Insurgency: Freed Boko Haram Survivors Narrate Horrific Tales At Militants Den

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, News Monday, May 4th, 2015

By Our Reporter – Some victims of bloody Boko Haram insurgents’ who have been held hostage for some months, but rescued last week by the national troops have started recounting their dreadful experience, raging from random killing, stoning to death, hunger among others when still being held.

Among those who were liberated narrated that, the militants recently went berserk, having realized that the troops were very closed on a rescue mission, as they pelted stone at the victims, who refused to run, until they gave up the ghosts.

It would be recalled the Military rescued about 300 victims, including women and children in the vast Sambisa forest, Borno State, North Eastern Nigeria. The forest was initially said to be the location of the over 200 abducted Chibok Secondary School girls who have been missing since April 2014.

The Nigerian Defence Headquarters has indicated that between last week Tuesday when the first huge rescue operation was carried out and last weekend, no fewer than 700 victims have been saved from different parts of the North Eastern States, including Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States.

The rescued victims revealed that many were killed inadvertently, by the military during the operations.

A survivor, Asama Umoru revealed to BBC that Soldiers did not realise “in time that we were not the enemies” and some women and children were “run over by their trucks”.

The victims narrated that they were initially captured, after which the militants killed men and older boys in front of their families before abducting women and children and later conveyed them into the forest.

Still, another survivor, identified as Lami Musa, aged 27, narrated her story on how she was forced into marriage. On realizing that she was pregnant, the woman quoted the militants as telling her “once you deliver in a week’s time we will marry you to our commander”.

She added: “I delivered at night and we were rescued by the soldiers the following morning”.

Other survivors pointed out that the Militants never let them out of their sight – not even when they went to the toilet.

“They didn’t allow us to move an inch,” one of the freed women, Asabe Umaru, told Reuters news agency. “We were kept in one place. We were under bondage.”

Another survivor (woman) described how they were fed with just one meal per day.