It is Saturday afternoon and the time is five minutes past two. At Government Secondary School, Uba in Borno State, a boy, about seven years old, seats on a table behind empty classrooms. Holding a gun-shaped broken arm of a chair, he takes aim across the field, squints his left eye for a perfect shot.

As he settles his tiny index finger on an imaginary trigger, another boy, about his age and seated next to him, disrupts the mission. After attending to the fellow, the boy returns to his plot. Fastidiously, he levels the ‘gun’, coils the forefinger and then his mouth sounds the outburst of hot volleys: ‘Kpa-kpa-kpa-kpa‘. He raises his head to assess the result – all in the name play.
Ironically, the youngster and all the targets of his simulation were victims and survivors of a real world industrial scale killings and destruction that the Boko Haram sect has unleashed on communities in Borno and parts of Adamawa.
At the government-owned secondary school in Uba, they found peace, away from their homes and communities that have been besieged and overran by the marauding sect. The school is one of the designated camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) fleeing the violence.
Since August, Boko Haram insurgents have stepped up attacks and conquered swathes of Borno and Adamawa states. In Borno, towns like Gwoza and Bama have fallen into the hands of the insurgents, while across the border in Adamawa, the sect has captured Madagali, Gulak, Michika and Baza.
According to the camp’’s head, Ali Bello Gunaju, about 18000 displaced persons who escaped from the various theatres were registered there since it was opened in August, the month that Boko Haram declared Gwoza, which is 105km away, the headquarters of its caliphate.
“About 10,000 additional displaced persons are scattered around Uba town, some of them being haboured by relatives, while others sleep in parks and market stalls,” he said.
Bello disclosed that majority of the people at the camp were from Gwoza and its surrounding villages, comprising Goshe, Kirawa, Wala 1 and 2, Warabe, Fulka, Liman Kara, Hambadga and Goshen Sama.
And others came from areas like Gulak, Michika, Shuwa, Madagali, Gubula, Sabon Gari, Baza, Usara, Kirshings and Izge in Adamawa State, he explained.
Among the motley crowd that was the boy’s target was Amina Usman, the newest comer to the centre and one with fresh wound of Boko Haram violence. She arrived in the presence of our reporter with a fractured knee, broken spirit and splintered family. The woman, who appeared to be in her late 50s, said she was in Michika when Boko Harama took over the town. Worried about their safety, Amina and her family moved out of the town and relocated to Baza, which also fell to the insurgents, days after.
“We were seated outside when, all of a sudden, we heard gunshots,” she recalled. “Every one of us jumped up from their seats and dashed into the house. In the ensuing melee, I fell down and when I stood up again and made to run, one of my legs failed,” the mother said amidst cry of pains. She suffered a fracture around the knee.
Save one of her daughters who was in her company, Amina had no idea the whereabouts of her remaining eight children.
All the classrooms and dormitories in the school had been taken over by the displaced persons, officials said. Outside the camp’s store, children had set fire, cooking handful of grains they collected from around the store. Close by, a girl was preparing meal and three children were peeping into the steaming pot, apparently longing to quench their raging hunger. Elsewhere, a group of women was knitting local caps and chatting boisterously.
Though bursting at the seams with many people, the camp was still receiving streams of freshly displaced persons.
Uba has not come under Boko Haram’s attacks previously but its proximity to towns like Bama (146km away), Damboa (111km away), Gwoza (105km away) and Chibok (71km away) that have witnessed Boko Haram’s atrocities stoked tensions among its population.
For months, the community has lost its tranquillity on account of the troubles afflicting its neighbours.
The situation was exacerbated following takeover of nearby Izge, Baza and Michika towns as well as a direct threat by the sect, via a recent audio message, in which a purported Boko Haram’s spokesperson said the group would take over the town.
The conglomeration of these factors helped send a shockwave through Uba up to the commercial hub of Adamawa State, Mubi, located 40km away, and spark mass exodus of people from their homes to other towns, and the state capital Yola.
Other residents lost the courage to stay after witnessing the withdrawal of soldiers from neighbouring towns.
As Uba is divided, with one side across the road in Borno and the other in Adamawa, so are the displaced persons who arrive there in droves and scatter between the divides.
Inside a bus station on the side in Adamawa, a girl of about eight years begs. She is being accompanied by her younger sister. The girl tells their predicament to a group of people sitting by a mosque: “We are from Michika and have not eaten for days.” One of the men gives her N10.
Afterwards, the girl told our reporter that they were at the park trying to check out of the town for fear of a Boko Haram attack, when gunshots errupted.
“We had already boarded a car and were waiting to leave when Yaran Malam (the popular name for Boko Haram in the North-East) shot three times and all of us fled into the bush,” she said.
Strangely, the man who gave her alms was also displaced from Gwoza and still wallowing in the commotion that has been his thoughts and travails. Baba Adamu left Gwoza on August 5, when Boko Haram entered the town. He arrived Madagali, in Adamawa State, on the same day. When the insurgents overran Madagali, Adamu fled to Uba.
“I am 21 days old here today in Uba. I left my two wives, four children and my mother at Madagali,” he said with his right palm cupped around his forehead. “In my absence, my wife gave birth to a baby but it died, I was told. I have not heard from all of them, including my father, since then,” he said.
His friend, Ibrahim Usman, has been homesick since he left Gwoza about the same time as Adamu. “I don’t know if I’m about taking a decision to return home, because I cannot continue to live under degrading conditions. The highest Boko Haram can do, when I set down my foot at my birthplace, is to kill me, and I don’t think that is worse than I have endured this far. Besides, everybody is going to die,” he uttered, as his eyes perused the sunny skies.
Across the road, inside Borno territory, our reporter met the parents of the girls begging for alms. Their mother, Amina Garba, was seated by the roadside together with two other women and children. They had arrived less than an hour ago, she said.
Reliving the touching story of their long and tortuous journey to safety, the mother recalled that the Boko Haram insurgents invaded Michika town around 9am, penultimate Sunday. “As they swept through the town, seven of us, all women, ran into the bush with 17 children. We trekked to a river separating the area from Borno and crossed over,” she narrated.
