Baga Solo - Kellou Abakar knew she was in
trouble as the contractions started not long
after an Islamic extremist group attacked her
town in Nigeria. Her husband was nowhere to
be found, and so she pulled her 4-year-old son
onto her back and grabbed her two little girls
by the hand.
The 30-year-old pregnant woman ran as fast as
she could to escape the Jan. 3 attack on her
hometown of Baga. It was one of the worst
massacres ever carried out by Boko Haram
during its five-year insurgency.
Also read: Chad president tells Boko Haram
leader to surrender or face death
The jihadist group seeking to establish an
Islamic caliphate is believed to have killed
hundreds that January day, and Abakar still
doesn't know whether her husband is among
the dead more than two months later. Three of
her other children disappeared in the chaos
that ensued as the militants opened fire
indiscriminately and threw people into the
burning homes that had been set ablaze.
The family made its way four hours on foot,
and by the time she got to the shores of Lake
Chad to board a boat to safety in neighboring
Chad, she was too far along in her labor to get
in. She gave birth in Nigeria. As soon as
Aboubakar was born, she and the children got
into a boat.
"If I had stayed there they would have killed
me too," she said softly inside a tent at a
refugee camp now home to more than 6,000
Nigerians who have fled Boko Haram's
violence.
Abakar and her children arrived this week at
the camp after taking refuge in several other
villages. The camp on the edge of the Sahara
Desert is jointly run by the UN and the
Chadian government.
As she sat breastfeeding Aboubakar, her older
children played on the sandy floor, their
cheerful voices drowned out by the wind
rattling the tarp overhead. She hopes her
husband will approve of the name she chose
for him so he could get identity documents as
a newborn refugee. There was no naming
ceremony, no father was present to buy a
sheep to slaughter in sacrifice. She named the
child after his grandfather, for now.
Many here hope their loved ones are not dead,
but rather among those still hiding on the
dozens of islands that dot Lake Chad which
borders Chad, Nigeria and parts of Cameroon
and Niger. The Chadian military tries to protect
those fleeing here but even so, several weeks
ago, Boko Haram militants aboard motorized
boats attacked the peninsula of N'gouboua
inside Chad, killing at least seven people.
Since then, families have been brought from
there to the camp where UNICEF offers health
service and school and activities for the
children. The families receive food from
humanitarian agencies and are assigned tents
erected in neat blocks. They seek shade from
the desert sun under acacia trees. Refugees
take water from a well. Men riding camels
through the region also come to the well.
Chadian authorities believe more than 2,000
people remain trapped on islands, awaiting
transport to a refugee camp in one of the
world's poorest countries.
"Many are traumatized and come with only the
clothes on their backs," said Dimouya
Souapebe, the chief civil servant in the area.
"We are obliged to welcome them, and share
with them what we have to eat."
Some 100,000 Nigerians have fled to in
neighboring Niger, with roughly another
60,000 in Cameroon.
Mahamat Abakar, 60, last saw his wife and
eight children two months ago as they divided
themselves between two small wooden boats.
Upon arriving at this refugee camp, he was told
that one of his sons was here too. When he
saw him, he sobbed.
"I keep the faith that God has saved the rest of
them and I will find them too," he says.
The 10-year-old said the boat he was on was
sinking and the man paddling it ordered him
and another child. They clung onto tree
branches until people in another boat spotted
them and brought them to safety.
As a Muslim, the father has only anger for
people who claim they are carrying out attacks
in the name of Islam.
"There is no passage in the Quran that says
you can kill someone and steal their belongings
and then kidnap their children," he said,
wiping his eyes with a sandy scrap of fabric.
- AP

May God show us MERCY,

Those people killing, do they have family?

Uwakuwak:
Those people killing, do they have family?

Of course.