Boko Haram fighters killed older boys and men in front of their families before taking women and children into the forest where many died of hunger and disease, freed captives said yesterday after they were brought to a government refugee camp.
The Nigerian army rescued hundreds of women and children last week from the Islamist fighters in Nigeria’s Sambisa Forest in an operation that has turned international attention to the plight of hostages.
After days on the road in trucks, hundreds were released yesterday into the care of authorities at a refugee camp in Yola to be fed and treated for injuries. They spoke to reporters for the first time.
“They didn’t allow us to move an inch,” said one of the freed women, Asabe Umaru, describing her captivity in the forest. “If you needed the toilet, they followed you. We were kept in one place. We were under bondage.”
Two hundred and seventy-five women and children, some with heads or limbs in bandages, arrived in the camp on Saturday. Nearly 700 kidnap victims were freed from the Islamist group’s forest stronghold since Tuesday, with the latest group of 234 women and children liberated on Friday.
“When we saw the soldiers we raised our hands and shouted for help. Boko Haram who were guarding us started stoning us so we would follow them to another hideout, but we refused,” Umaru, a 24-year-old mother of two, said.
The prisoners suffered constant malnutrition and disease, she said. “Every day we witnessed the death of one of us and waited for our turn.”
Another freed captive, Cecilia Abel, said her husband and first son had been killed in her presence before the militia forced her and her remaining eight children into the forest. For two weeks before the military arrived she had barely eaten.
“We were fed only ground dry maize in the afternoons. It was not good for human consumption,” she said. “Many of us that were captured died in Sambisa Forest. Even after our rescue about 10 died on our way to this place.”
The freed prisoners were fed on arrival at the government camp. Nineteen were in hospital for special attention. Amnesty International estimates the insurgents, who are intent on bringing western Africa under Islamist rule, have taken more than 2,000 women and girls captive since 2014.
Many have been used as cooks, sex slaves or human shields. The prisoners freed do not appear to include any of over 200 schoolgirls snatched from school dormitories in Chibok town a year ago.