“While in the bush, we fed our children with all types of fruits, provided they were ripe and harmless,” the woman added. Amina recalled that as they were being ferried across the river into Borno, they spotted three bodies floating on water.
“After reaching Borno, we trekked for four days, through the bushes to get to Uba. Some of us boarded vehicles and traveled to Maiduguri,” she noted.
All the security agencies left Uba in the wake of Boko Haram attack on Baza and Izge, residents said. But soldiers had set up checkpoints some kilometers away from the town, searching vehicles going towards Mubi and Yola.
As at last Saturday, life had started returning to normal in Mubi, after many people had fled the town because of the fear of advancing Boko Haram. Troops, who had reportedly left, were now back. But shops and many other businesses were still shut. Also, many residents had stayed away in Meha, Yola and other places that are considered safe.
At Koleri, one of the camps for displaced persons in the Mubi, 3772 were registered, according to the camp chairman, Muhammad S. Ahmad, Sarkin Matasan Mubi. Majority of the people in the centre were from Gwoza, the official said.
The camp, like the one in Uba, was battling a suspected cholera outbreak that officials said had already killed 15 people, mostly children. The recent victims of the epidemic, who were two children from Gwoza, died a day before Sunday Trust visited the camp. The mother of one of the deceased had also taken ill and medical personnel she was showing symptoms of cholera.
The head of the camp said since the place was opened over a month ago, only one elderly person had died, under circumstances that he said had left him perplexed. “He was a very rich man from Madagali. He had cows and assets. He came to me one day and said, ‘Sarkin Matasa, I’m fed up with the undignified manner that I join the queue and get pushed by children who are young to be my grandchildren, in the name of the handout we receive as food. If God will answer my prayer, I don’t wish to outlive this night,’” the camp head quoted the man as saying.
“After I have gone home that night, somebody called me to say that one of the men at the camp was seriously ill. When I got there, I discovered it was the same rich man. We rushed him to the hospital but he died that night,” he stated.
The carnage has also taken a high toll on the international cattle market and other businesses in Mubi. “We used to load between 15 and 20 trucks of cattle on non-market days, while on our market days (Tuesday and Wednesday), we load from 50 to 70 trucks. But with the ranging fear that has choked our communities, only three to five trucks load daily,” the
nationalchairman of Amalgamated Cattle Dealers Association of Nigeria (ACDAN) Alhaji Hammajalo Hammajam, told Sunday Trust in Mubi.
“Our business has been severely cut by the rumours of an impending attack, which created fears among many of our customers in Cameroon, Chad and parts of Nigeria and prevented them from coming to the market,” the chairman said.
The explanation was echoed by the chairman of Mubi Market Association, Alhaji Abdulqadir Musa, who said the news of attack on Michika had almost ground business activities to a halt in Mubi. “Tensions climbed high here, triggering exodus of people and concomitant decline in trading activities, with criminals taking the advantage to break into people’s homes to steal,” he pointed. “Thank God, people are gradually returning to the town and the market is bouncing back,” Musa added.
Isa Muhammad, popularly known as Chalsea, is a major beans dealer who supplies large tons of the staple from Mubi to southern part of Nigeria. Food items, according to him, were the worst hit by the Boko Haram crisis ravaging parts of Adamawa. “I used to send two to three trailers of beans to the South every two days but for two weeks now, I have not sent one trailer, because of the attack on Michika and the fear that the violence could spill over here. The trailers have stopped coming, the markets are closed and the banks are not opened,” he lamented.
Chairman of Farm Produce Dealers Association in Mubi, Alhaji Yahaya Wornonge, described the situation at the town’s grain market, which is one of the biggest in the North-East, as ‘gloomy’. “As I’m talking, we have not sold up to four truck-loads of grains in a week, which contrast our seasonal peak of about 20 trucks per day,” he said.
In Yola, constant movement of troops and sorties by the Nigerian Air Force jets were not the only reminders of the war that is continuously raging less than 300km from the capital. The regular flow of displaced person is even more telling.
Adamawa State has set up an internally displaced persons centre at the state’s National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camp. Over 1000 people are said to be accommodated at the camp. However, many displaced people live with their relatives, instead of registering at the camp. At Duberi Primary School in Yola, which is the first port of call for displaced persons coming into the state capital, four drivers who fled Gwoza chatted in the shade of a tree.
One of them, Dalhatu Amadu, narrated how they covered almost 300km to get to Yola. “We were at the park loading passengers around 5pm on August 5, when firing started,” he said, recalling that they quickly jumped over the fence and ran into the bush, abandoning their vehicles behind.
“Bullets whizzed around us as we ran to the mountains,” he said. Amadu remembered that during previous attacks, the Boko Haram insurgents always left the town after their depredations. Therefore, with that knowledge, they began to wait in the bush for the right time to return home. “We thought this time around it was going to be as usual, that they will attack at night and withdraw before dawn, sometimes after clash with soldiers. So we slept in the nearby bush. However, when we descended from the hills and headed home in the morning, they shot at us, in a way, hinting that they were not willing to leave this time around,” he recounted.
As Amadu and his friends fled back to the mountaintop, news reached them that the insurgents were killing locals in the town. They also blocked women from taking food to their starving husbands uphill. “After spending days, we trekked to Madagali to escape dying from hunger. Two weeks after, they attacked the mobile police school in Gwoza and we saw mobile policemen racing into Madagali. That day, we moved to Uba. While there, we heard that the boys had entered Baza and we ran to Yola,” he said.
Amadu said the insurgents may have taken the vehicles they left behind or destroyed them.
“Good Samaritans here in Yola are feeding us, while we are being accommodated by our relatives,” he added.
On the veranda of one of the classrooms, a mother cuddled her young child. She was surrounded by her three sisters. Amina Aliyu and the other four came from Mubi. “Why should we stay in Mubi when we heard news of insurgents killing people in Baza and saw soldiers fleeing? she queried.

