'll just try to figure out what's happened, okay?

Okay, perfect.

This guy can't explain properly where the body is coming from.

It's a pediatric body bag in there, so... >> NARRATOR: Each new victim who arrives here has potentially infected more people.

If they can't be traced, then the virus will continue to spread.

>> We'll put the body in our mortuary here overnight until we can figure out who this is and why this body was brought like this.

So if you can spray the bag, and then we'll take it out and we'll put it in another bag.

I don't think you can be prepared for this.

You have to just look at it as a job.

It's, uh... >> NARRATOR: Manjo and his team head out to a remote village where two more victims have recently died.

They are now in pursuit of yet another infected man.

>> Hello!

>> NARRATOR: There's no sign of the infected man, and the villagers won't cooperate.

>> NARRATOR: Manjo says the villagers are afraid of going to the hospital and they don't realize the infected man could spread the virus.

>> NARRATOR: They have to give up and move on.

>> NARRATOR: They later hear that the infected man has fled his village into neighboring Guinea, taking the virus with him.

One of the reasons the outbreak has persisted is that infected people travel freely across the borders between Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

It's causing panic and unrest.

(gunshots) In nearby Kenema, the third- largest town in Sierra Leone, rumors about the virus have brought people onto the streets.

A story is going round that Ebola is a hoax, a trick devised by doctors to steal people's blood.

The rioters are trying to break down the hospital gates and rescue the patients inside.

>> (news report on radio) >> NARRATOR: The police use tear gas and fire live bullets to disperse the rioters.

But the rumors that Ebola is a hoax mean that more victims hide in their homes, infecting their families and neighbors.

Back at the field hospital, it's Kadiatu's sixth night in isolation.

She's still very sick, but she's more worried about her husband Fallah.

>> NARRATOR: Fallah's battle with the virus is reaching a critical phase.

>> NARRATOR: With both Fallah and Kadiatu in the hospital, Manjo returns to their village to check on their four sons.

>> NARRATOR: To everyone's relief, they are healthy.

But they're missing their mom and dad.

>> NARRATOR: They record a "get well" message.

>> NARRATOR: Manjo returns to the hospital with the children's message.

>> NARRATOR: Against the odds, Kadiatu is feeling better.

>> NARRATOR: Fallah has been vomiting blood, but he wants to see the message from his children.

>> NARRATOR: By August, the hospital is full.

The dead are taken to a nearby clearing.

>> It's really horrible, right?

You're just walking, trying not to step on the graves, trying to show some respect, but at the same time, it's so unceremonial.

And this is going to continue to grow, I'm afraid.

>> I lost my brothers.

I lost my sisters.

I lost my best friends.

>> NARRATOR: The gravediggers are volunteers.

They've each lost a number of loved ones.

>> Two.

>> My mother, my son and my father.

>> Likewise myself, because he's my elder brother.

>> Five.

>> Three.

>> Four good people.

Four good people.

>> NARRATOR: Officially, this Ebola outbreak has claimed over 1,900 lives, but the real figure is believed to be higher and rising fast.

The World Health Organization warns the virus could ultimately infect more than 20,000 people.

>> NARRATOR: Coming up next on Frontline, when the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls, there was an international outcry.

>> The kidnapping by Boko Haram is an unconscionable crime.

>> NARRATOR: And a crackdown by the Nigerian military.

>> Why are they beating that man?

>> NARRATOR: Starting right now, reporter Evan Williams investigates the hidden story of Nigeria's hunt for Boko Haram.

(rooster crowing) (car horn honking) >> EVAN WILLIAMS: Nigeria is Africa's most populous country, divided between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.

For the past five years, it's been fighting a brutal Islamist insurgency.

(explosion) The radical group Boko Haram has been trying to impose an Islamic state.

Their name means "Western influence is sinful."

(people shouting) >> WILLIAMS: In almost daily attacks, Boko Haram has been beheading police officers, setting off bombs, and killing school children.

>> They burn schools like the Taliban.

They kill government officials and attack military and police locations like the Taliban.

They see themselves as the Taliban of Nigeria.

