We spent four years sleeping in the bush, always on alert. We would normally return to our village in the mornings. Despite this, they often attacked us, even in the mornings. One day, during Ramadan, they invaded us and raped many young girls, but they didn’t touch me. Maybe I’m too old for them. (I’m fifty years old.)
Eventually, we relocated to Katsina. But we struggled to survive, so we returned to the village. Upon our return, they kidnapped us, taking advantage of our presence in the town since we hadn’t gone to sleep in the bush that night.
They didn’t come with motorcycles; they came on foot. There were over a hundred of them. Some had weapons; others did not. These bandits are well-known to everyone. I think it was around 10-11 PM. They kidnapped all of us, including children and pregnant women. We were about one hundred. Along the way, one pregnant woman went into labour, and they just left her stranded; we don’t know what happened to her.
They shared the small babies with women among us who didn’t have babies with them to take care of. They didn’t give anyone food in the morning. In the evening, they brought garri and assigned the women among us to cook. If I saw that my smallest child wasn’t satisfied, I’d take my own portion and give it to her to eat.
They gave us garri to eat, but they bought soft drinks for themselves. They requested a ransom of one million naira, but we said we didn’t have it. They later reduced it to one hundred thousand naira, and that’s how we were released. However, three of us escaped without paying the ransom; they ran away.
I spent about forty days in their captivity. I didn’t return to the village after I was released. My relatives said I shouldn’t go back, that anything could happen.
Some people have returned to the village, but what discouraged me from returning is that I don’t have a husband, so I’ll find it difficult to feed myself and my four children. My husband battled a disease that led to his death because there was no money for us to take care of him.
A major challenge I’m facing is that one of our girls is about to get married, but we don’t have the means to arrange for her wedding ceremony.
As narrated by: Aminatu Abubakar – 50 (Sabon Gari, Batsari, Katsina).
This snippet is published as part of the series, What We Lost to the Bandits.
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