The story of Zainab Ali’s determination to live attests to her bravery. Barely 24 hours after she put to bed she ran the race of her life while fleeing from Boko Haram.
She was in that critical state when Boko Haram terrorists struck her village in Bama.
Not wanting to be killed in the onslaught, she took her newborn and escaped along with her kinsmen.
Painful tale
I did not have the opportunity of being taken care of by my mother and mother in-law after the arrival of my baby because we were faced with the dilemma of choosing between life and death as Boko Harm struck in our village,” Zainab told Abuja Metro in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Yerwa.
The camp is dominated by people from Bama, Zainab’s place from where she and others escaped from Boko Haram attack. The camp is located at Government Girls Secondary School, Yerwa, The day-old baby by Zainab who escaped alongside three other children is now six months old, implying that they have lived in destitution for six months and the innocent baby has not known normal since she arrived FCT,
Baby Nana Ali, is now six months old, and the mum says she has every cause to thank God because even some villagers that were even stronger than her, did not survive the attack.
According to her, “I had to trek for more than four days with other villagers before we arrived Maiduguri.
Zainab, spoke about her experience in the hands of the insurgents that had terrorized her village long before people ever knew they existed.
“Our problem in the hands of Boko Haram started long time ago when these killers arrived our domain. They started by killing one person at a time but laterl, they graduated to two, three and finally, they carried out killings of the villagers en-masse. Our community had been predated for a long time until it became so unbearable that we had to run away.
We didn’t know where to report what was happening in our village. But as time went on, even our traditional rulers did not have a say as to run the affairs of our village as the Boko Haram did not spare them, either. It got so bad that when we could no longer bear the brutality, we had to run. I had just put to bed on Sunday night and almost the same night, Boko Haram stormed our village in a very fierce way and started shooting and killing our people and burning houses.
The attack was so bad that all the villagers ran away first thing in the morning. I did not even have the opportunity of being bathed with hot water and get the local massage that women who has just put to bed are treated to.
Like I said, I put to bed in the evening of Sunday and by early morning on Monday, we got up at about five o’clock and commenced our journey to Maiduguri on foot because there was no vehicle to convey us there.
I know I was not very strong to embark on the journey but if I stayed back Boko Haram killers will take me as next victim when next they come and they must surely come back like before.
They don’t have pity on anybody – woman, child, old or young. They would even rape women who just put to bed. So I woke up like any other person and we started the journey that involved running and walking at some points.
We trekked until we got to Maiduguri in the night. That was how my baby and I escaped being killed.
Life in the camp has not been easy because here you just sit all day doing nothing. We don’t go to farm, we don’t do our local business, no good food, no water but there is nothing we can do now because we cannot even go back to the village when everyone had ran away. As I am talking to you now, there is no single soul in our village. So no need to go back, even though we love to. We just pray that this whole thing ends so we can go back.
Grandma’s heartrending story: Boko Haram vehicle ran over my hand and leg and left me unattended
The story of Mama Kata Modu is another very pathetic one. This old woman is among the Bama natives taking refuge at the Government Girls College.
Abuja Metro sighted her when the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), offered free medical services to people in the camp. The old woman, who narrated her story during an interview, cried her heart out when asked her how she escaped and the whereabouts of her children.
She got emotional at this point and started crying. “The problem is that I don’t even have a child to call my own with all the sufferings I have been through,” she explained in Kanuri.
It took time to console and convince her that all hopes were not yet lost before she could stop and continued with the interview.
“Mama, how can you say you don’t have a child when I am here, the reporter asked her in love? She smiled after the question and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“My name is Kata Modu,” she began. “I am from Bama and I have lived in Bama all my life. I am not too rich but I thank God that he provides all that I need so I don’t have to do the things that I am not supposed to do.
I am in this IDP camp because Boko Haram chased us out from our village which they have been attacking over the years.
As far as I can remember, these people came to our village a very long time ago and started pretending to be good people. But as time went on, they started to kill our people at the slightest provocation and it all started like a joke.
But gradually, the killings became too rampant and that was when we realized we had enemies right inside our village and we decided that it was time we did something.
They killed our young men, kidnapped our children, molested our young girls and women at will and we could not just keep quite. They took our young boys and gave then guns to kill us and they obeyed them and before we knew what was happening, they recruited them into their cult and used them to cause more havoc in our village. It was unbearable. They stole our farm produce, stole our motorcycles, Keke NAPEP, cattle killed our husbands, children. You can name or recall all the bad things of this life, they did worse than what you can imagine or think of.
