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Saratu Dauda had been kidnapped. It was 2014, she was 16, and she or he was in a truck packed together with her classmates heading into the bush in northeastern Nigeria, a member of the terrorist group Boko Haram on the wheel. The ladies’ boarding faculty in Chibok, miles behind them, had been set on hearth.
Then she observed that some ladies have been leaping off the again of the truck, she mentioned, some alone, others in pairs, holding palms. They ran and hid within the scrub because the truck trundled on.
However earlier than Ms. Dauda may soar, she mentioned, one lady raised the alarm, shouting that others have been “dropping and working.” Their abductors stopped, secured the truck and continued towards what, for Ms. Dauda, would show a life-changing 9 years in captivity.
“If she hadn’t shouted that, we’d have all escaped,” Ms. Dauda mentioned in a collection of interviews this previous week within the metropolis of Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram’s violent insurgency.
Kidnapped from their dormitory precisely 10 years in the past, the 276 captives generally known as the Chibok Women have been catapulted to fame by Michelle Obama, by church buildings that took up the principally Christian college students’ trigger and by campaigners utilizing the slogan “Deliver Again Our Women.”
“The one crime of those ladies was to go to highschool,” mentioned Allen Manasseh, a youth chief from Chibok who has spent years pushing for his or her launch.
Their lives have taken wildly totally different turns for the reason that abduction. Some escaped nearly instantly; 103 have been launched a couple of years later after negotiations. A dozen or so now stay overseas, together with in the US. As many as 82 are nonetheless lacking, maybe killed or nonetheless held hostage.
Chibok was the primary mass kidnapping from a college in Nigeria — however removed from the final. At this time, kidnapping — together with of enormous teams of kids — has change into a enterprise throughout the West African nation, with ransom funds the primary motivation.
“The tragedy of Chibok performs again and again each week,” mentioned Pat Griffiths, a spokesman with the Worldwide Committee of the Crimson Cross in Maiduguri.
The Chibok Women are solely probably the most outstanding victims of a 15-year battle with Islamist militants which, regardless of the a whole lot of hundreds of individuals killed and tens of millions uprooted, has largely been forgotten amid different wars.
Greater than 23,000 individuals in northeastern Nigeria are registered as lacking with the Crimson Cross — globally, its second largest caseload after Iraq. However that may be a huge underestimate, Mr. Griffiths mentioned.
Earlier than she was kidnapped, Ms. Dauda mentioned, she was a cheerful teenager in a big, close-knit Christian household. She beloved enjoying with dolls and dreamed of turning into a dressmaker. She was her father’s pet and adored her mom.
For months after being captured, Ms. Dauda mentioned, the ladies slept exterior within the Sambisa forest, Boko Haram’s hide-out, listened to a gradual stream of Islamic preachers and fought over restricted water provides. When two ladies tried to flee, she mentioned, they have been whipped in entrance of the others.
Then, she mentioned, they got a selection: Get married or change into a slave who may very well be summoned for house responsibilities or intercourse.
Ms. Dauda selected marriage, transformed to Islam and adjusted her first title to Aisha. She was introduced with a person in his late 20s whose job was to shoot video of Boko Haram’s battles. Hours after they met, they have been married.
He was not merciless to her, she mentioned, however after a couple of months, he got here residence sooner or later and located her enjoying with a doll she had normal out of clay and made a gown for.
“You’re enjoying with idols? You need to trigger me issues?” she remembered him saying. She bought offended and left their residence, staying with one other lady from Chibok. When he realized she was not returning, she mentioned, he divorced her.
She quickly married one other Boko Haram fighter, Mohamed Musa, a welder who made weapons, and over time that they had three kids. Though she was nonetheless a hostage of Boko Haram’s murderous chief, Abubakar Shekau, and his henchmen, she mentioned that they got every little thing they wanted, surrounded by individuals “who cared about one another like a household,” and that she was pleased.
The Chibok Women have been handled much better than different kidnap victims, different escapees have mentioned.
Her husband mentioned in an interview final week that Ms. Dauda refused to affix the cohort of Chibok Women freed in 2017 after authorities negotiations.
“There have been a lot of them that refused to be taken residence just because they feared that their household would drive them out of Islam,” mentioned Mr. Musa, or that “they is perhaps stigmatized.”
However because the years glided by, Ms. Dauda stored observe of the buddies from Chibok who died. Sixteen in air raids and bomb assaults. Two in childbirth. One as a suicide bomber, coerced by Boko Haram. Considered one of illness, and certainly one of snakebite. She observed that it was principally ladies and kids dying within the air raids and questioned when it might be her flip.
And life grew to become tougher. When Boko Haram’s chief died and its highly effective offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province, took over within the Sambisa forest, Ms. Dauda and her husband discovered themselves on the improper aspect, she mentioned, and beneath suspicion. They apprehensive they might be made slaves. Late at night time, in whispers, they talked about escape. However Ms. Dauda needed to behave quicker than her husband and determined to go forward. He refused to let her take the youngsters, saying he would comply with with them later.
One night time at 3 a.m. she made slightly bundle of meals, appeared on the faces of her sleeping daughters and mentioned a brief prayer for his or her safety. She ducked out of their residence. She waited beneath a tree, checking that no person had seen her. Then she walked for days by the bush, going from village to village, telling individuals she was on her method to go to associates and all the time leaving throughout morning prayer, when the boys could be within the mosque and never see her going.
She met up with different fleeing ladies on the best way, and final Could, they handed themselves over to the navy collectively. She had heard on the radio that the Chibok Women had change into a trigger célèbre, and at last she skilled it.
“Is that this a Chibok Woman?” she remembered a soldier marveling, when he realized her id. “We’re thanking God.”
It had been six years for the reason that final negotiated launch, and lots of households had given up hope. Mr. Manasseh mentioned he despaired over time as three governments did not carry all the ladies residence and principally stopped speaking to the households.
“Silence,” he mentioned. “It’s an enormous authorities failure.”
Since Chibok, Nigerian colleges have change into a looking floor for kidnappers of all stripes. In simply certainly one of many such situations, final month dozens — or presumably a whole lot — of kids have been kidnapped in Kaduna State, a whole lot of miles from territory managed by Boko Haram and its Islamic State offshoot. A couple of days earlier, a whole lot of ladies and kids have been kidnapped within the northeast whereas foraging for firewood.
After surrendering, Ms. Dauda was taken to Maiduguri and enrolled within the authorities rehabilitation program, for counseling and deradicalization. A couple of months later, she bought phrase that her husband had escaped with their three daughters, and so they have been all reunited.
She mentioned she had dreamed of seeing her dad and mom once more, holding them, feeling their heat. At some point, she was allowed out of the federal government facility together with her kids, to go to them of their village, Mbalala.
She hugged her father and her mom.
“She was crying, and I used to be crying,” Ms. Dauda mentioned.
Her father provided her and her husband a spot to remain in the event that they grew to become Christians, she mentioned. However she refused, saying she had change into a Muslim freely and needed to remain one, even when many individuals thought that she and different escapees have been victims of Boko Haram’s indoctrination.
“I used to be not brainwashed,” she mentioned. “I used to be satisfied by what was defined to me.”
Two of her daughters are named for her associates from Chibok. Zannira, 7, was named for a woman who escaped. 5-year-old Sa’adatu is known as for one nonetheless in captivity.
Lately, she mentioned, her husband gave their ladies a doll.
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