Rescued from Boko Haram girl wants to return
Women and children recently rescued from Boko Haram recently
Zahra John, 16-year-old Boko Haram survivor, has recounted heartbreaking story of her life with the insurgents.
The girl revealed that almost a year passed how he was freed from the deadly sect, but she is still in love with her Boko Haram husband, who abducted her.
Zahra was happy to get to know that she was pregnant with his child following a urine and blood test carried out by a doctor in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp to which she was taken after her rescue.
She said: “I wanted to give birth to my child so that I can have someone to replace his father since I cannot reconnect with him again.”
READ ALSO: Boko Haram survivors narrate ordeal
But the girl cannot take the decision herself, as the relatives interfered.
Some of her uncles were obstinate they did not want a Boko Haram baby in their family and insisted on an abortion. Others felt the child should not be accused of its father’s crimes.
Finally, they allowed Zahra to keep her child, a son she named Usman, who is now about seven months old.
“Everybody in the family has embraced the child,” Boko Haram victim told Reuters in a telephone interview, asking that her location remain secret.
“My uncle just bought him tins of Cerelac (instant cereal) and milk.”
The girl was only 14 when the insurgents stormed her village of Izge, in northeast Nigeria, in February 2014.
Dozens of Boko Haram fighters razed homes in the village, killed men, and loaded women, girls and children into trucks.
Zahra’s two brothers were out of town when the insurgents struck during one of the Boko Haram raids on the village as well as suicide bombings on places of worship or markets.
The mother of the girl fell off one of the overloaded trucks but tried to chase after the car that was carrying away her only daughter and her four-year-old son but was powerless to keep up as the truck headed 22 km (14 miles) road journey to Bita.
Zahra recalled days in slavery: “As soon as we arrived, they told us that we were now their slaves.”
Her days were spent doing her new duties and learning the canons of her new religion, Islam, until, two months later, she was forced to marry Ali, a Boko Haram commander, and moved into from a shared house to his lodging.
She further added: “After I became a commander’s wife, I had freedom. I slept anytime I wanted, I woke up anytime I wanted.”
“He bought me food and clothes and gave me everything that a woman needs from a man,” continuing that her husband also gave her a mobile phone with his number worked in and tattooed his name on her stomach to mark her as a Boko Haram wife.
He gave the assurance to her that the struggle would soon finish and they would come back to his home town of Baga where he planned his new wife to join his fishing business.
Ali told Zahra that he had abandoned his fisherman trade and joined the sect after his father and elder brother, both fishermen like himself, were killed by the Nigerian troops.
The Nigerian army has retaken Bita in March last year and rescued Zahra among other Boko Haram victims.
They were taken to a refugee camp in Yola in northeast Nigeria.
However, Zahra and Ali stayed in touch by phone until Nigerian soldiers came to know some of the girls in the camp were still in touch with their kidnappers, took their phones and moved them to another camp until they were reunited with their families.
The girl now lives with her extended family and son in a town far away from Izge.
Zara’s male relatives now controlled her life again despite her desire.
She said: “If I had my way, I would retrieve the phone number he gave me.” But Zara is realistic and knows the possibility of being reunited with Ali is very slim.
