Following last week’s successful rescue of 275 women from the captivity of the fading Boko Haram terrorist group in Sambisa Forest, one of the traumatized women on Sunday narrated her ordeal at the hands of the sect members.
One of the returnees whose name was given as Asabe Aliyu, a 23-year-old mother of four children from Delsak, a village near Chibok town, told a Daily Times correspondent at Malkoi, one of the camps for displaced persons in Yola, Adamawa state, that beating was the order of the day in the Boko Haram camp.
Aliyu said she has been intermittently vomiting blood, an indication that she sustained internal injuries during her manhandling at the terrorist’s camp.
She said in addition to the deployment of all forms of vulgar words, the terrorists forced her into marrying one of them after a series of sexual assaults unleashed on her by different men on a daily basis.
Aliyu, who appears in poor health, further disclosed that death was the punishment for any infraction or mistake in Sambisa under the terrorist group.
“I was abducted six months ago in Delsak when our village was overrun by Boko Haram. First I had sojourned from my village to a forest close to Cameroun, they turned me into a sex machine. They took turns to sleep with me. Now, I am pregnant and I cannot identify the father,” she said.
Asabe went further to reveal that she even thought that the pregnancy would bring compassion from the sect, but was disappointed that with her condition as a pregnant woman she was still compelled to cook for the sect members.
Another rescued woman, Lami Musa, who was seen carrying a three-day-old baby girl, looked tired and haggard.
Lami, whose legs were swollen and had to be supported before she could walk, said the sect members abducted the whole of her family and killed her husband at Kilkasa forest when she was four months’ pregnant.
“They took us to Sambisa forest, we were sleeping in an open field. For days, we went without water or food. Three days ago, I gave birth to this baby girl. As I am talking to you, I cannot ascertain the status of her health. I have not had a bath since I was delivered of the baby. The baby is yet to be bathed too,” Lami said.
Maryamu Adamu, who hails from Minchika in Adamawa state, also revealed that she saw the hell called Sambisa Forest.
Adamu said she did not know if her two children and husband were still alive because she had not set eyes on them since she was kidnapped and taken to Sambisa Forest nine months ago.
“I know I was dead, my existing now is just a mere shadow of life as nothing moves me. But now that I am here, I confirm that I am a living being. I thank God that I am alive. I thank God,” she said.
Daily Times reported that the camp housed both old and young returnees, as well as girls who may need a long time to readjust to normal living.
Some of the rescued women, who declined to give their names, said that they trekked for three days before they were rescued and finally taken to Yola. Many of them looked hunger-stricken while the children kept wailing as a result of illness and malnutrition.
Some of the women and children had to be assisted as they could not walk on their own while another set of returnees could not alight from the vehicles that brought them from Sambisa Forest as a result of exhaustion and hunger.
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A displaced man, staying in Malkoi Camp in Yola, where the women were taken to, had a reunion of sorts.
The man reportedly saw four of his cousins and their children, who the family had thought were dead, among the 275 rescued women. He openly expressed his joy in tears.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian military recently released footage that shows how women and children earlier kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists tried to escape after an aerial bombardment forced the militants to flee their base in Sambisa Forest.