source:http://dailytrust.com.ng/sunday/index.php/top-stories/18218-four-days-inside-boko-haram-s-bloody-caliphate

Haaahaaaaaahaaaaaaa, keep loving the story,

It is well!!!! They will soon smile.


God be with them
#Amen

WilyWily5: Haaahaaaaaahaaaaaaa, keep loving the story,

Sick dude.

may God be with them, as for the insurgents, their end is near

Op. I can relate perfectly to d write-up. d battle of Vimtim has changed d configuration. d path frm mubi, mararaba, kwarhi, dzakwa, hildi, sabongarikuma, mampaya, uba, usara, bazza, hav sighted some peace. I found myself there last week. Bh mystery has bn unrafled & their end is near. d crackhead shekau is kind of jittery now, so much pain &misery caused by a handful of delusional misguided beings unknowingly backed by same peeps who eventually bcame helpless victims.

WilyWily5: Haaahaaaaaahaaaaaaa, keep loving the story,

u need serious deliverance.

I played 'war start' as a child
It's hollywood that inspired it.
Not boko haram.

Hmm






Where's CityNG

Mtchew

This is just too long
but I read it sha

mmb: u need serious deliverance.

Where ?

WilyWily5:
Where ?

ok

WilyWily5: Haaahaaaaaahaaaaaaa, keep loving the story,

are you human?

Blakjewelry:
are you human?

Yes, i'm human and you?

smartchoice: Hmm

Where's CityNG

Hmmmmm....all up inside your mother?

CityNG:

Hmmmmm....all up inside your mother?

Really.... Hmmm necrophiliac.....

smartchoice:

Really.... Hmmm

Yep.

CityNG:

Yep.

Congratulations

smartchoice:

Congratulations

Right back at yah

CityNG:

Right back at yah

Thanks for completing my statement......

smartchoice:

Thanks for completing my statement......

You got it wrong, if you were on fire i wouldn't even cross the street to piss on you

How does it feel to be an unwanted pregnancy and a failed abortion?

CityNG:

You got it wrong, if you were on fire i wouldn't even cross the street to piss on you

How does it feel to be an unwanted pregnancy and a failed abortion?

Hilarious....funnY

smartchoice:

Hilarious....funnY

Eya pele, awon obi e ma fi oju sunkun e laipe.

CityNG:

Eya pele.

Be it unto you according to your words......

smartchoice:


Be it unto you according to your words......

Exactly,,,and you onto yours. Omo osi jatijati

CityNG:

Exactly,,,and you onto yours.

I wish you well in fact I wish you no harm at all......

smartchoice:

I wish you well in fact I wish you no harm at all......

I don't need any wishes from the likes of you.

You are really are worthless individual and you don't really count

You're a waste of a human.

Eni aba ta kafi owo re ra atupa, to ni omo ajitan nan loun.

CityNG:

I don't need any wishes from the likes of you.

You are really are worthless individual and you don't really count

Go in peace matey....

smartchoice:

Go in peace matey....

Not your mate and you can go to hell

How's that, unwanted troll.