The day that bandits came to town, they attacked us shortly after we finished cooking. Though they came on Tuesday night and killed two people, we thought they were vigilantes, not bandits. The following day, they came and began to fire gunshots. They even killed our neighbour and kidnapped us – about fifty people. In our town, they killed one person; in Gangara, twelve people.
They burnt our houses to ashes. Currently, we have nothing to survive on. I gave birth to a baby boy, but we’re yet to arrange for his naming ceremony. He is a year and six months old now.
We saw a calamity during the kidnapping. We spent two days trekking before we reached their hideout. They didn’t want to give us food. They began to embarrass women without any fear. They beat the men anyhow.
They killed five people from my town in front of us.
The condition of the hideout was not healthy. We were attacked by wild animals. They didn’t allow us to bathe. They assigned us to go to the bush and get firewood and cook food, but they didn’t give us enough food and water. We suffered a lot. They even said they would kill us if our relatives didn’t bring money. They didn’t allow us to pray. They raped many women, but thank God I’m not one of them.
We spent two months there. Our relatives gathered money and sold farmlands, then gave it to them for our release. They paid three hundred thousand naira for my release. My relatives wrapped the money in a nylon and gave it to them. They released us one by one.
They took me to a meeting point. I was then brought into the town by my relatives and taken to the hospital for a medical checkup.
We are just living here, stranded. Life is not easy because we don’t have the means to survive. But we are not hoping to return to our town.
As narrated by: Hajara Abdulmajid – 30 (Sabon Garin Gangara, Batsari, Katsina).
This snippet is published as part of the series, What We Lost to the Bandits.
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