She narrated how after two
weeks in in captivity, she was given N10,000 which was supposed to be for her
bride price but she managed to escape before the supposed husband came her.
Speaking with Daily Trust,
Lami said on a Friday in April, 2014, the insurgents came to their village,
Gwoshi in Gwoza local government area of Borno state, made some observations
and left to reinforce.
Lami, who was 24 at that
time said: “We got scared and some of us ran up hill. A few hours later they
came back. We saw them from our hiding places and knew immediately that our
village would be under attack. We joined six other women already hiding in a
cave, from where we could see the killings. People were slaughtered like goats.
I witnessed them kill three women and several men. The women killed were those
whose relatives were Muslims.
“After that the insurgents
came right up to us on the hill top and ordered us to come out or they would
shoot us. It was a terrifying moment for us.”
The mother of two said she
and two others decided to come out leaving behind the six others and that was
how the six others were saved.
“As we came out, they said
to us, ‘you pagans, you all must be Muslims today.’ They took us to Sambisa
Forest. They kept us in a place they call ‘Reserve’ inside Sambisa Forest. We
were fed one ladle of food daily. The older of my two sons who was six years
old at the time, was already on the hilltop with some of the neighbours before
I was abducted. At the time I was captured, I had only my second son with me. I
didn’t know where my husband was or if he was still alive,” she narrated.
According to her, they
asked her to convert to Islam but she refused saying: “Those who refused were
tagged ‘slaves’ and kept in an enclosure secured with a big padlock and placed
on the watch that they may likely to escape”
She said there were no
houses in Sambisa, just open spaces with fences, making camps and enclosures
and the insurgents used stolen cars as their homes.
Recounting how she escaped,
she said the padlock was left open one day and they waited patiently until
about 3 a.m. when they sneaked out. She first headed to pick her son.
“There was no going back, I
told myself. I tell you, inside Sambisa, you have no idea where you are going,
but you have to maneuver your way through to get out of it. They came looking
for me on the hills because they had already given me my bride price. If I were
caught, I would have been killed. So I hid myself in a cave. It was only after
I entered it with my son that I saw a big snake tucked in a corner.”
After hours of navigating
Sambisa Forest, Lami arrived Dutse village in Borno state, where she picked her
older son and told her relations there she was leaving either to Cameroon or
Abuja.
After many challenges, she
got to Abuja and a good Samaritan helped her to Area 1 where she met people
from Gwoza who took her to this Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in
Kuchigoro.
On the mysterious Boko
Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, Lami said she never saw him at Sambisa, but saw
his second in command, Yakubu Musa.
She stated that she never
saw the abducted Chibok girls too but she was told they were taken to a
different camp in Sambisa.
One year after her escape
from Sambisa Forest, her trauma still continues as she is yet to know the
whereabouts of her husband.
Since the outbreak of Boko
Haram insurgency in the North-east in 2009 which spread to other parts of the
country, various people have one tale or the other about their experiences with
the terrorist sect and how they managed to escape.
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