(girls singing) >> WILLIAMS: Last April, the group shocked the world by kidnapping nearly 300 schoolgirls.

>> The kidnapping of hundreds of children by Boko Haram is an unconscionable crime, and we will do everything possible to support the Nigerian government to return these young women to their homes.

(horns honking) >> WILLIAMS: I arrived here this past May just after a double car bombing by Boko Haram in the city of Jos.

(explosion) (woman screaming) (siren blaring) >> WILLIAMS: Just going towards now the center of Jos, where just yesterday, there was two vehicle explosions killing about 118 people, injuring many more.

This has now been determined as a Boko Haram attack.

The whole town in this area has now been emptied, and there's a very eerie feeling.

>> WILLIAMS: Jos's main hospital was filled with victims from the bombing.

In one room, I found this woman.

She had been riding in a taxi when the explosion tore through the vehicle.

She told me the two people sitting next to her were killed instantly.

>> WILLIAMS: What goes through your mind when you remember what happened?

>> WILLIAMS: In the face of these attacks, the Nigerian military launched an all-out war against the group two years ago.

It was called Operation Flush.

A state of emergency was declared in the country's three northern states.

Thousands of troops were sent in to operate alongside local militias made up of young Muslim men who feared Boko Haram.

>> These are young men that have the knowledge of the northeastern part of Nigeria, so now the military can have someone by proxy carrying out their activities without them being held responsible.

>> My other colleagues here tonight... >> WILLIAMS: Nigeria's president Goodluck Jonathan hailed the militias as national heroes.

But soon after I started investigating Boko Haram, I began hearing stories about these militias: atrocities some of them were committing, along with members of the military, as they carried out Operation Flush.

I talked to witnesses and militia members who described arrests, torture and even the summary execution of civilians.

And as proof, they gave me over 120 videos.

Many of them they shot themselves.

I independently corroborated these videos with multiple eyewitnesses, militia members and human rights experts.

We've managed to track down an insider who has agreed to see us, but only in a safe location.

He belongs to one of the militias and asked to be called "Abdul."

He gave me 35 videos.

>> (translated): We only have one life.

God has given us the same as He's given them, so we thought, "Why not just confront them?

We either kill them or they kill us."

>> WILLIAMS: He said members of the military trained some of them and even paid some of them directly.

>> (translated): They took us and trained us for four weeks.

They formed us so that we could be their boys and said they'd support us in our operation.

>> WILLIAMS: They armed themselves with whatever weapons they could find-- machetes, swords, bows and arrows-- and were encouraged to deal harshly with Boko Haram suspects wherever they went.

>> WILLIAMS: Initially, he said they had some success capturing Boko Haram members.

But then Abdul started to grow uncomfortable with their methods.

He showed me a video he says he filmed during an Operation Flush mission in the city of Maiduguri in July 2013.

His militia had gone through the countryside capturing villagers suspected of supporting Boko Haram.

The suspects were turned over to the military.

>> (translated): We all turned into monsters, as you can see.

>> WILLIAMS: Abdul said people were beaten to try to get them to confess they were Boko Haram.

>> WILLIAMS: One young man was singled out by the soldiers.

>> WILLIAMS: Why are they beating that man?

>> (translated): Because he refused to admit he's Boko Haram.

>> WILLIAMS: He was alarmed by what happened next.

>> (translated): They said, "We don't trust you.

You are Boko Haram since you have this strong head."

They were beating him, beating him, beating him.

He is just a young boy.

The boy is not Boko Haram.

He's not Boko Haram.

Even people living in the area testified that he's not Boko Haram.

His parents were there and they tried to stop it, but they couldn't.

In the end, they just had to turn away.

>> WILLIAMS: Abdul says he later found out the boy died of his injuries.

Soon after that raid, they moved into the town of Bama.

Three weeks earlier, it had been attacked by Boko Haram.

The group had threatened to kill teachers and government workers if they didn't leave their jobs.

>> (translated): Boko Haram has been killing people for a long time: burning shops, police stations, barracks and killing people.

They kill anybody who refuses to work with them.

>> WILLIAMS: I met another member of the militia who asked to be called "Mohammed," and also gave me videos.

