African News Teenager explains ordeal in the hands of Boko Haram terrorists'''

After spending about one year in captivity of Boko Haram terrorists, young girl, who was recently set free, has narrated her ordeal in the hands of the insurgents. BBC Africa, in a special report on the teenage girl, stated that the girl had alongside two others had besieged a displaced persons’ camp in Dikwa, Nigeria’s north-east on Tuesday, February 9, and were supposed to detonate their explosive vests.

The other girls carried out the dastardly act and died alongside 58 others, but the third girl refused to join them in their mission, and today, she is alive to tell her story. Speaking under the code name ‘Hauwa’, the youngster who could not remember her age, said she had been held by Boko Haram for more than a year when her captors suggested the plan to attack the camp. Despite the fact that they were promised paradise after the attack on the camp, the young girl said she knew better than allow herself be used for such mission. Speaking through a translator, she said: “I said ‘No’, since my mum is residing in Dikwa, I won’t go and kill people there. I would rather go and stay with my family, even if I die there.” “I had spiritual problems and so the Boko Haram told me they could help get rid of them,” she stated further. referring to some mysterious powers that caused her to soil herself or even put her hands into fire.

On her day to day ordeal with the insurgents, Hauwa explained that, “We were living in grass-thatched houses. When my husband was around, I cooked three times a day… the men would steal meat and bring it for us to cook.” And then she ‘divorced’ her husband, remarried but the second husband would not stay as he ran away. It was when she refused to take a third husband that the terrorists suggested their plan of having her bomb a place alongside the other girls. According to Hauwa, “they said since I refused to re-marry, I should take the bomb,” and knowing clearly that it was not far from the place she was being held by the militants as well as where her parents were, she sneaked out the night before the attack in a bid to go and inform her parent and siblings who were in the displaced persons’ camp, but it was too late for her. The two other girls had struck by the time she got to Dikwa and the unthinkable had happened to her family. Speaking on where the explosives went off, the youngster said: “This is the spot where the first explosion went off.” Speaking also on the attack, an elderly woman, Falmata Mohammed, who remembered vividly what transpired that day, explained that, “A soldier was trying to arrange our queues… There was this woman wearing a red veil and she had long hair.

“As soon as we moved onto the road, she shouted ‘Wayyo’, saying she had a pain in her stomach… People rushed to help her and tried to lift her up and that’s when the bomb detonated. “We saw fireballs around us.” And according to her, she suddenly became aware that she was surrounded by dozens of mutilated bodies. Speaking further, Hauwa who did not particularly see the attack herself, but she was shown footage of the aftermath by military investigators, said: “It wasn’t a pleasant thing to see. It wasn’t good to carry a bomb to go and kill fellow human beings. “I don’t know if the other girls knew they would die when they went on the mission.” And her next plan and thoughts are not centred on anything else at the moment apart from getting formal education. She told BBC that, “I’d like to get an education.”