Revelation Of How Boko Haram Stoned n Blown Victims Alive

Victims of Boko Haram captured who were rescued from the Sambisa forest by Nigerian army were transported to Yola, Adamawa state capital, some reveals disturbing tales of how the terrorists stoned many women and children to death as the military approached to rescue them.

Some of the survivors who were among the 275 women and children rescued and brought to Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, camp in Malkohi, in the outskirts of Yola also recounted how three of them were blown up by a land mine as they were walking to freedom.

Some of the girls and women who were brought to the refugee camp with tragic stories to tell as they spoke with The Associated Press, yesterday, were finding it hard to believe they were safe, after more than a year in the hands of Islamic extremists.

“We just have to give praise to God that we are alive, those of us who have survived,” said Lami Musa, 27, as she cuddled her five-day-old baby girl. She is among 275 children, girls and women, many bewildered and traumatized, who were getting medical care and being registered on their first day out of the forest.

Musa was in the first group to be transported by road over three days to the safety of Malkohi refugee camp, a deserted school set among baobab trees on the outskirts of Yola.

Musa had given birth to her yet-to-be-named baby last week when the crackle of gunfire gave hint that rescuers might be nearby.

According to Musa, “Boko Haram came and told us they were moving out and said that we should run away with them. But we said no. Then they started stoning us. I held my baby to my stomach and doubled over to protect her.”

She and another survivor of the stoning, Salamatu Bulama, said several girls and women were killed, but they do not know exactly how many. Other women died from stray bullets, she said, naming three she knew.

Bulama shielded her face with her veil and cried when she thought about another death in the camp: Her only son, a toddler of two, died of an illness she said was aggravated by malnutrition two months ago.

“What will I tell my husband?” she sobbed when she learnt from other survivors using borrowed cell phone that her husband was alive and in Kaduna.

Musa said her husband, the father of the new baby, was killed by Boko Haram when they abducted her from her village of Lassa in December. She doesn’t know the fate of their three other children.

At the camp, 21 girls and women with bullet wounds and fractured limbs were taken to the city hospital after they arrived Saturday evening.

On Sunday, officials were collating details of the rescued 61 women and 214 children, almost all girls.

Health workers put critically malnourished babies on intravenous drips, babies whose rib cages and shoulder blades protruded like skeletons were given packs of therapeutic food to suck from.

Through interviews, officials have determined that almost all those rescued are from Gumsuri, a village near the town of Chibok.