He was there that day, and he proudly told me how they violently extracted confessions from young men they'd rounded up.

>> (translated): We tie their hands and legs and place them in the sun.

We beat them with a stick until they scream.

Then they tell us everything.

If he has killed someone or has a gun, he will tell us.

He will tell us if he is Boko Haram.

He will tell us everything.

Because there were many of them, we stripped them and our boys screened them.

We scare them.

Otherwise, they would not tell the truth.

>> WILLIAMS: I found a witness, a local school teacher, who said he looked on in horror as more and more of the town's young men were accused of being terrorists, even though he had seen the Boko Haram fighters fleeing before the military arrived.

>> WILLIAMS: I showed the teacher video of that day.

As he watched the footage, he spotted someone he knew.

>> WILLIAMS: And was he connected to Boko Haram?

(men shouting) >> WILLIAMS: Dozens of young men like Mohammed Bello were loaded onto an army truck, and the militia celebrated their success.

Two days later, people began finding the bodies of the men who'd been taken away on the outskirts of town.

>> WILLIAMS: Around 35 men were killed, he says, including Mohammed Bello.

The teacher found his bullet-ridden body lying in a ditch.

>> WILLIAMS: He told me some people are so scared of the military and the militias, they're joining Boko Haram.

>> WILLIAMS: I met these women who are from a town that's been repeatedly attacked by Boko Haram.

As far back as two years ago, the military has been conducting sweeps there too.

>> WILLIAMS: The women went to the local army barracks, thinking that their husbands and relatives were being held there.

>> WILLIAMS: The Army says that they've arrested people because they're members of Boko Haram.

Were your brothers ever members of Boko Haram?

Any connection or support of Boko Haram?

>> WILLIAMS: How many other women do you know are in your situation?

>> WILLIAMS: I wanted to interview someone from the Nigerian military or government about the allegations, but they wouldn't agree to it.

In several statements, they've said collateral damage could occur in the fight against the insurgents.

But they denied human rights violations and noted that Boko Haram has impersonated soldiers before.

But some of the same incidents seen in these videos prompted Secretary of State John Kerry in May 2013 to say the U.S. had concerns about "credible allegations "that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations."

>> I think obviously the U.S. would like to have a closer relationship with the Nigerian authorities straight across the board, including the military.

>> WILLIAMS: I showed several of the videos to Ambassador Campbell.

>> What the videos do is they show, in an extraordinarily graphic way, what we had been hearing from a variety of sources over the past couple of years.

>> WILLIAMS: He's been following Boko Haram and the allegations against the Nigerian military.

>> The people detained are not formally charged.

They're not brought before a magistrate.

They appear to be selected for detention in a more-or-less random way.

Government security services must be held to a much higher standard than a brutal insurgency.

A much higher standard.

>> WILLIAMS: Many of those detained are brought to the army's Giwa Barracks, a military complex in the northeastern city of Maiduguri.

This man told me he'd been held at the barracks for four months last year.

>> (translated): After we got to Giwa Barracks, they said, "Welcome to your death house."

From the time we were taken to Giwa Barracks to the time we were out, no one investigated or asked us any questions as to why we were there, whether we were Boko Haram or whether we knew Boko Haram.

We were just kept in Giwa Barracks.

There were no questions or answers-- nothing.

>> WILLIAMS: He said he was released after his father paid a bribe.

Others were not so lucky.

>> (translated): In the night, they call people's names, and if they answer, they are taken, blindfolded and shot.

>> WILLIAMS: He estimates there were about 120 men taken to Giwa Barracks with him.

He knows of only nine who came out alive.

He told me the bodies of dead prisoners were loaded onto military vehicles and driven away.

Pictures I received were taken outside the city morgue by people who told me the bodies had come from Giwa Barracks.

>> And this happened in 2013.

>> WILLIAMS: One of the photos was taken by a human rights investigator from Amnesty International.

>> Hundreds of people, some even say thousands of people, have been detained in Giwa military barracks and have gone through various forms of ill treatment.

People die of starvation, they die of beatings, the lack of proper ventilation which leads to suffocation.

These are the various causes that lead to people dying in military custody.

