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Amnesty International has published a new report on human rights violations committed by the Cameroonian government and its security forces in their fight against Boko Haram.

In the report which was published on Thursday, the human rights advocacy group said more than 1,000 people, many of whom were arrested arbitrarily, are being held in custody as part of the government's crackdown on the terrorist organisation, which killed nearly 500 people in Cameroon this year.

The report, Right cause, wrong means: Rights violated and justice denied in Cameroon’s fight against Boko Haram, states that the detainees are held in overcrowded prisons, with up to eight people dying in detention each month from disease, torture and malnutrition.

“In seeking to protect its population from the brutality of Boko Haram, Cameroon is pursuing the right objective; but in arbitrarily arresting, torturing and subjecting people to enforced disappearances the authorities are using the wrong means,” said Alioune Tine, Amnesty International West and Central Africa Regional Director.

Amnesty International cited the February 2015 arrest of 32 men in Kossa as an example of the type of arbitrary arrests being conducted by the government security forces. The men were arrested simply based on accusations that the village was providing food to Boko Haram members. While most of the Kossa villagers were later released, one man died in custody.

The Amnesty International report documents 29 cases of people that were tortured by Cameroonian security forces between November 2014 and October 2015, including six who subsequently died. The report also says more than 100 people, including women, have been sentenced to death in a military court in Maroua in the Far North Region of Cameroon since July 2015. However, none of them has been executed yet.

Amnesty International said between October 2015 and July 2016, it interviewed more than 200 people in the Far North region of Cameroon, visited prisons and observed trials. The human rights advocacy group said it documented information on 82 individual cases of human rights violations by the Cameroonian authorities and security forces.

The group has called on the Cameroonian government to respect human rights as its security forces fights to end Boko Haram insurgency in the country.

“With hundreds of people arrested without reasonable suspicion that they have committed any crime, and people dying on a weekly basis in its overcrowded prisons, Cameroon’s government should take urgent action to keep its promise to respect human rights while fighting Boko Haram,” added Tine.