In this exclusive interview published by
IQ4News, a teenage girl, Meenah [Not
real name for security reasons] who
was abducted by Boko Haram for 27
months tells her story.
Meenah, who escaped when the
Nigerian army attacked a Boko Haram
camp early this year, was just 17 years
old when she was forced to watch her
parents being shot dead by the Boko
Haram insurgents in her village in
Konduga town, northern Nigeria. She
escaped after 27 months with a baby
she claims may belong to the Boko
Haram leader Abubakar Shekau.
While in captivity, she had to care for
children born to Boko Haram
commanders and members, and would
tremble in fear as she heard girls
scream as they were raped, and in
some cases watch how girls were
tortured for refusing to change their
faith.
She described how on occasions some
top leaders of Boko Haram would come,
and she was asked to entertain them.
It was on such visits she insists that
Abubakar Shekau, Nigeria’s most
wanted man, and Boko Haram leader,
slept with her.
“He would just appear from
nowhere like a ghost,” she
narrated.
"He seems to be panicking all the
time and issuing instructions.
“He is a softly spoken man – it is
almost as if he whispers, if you are
meeting him for the first time, you
would never be scared of him.
“But I soon learned that after every
whisper something dangerous
would happen somewhere in
Nigeria.
“Depending on the camp, some of
the camps have everything,
electricity, water and television,
with different kind of electronics.
“He once asked me if I was willing to
fight for the cause, to which I
answered no, he told me I could be a
fighter and a domestic slave.
"I didn’t want to speak to him in
case what I said offended him.
"All it would take was one wrong
word and he would have had me
killed. I thought he was drinking or
taking something whenever he
came, one could notice maybe he
lost men or something was not
right.
“We moved a lot and depending on
the camp, my role varied, it was so
tough travelling around with a baby
strapped to my back.
"Abu has many kids from many
different women.
“Some of us women would go to
Maiduguri to buy things when we
have shortage, and a commander or
two would follow us, and we acted
as decoy when villages are
ambushed.
"I’d be sent in to talk to people,
then they’d move in behind me and
start killing.”
“Some of us girls would also have to
carry guns, and often bombs too,
there was this girl, she was forced
to carry a rocket-propelled
grenade launcher on her shoulder,
then we had few men in that
particular camp."
Meenah managed to escape when she
was badly wounded by a bullet, after
the Nigerian army attacked their camp.
She was left for dead.
The bullet in her leg was only recently
removed at the University of Maiduguri
Teaching Hospital in Borno State.
She has an uncle as a sole surviving
relative, and it has not been easy as
her uncle has not receive her warmly.
“My uncle will not have me because he
is ashamed of my child whose paternity
is not only questionable but is
dangerous if it is Shekau,” she says.
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