>> WILLIAMS: Abdul, the young militiaman, said it was his job to unload the corpses from military vehicles and dump them in front of the morgue.

How many corpses in a week, say, were you offloading?

>> (translated): The vehicle takes 24, 25 bodies in a trip.

They come four, five times a day, so every day, they were bringing 100, 120-something.

>> WILLIAMS: And then one day, Abdul unloaded a body he recognized, a close friend who had been taken away to Giwa Barracks-- a friend he knew was not a member of Boko Haram.

>> (translated): Why would they kill him without having strong evidence?

Where was the person that said he was a Boko Haram member?

I said, "This is a false allegation."

I put his corpse to one side.

I cried and cried and cried.

>> WILLIAMS: The Nigerian military has publicly denied that there have been mass deaths in detention.

But local human rights investigators and the U.S. State Department told me the number could be several thousand.

>> There are families that have not seen their loved ones.

There are women who have not seen their husbands for the past three to four years.

No one, not even the state, the country, or the government as a whole, have a comprehensive list of people that have disappeared or people that are currently in detention.

(gunshots) (men shouting) >> WILLIAMS: Last March, with Giwa Barracks filling up, Boko Haram filmed themselves raiding the barracks and freeing hundreds of prisoners.

But very few went with Boko Haram.

Eyewitnesses say most appeared to be civilians who ran for their homes.

(shouting continues) But they didn't get very far.

I found a man who says he watched the prison break and saw the militia rounding people up.

>> (translated): They were looking for something to eat or drink.

One was begging for water with his hands.

All of them were crying, saying that they were not Boko Haram.

Two soldiers came either side and asked people to move away, and pop-pop-pop-pop-pop, they shot them all.

>> WILLIAMS: One of the terrified men called out to him.

>> (translated): He told me, "This is the end of my life "because these people will not spare me.

They will kill me."

He had seen the other dead bodies.

He was alive, we were together, but in just a few seconds, somebody came and shot him.

>> WILLIAMS: Militia members and people standing in the streets filmed the executions on their cellphones.

The videos match the accounts of several eyewitnesses.

Bodies were left bleeding in the streets, with spent cartridges around them.

Some of the victims appear to be children.

>> WILLIAMS: No one knows the death toll for certain, but Amnesty International estimates that more than 600 people died that day.

And the killing didn't stop there.

The military hunted other escaped prisoners down on the outskirts of town.

I received two horrific videos that show what happened next: the bodies of what witnesses say are Giwa detainees being thrown into a pit by soldiers.

One carries a rifle with the number of a battalion that's part of Operation Flush.

The soldier who appears to be in charge wears a uniform marked with the name "Operation Flush."

I was told that the soldier goes by the name Haruna, or Harrison.

>> WILLIAMS: Of all the videos I've obtained, these are the most graphic.

They show him presiding over six executions.

All the prisoners have their throats slashed, with a line of men behind him awaiting their turn.

>> It has reached a point where people couldn't even clearly draw a line between the wanton violence and evil unleashed by the insurgents and the acts of brutality committed by the security forces against innocent persons.

>> WILLIAMS: In August, the Nigerian military said it would investigate who was behind the executions in these two videos.

But as of now, it's unclear what the response will be to the many other incidents we've reported on.

>> Go to pbs.org/frontline to track Ebola's spread through West Africa with an interactive map.

>> We've never seen such a large outbreak ever.

>> And find out more about why this outbreak has been so difficult to contain.

And learn more about U.S. relations with Nigeria and a statement from the Nigerian government.

Then connect to the Frontline community.

Sign up for our newsletter, and follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and pbs.org/frontline.

>> Next time on Frontline, on the coast of China... >> Macau generates six or seven times the revenue of Vegas.

>> American casinos are making huge profits.

>> There is significant illegal activity associated with gaming in Macau.

>> To be fair to the casinos, they've tried to run a clean house.

>> Correspondent Lowell Bergman investigates.

>> How do you collect the debt?

>> By following the guy until he pays.

>> What happens in Macau never happened.

>> "Bigger than Vegas."

>> For more on this and other Frontline programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline.

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