And so on this particular day, they stormed our village again like they always do and started to kill our men, our children especially the boys, molested young girls and burnt down the houses. The raid on that day was so severe that we all decided to vacate the village early the next morning. And so on the next day, I along with my other people left and started to run.
We ran until, the same people sighted us and began to chase us.
In the process, some pregnant women died, children died, many fell down and before I knew it one of the vehicles with which they chased us ran over my hand and I heard a loud crack and remained there. By the time I tried to stand up, I could not because my leg was also affected and while I was still struggling to know my next move, one of the killers came and lifted me up and took me to a house and left me there.
I was there for some days writhing in pain. I had nobody to attend to me, so I remained there and managed to take care of the hand the little way I could until I embarked on my journey on foot to Maiduguri.
On getting to Maiduguri, I went to the hospital at the IDP camp and they gave me some drugs and this is what the hand had turned into because I did not get proper medical attention and I have remained like this for exactly three years because this incident happened three years ago.
Doctors to the rescue
I am here to get proper medical treatment because the Nigerian Air Force came to offer us free medical services. I am very happy about it because this is the first time a free medical service of this magnitude is taking place in this camp since I arrived a year ago.
Many of our people who have been ill got treatment and they smiled when they came out of the consulting room because the doctors are very friendly, they take time to ask us our names, how we feel and give us words of encouragement before they find out what our medical problem is.
What else can you say to such people other than may God bless them. I pray that God will reward them and protect them as they fight Boko Haram because I know that they are fighting them.
The doctor has seen me and said they will carry out an operation on me and I am very happy now, she said excitedly, after she came out from the doctor consulting room.
Children
Children are also not left out of the sordid tales at the IDP camps. Abuja Metro also spoke with some of them on their experiences.
Getting them properly organized was very hectic. Children are not ready to tell any experiences of what they went through. The IDP to them is just another playground and sighting a reporter with a camera was just fun to them
As expected, they all wanted to speak all at once and so it took another round of persuasion and murdering the little Kanuri language that made them laugh.
And by the time they all agreed to talk, they bared their minds and said they hate Boko Haram because they have done more than good to their parents, brothers and sisters and to their entire community.
We trekked for seven days -Children
The children said some of them trekked for about seven days before they got to Maiduguri. Others said they were lucky to have found vehicle owners who stopped to pick them and brought them to Maiduguri, after trekking for more than three days.
“It took some of us three, four and seven days to get to Maiduguri from Bama. Some of us don’t know where our parents are because when Boko Haram struck, everybody ran in different directions to find safety.
Some of our parents may be dead because we have not seen them for about two years, and some for one year now.
We really miss Bama, it is a very interesting place, but these bad people chased us out, now we can no longer go to school.
“There is no good food here, no water, no soap to bath and wash our clothes, we cannot play football and we cannot go visiting.
On their plight in the hands of the insurgents, they told of how they saw their brothers and sisters molested and killed in their very presence by the terrorists, whose mission they say they were yet to understand.
“Our experience in the hands of Boko Haram was not good at all because they killed our fathers, our mothers in our presence.
They gave some children guns to be part of them and shoot people, some children obeyed while some of us ran away.
“Boko Haram called at our village when we were small and they used to steal our things and send us on errand to work for them,” some of the older children recalled.
“We have been here for more than one year. We ran away from our village when Boko Haram invaded the place. It was in the night that they came very late in the night so we ran away. Some of us ran without our parents so we don’t know where they are now.
We tracked from our village in Bama, to Maiduguri. We were running and trekking. But at a point, the attackers saw us and started to pursue us and we ran into a river before they left us. Some people who do not know how to swim drowned in the process and never got to Maiduguri.
Since we came here, life has not been easy. We want to go to school but there is no way. We want to go to school so we can become journalists like you. We even want to become soldiers when we grow up so that we can fight the Boko Haram. We want to be teachers, we want to be doctors, we want to do government work, when we grow up.
We are praying for this problem to be over so that we can return back to our village.
Throughout our period of trekking, we did not eat food of drank water.
It was while we were running that some people picked us on the road and brought us to this place. When we came here, there was nobody here only grass. Life here is not like home, we don’t have clothes to wear. We miss our parents and want to go back home. We thank the Nigerian Air Force because they gave us medicine to treat our sores because most of us have sores on our head and the body.
Still children
Like children that they are, they take the situation they find themselves as just any other incident and careless about what their parents are going through. They most times engage in fighting one another, play, run around the camp and when they get tired, they sleep.
Some of them said they also engage themselves in the sewing and weaving of caps with the older people. Apart from that, life goes on for them.
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