The Boko Haram fighters stoned some of their
captives to death as Nigeria's military approached to
rescue the women, survivors told The Associated
Press (AP) on Sunday.
Several women also died when they were crushed
mistakenly by a Nigerian military armoured vehicle
while three were blown up by a land mine as they
were walking to freedom.
These tragic stories came from girls and women
brought to a refugee camp in Yola, Adamawa State,
still finding it hard to believe they were safe, some
after more than a year in the hands of Nigeria's
homegrown Islamic extremists.
“We just have to give praise to God that we are alive,
those of us who have survived,” said Lami Musa, 27,
as she cradled her five-day-old baby girl.
She was among the 275 children, girls and women,
many bewildered and traumatised, who were getting
medical care and being registered yesterday on their
first day out of Sambisa forest, the last known
enclave of the terrorists.
Musa was in the first group to be transported by
road over three days to the safety of Malkohi refugee
camp, a dust-blown deserted school set among
baobab trees in the outskirts of Yola.
Musa had just given birth to her yet-to-be-named
baby last week when the crackle of gunfire hinted
rescuers might be nearby.
“Boko Haram came and told us they were moving
out and said that we should run away with them. But
we said no,” she explained from a bed in the camp
clinic.
“Then they started stoning us. I held my baby to my
stomach and doubled over to protect her.”
She and another survivor of the stoning, Salamatu
Bulama, said several girls and women were killed,
but they do not know exactly how many.
The horrors did not end once the military arrived. A
group of women were hiding under some bushes.
They could not be seen by the soldiers in an
armoured personnel carrier who drove right over
them.
“I think those killed there were about 10,” said
Bulama.
Other women died from stray bullets, she said,
naming three she knew.
Bulama shielded her face with her veil and cried
when she thought about another death in the camp:
Her only son, a toddler of two who died of an illness
she said was aggravated by malnutrition two months
ago.
“What will I tell my husband?” she sobbed. She
heard yesterday from other survivors using borrowed
cell phones to try and trace relatives that her
husband was alive and in Kaduna.
Musa said her husband, the father of the new baby,
was killed by Boko Haram when they abducted her
from her village of Lassa in December. She doesn’t
know the fate of their three other children.
At the camp, 21 girls and women with bullet wounds
and fractured limbs were taken to the city hospital
after they arrived Saturday evening while yesterday,
officials collated details of the rescued 61 women
and 214 children, almost all girls.
Health workers put critically malnourished babies on
intravenous drips, babies whose rib cages and
shoulder blades protruded like skeletons were given
packs of therapeutic food to suck from.
Through interviews, officials have determined that
almost all those rescued are from Gumsuri, a village
near the town of Chibok. It does not appear that any
of those released are from the group of over 200
Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram a year
ago in a mass abduction that outraged many around
the world.
“Based on the registration we have carried out so far,
none of them is from Chibok,” said Zakari Abubakar,
Malkohi camp team leader for the National
Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
More than 677 women and girls were freed when
soldiers destroyed more than a dozen insurgent
camps in the forest, Nigeria’s military said.
Many said they had been taken captive in the past
nine months, when Boko Haram had seized a large
swath of northeastern Nigeria and declared it an
Islamic caliphate.
It was also revealed that Boko Haram fighters killed
older boys and men in front of their families before
taking women and children into the forest where
many died of hunger and disease, freed captives
revealed yesterday after they were brought to the
camp in Yola.
“They didn't allow us to move an inch,” said one of
the freed women, Asabe Umaru, describing her
captivity in the forest. “If you needed the toilet, they
followed you. We were kept in one place. We were
under bondage.
“We thank God to be alive today. We thank the
Nigerian army for saving our lives,” she added.
“When we saw the soldiers, we raised our hands and
shouted for help. Boko Haram who were guarding us
started stoning us so we would follow them to
another hideout, but we refused because we were
sure the soldiers would rescue us,” Umaru, a 24-
year-old mother of two, told Reuters.
The prisoners suffered constant malnutrition and
disease, she said. “Every day we witnessed the death
of one of us and waited for our turn.”
Another freed captive, Cecilia Abel, said her husband
and first son had been killed in her presence before
the militia forced her and her remaining eight children
into the forest. For two weeks before the military
arrived she had barely eaten.
“We were fed only ground dry maize in the
afternoons. It was not good for human
consumption,” she said. “Many of us that were
captured died in Sambisa forest. Even after our
rescue about 10 died on our way to this place.”
The prisoners were fed bread and mugs of tea as
soon as they arrived at the government camp.
Nineteen were in hospital for special attention, Dr.
Mohammed Aminu Sulieman of the Adamawa State
Emergency Management Agency told Reuters.
Amnesty International estimates the insurgents, who
are intent on bringing West Africa under Islamist rule,
have taken more than 2,000 women and girls
captive since the start of 2014. Many have been
used as cooks, sex slaves or human shields.
Umaru said her group of prisoners never came in
contact with the missing Chibok girls.
As they arrived the camp in Yola, the girls and
women, many bewildered and traumatised, were
registered, fed and given medical care in their first
day out of Sambisa forest.
They appeared exhausted and too distressed to
realise they were safe, or to be questioned about
their experiences under Boko Haram. They lined up
for tea, water and a stew of baobab leaves.
Meanwhile, operational videos on how Nigerian
troops battled and dislodged terrorists inside
Sambisa forest have shown the dexterity of Nigerian
Air Force pilots as masters of their trade.
In some exclusive videos obtained by PRNigeria, a
media advisory for government security agencies,
pilots were shown taunting the terrorists with
hundreds of the latter running helter skelter and
fleeing in different directions.
The videos showed the dislodged and disorganised
terrorists in flight in different directions in the
expansive forest.
In another footage, the video depicted how
vulnerable women and
children were cautiously and deliberately guided to
safety by the Nigerian pilots.
An officer involved in the operation said: “Since the
essence of the operation is not to kill everybody in
sight, the air force pilots deployed their skills in
herding both terrorists and their captives in different
directions so that those conscripted and abducted
were guided to a safe zone while the armed terrorists
met their waterloo.”
Since they invaded the notorious forest, Nigerian
troops have rescued over 500 females. In the first
daring and precise operation, the troops rescued
about 293 women and girls while many terrorists'
camps including Tokumbere were destroyed.
In another operation that involved Special Forces,
another set of 234 women and children were rescued
through the Kawuri and Konduga end of Sambisa
forest.
Military sources told PRNigeria that the sustained
operations deep into the Sambisa forest is being
spearheaded by the Air Force through what an officer
called “tactical aerial bombardments and guided
reconnaissance” with the main objective of
decimating and clearing the terrorists from the forest
which is their last bastion.
Since this particular operation commenced, several
field commanders and foot soldiers of the terrorist
group have lost their lives with some armoured
personnel carriers, vehicles mounted with anti-
aircraft guns, and several trucks also destroyed by
the military. www.thisdaylive.com/articles/as-nigerian-troops-approached-girls-were-stoned-to-death-by-boko-haram/208446/