Was told she had an infection – then she understood everything

Aisha remembers the last time the family was happily together. It was a summer day in 2014 at home in the village in Nigeria – near the border with Cameroon. She was 18 years old. Her father, mother, two brothers and a younger sister were at home.

The rainy season had made the soil fertile, and the grain was knee-high.

In the months before, the village had been attacked several times by Islamists who wanted to gain control of the area. Mostly they stayed at home to stay out of trouble, but this evening the mother stuck her head out to see what was happening.

The mother was shot in the chest. Aisha and her sister (14) desperately tried to bandage her wound, but life was not to be saved.

– My mother’s death is my first pain, says Aisha.

Now she is 26 years old. She cries quietly during the interview with Reuters.

– The beginning of hell

She says that this night was the end of a safe childhood with a loving family, and the beginning of hell as a prisoner of Islamist Boko Haram. If that wasn’t enough, she was also brutally treated by the Nigerian military when she was released.

The war has been going on for 13 years, and the rape of women and children has been used as a weapon in the conflict.

Thousands of women and girls have been kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by Boko Haram – which is the equivalent of the terrorist organization Islamic State in Africa.

The military has responded to the brutality with its own brutality, according to Reuters’ investigations.

Secret abortion program

The news agency has spoken to witnesses and examined documents. Earlier in December, they were able to tell that the Nigerian military has conducted a secret abortion program in northeastern parts of the country.

Thousands of women who became pregnant while in captivity have had their pregnancies terminated, according to Reuters. They are also said to have killed children who they believed were at risk of becoming terrorists.

The Nigerian military denies that such an abortion program has existed, and claims it has never intentionally killed children in the war.

– No, we have not done that. Nigerian soldiers have no reason to do that, says General Christopher Musa to Reuters.

However, Reuters has testimonies from soldiers who tell about the practice:

Aisha has had to live through enormous trauma. She says that she has been kidnapped, raped, forced to have an abortion, lost a child in a bombing, and lost another child she believes was poisoned by soldiers.

She has also lost her brother, her mother and had an arm broken.

Reuters has spoken to dozens of women who tell similar stories from the war, which has so far claimed more than 300,000 lives.

Aisha has been interviewed several times over the course of an entire year. She often breaks down in tears, and speaks in a numb and monotone voice.

– I saw and heard things. That’s why I have no problem telling you what I experienced, she says.

She smiles when she talks about her childhood. She remembers games and good meals with the family. They grew food and did well.

The father was concerned that the girls should be allowed to go to school, and he never beat his children. Not all girls in the village were so lucky. In her youth, she had a boyfriend whom she hoped to marry.

Beheaded midwife

But after the 2014 attack, all dreams were shattered. The village became part of Boko Haram’s caliphate. In October 2014, strict Sharia law was introduced. A local midwife in her 50s was accused of witchcraft and beheaded with an ax in front of a crowd.

Aisha says she cannot forget the head that dangled and the blood that splattered. That’s when she started freaking out.

Her father eventually died of illness, and Aisha and her sister were then completely alone. They survived for several months on food their father had stockpiled, but when the food ran out, they decided to try to escape.

Aisha and her sister ran away towards the neighboring town which was not controlled by Islamists, but halfway they were discovered. They were forced onto the loading platform of a car. The cargo plane was filled with women.

– We both cried and prayed to God, she says.

When they reached the Sambisa forest, the car stopped, and the women were lined up. A man named Musa pointed at Aisha.

Forced marriage and rape

– Suddenly you have a husband. Under duress. Without having seen each other before, says Aisha.

Terrified, she tried to reject Musa, but he repeatedly beat and raped her. When he went out to war, she prayed to God that he might be killed.

Aisha quickly became pregnant. When her son Bana was born, she only loved him. She longed more and more for safety and freedom, but knew she could not escape with the boy, as boys are highly valued by Boko Haram. She also feared that the boy might experience prejudice outside the caliphate.

– I prayed and constantly looked for a way out, she says.

As soon as she finished nursing Bana, she became pregnant again. This time she had a girl, Fatima.

– Fatima was a gift from God. I thought that if God had his way, girls would be allowed to go to school, she says.

When Bana was three years old, the Nigerian military carried out a bombing attack on the caliphate. The cabin where Bana was sleeping was blown up.

– He screamed out twice, then he died, recalls Aisha.

She herself suffered major injuries to an arm. She can’t use it, even to lift a glass.

Plan your escape

After this incident, Aisha spent a lot of time planning her escape. She wanted to save Fatima from a future of hunger and rape.

In 2019, Aisha left the camp with one-year-old Fatima strapped to her back. She was with six other women and two small children. They zigzagged in the forest for four days to avoid being discovered.

On the fifth day, they found a group of Nigerian soldiers. Then they thought they were finally safe.

The soldiers took the women and children to a base in Madagali. There they were questioned and had a health check carried out.

The next day, Aisha was told she had a vaginal infection. They injected doses of medicine without saying what it was, and gave her more pills. An hour later, she writhed in pain and began to bleed profusely from her abdomen.

Finally, a large lump came out which she believes was an embryo. She did not know she was pregnant at this time.

She realized she had been tricked into having an abortion, but she was too afraid to confront anyone. Later, she was told that they had done her a favor, because a child of Boko Haram would be a burden on her and society.

Aisha did not want children with her Islamist husband, but she also did not want to have an abortion, because it is against her faith.

A few days later, the soldiers said that Fatima needed medicine to make her well after so many days in the forest. All the children received injections, before the children and mothers were taken home to relatives.

Just hours later, Fatima fell ill. A local doctor believed she must have been bitten by an insect. That same night the girl died. Aisha feels certain that the soldiers poisoned Fatima when they gave her the injection.

Emotional reunion

Now Aisha was all alone again. She made her way to a refugee camp in Yola. A chaotic place with many women as traumatized as herself. They had little food and no money.

Here, Aisha has made some new friends, and best of all, she found her sister again. The two screamed with joy when they saw each other.

The sister had escaped from another part of the Sambisa forest with a small daughter.

The sisters left the camp and after a short stay with an aunt in the capital, Abuja, they returned home to the village. They now live together in their childhood home.

Aisha does not share the story with anyone. She is afraid of being ostracized and called a Boko Haram bride, which is stigmatizing. With an arm that doesn’t work, it’s hard to make a living, but she finds joy in her niece.

At the same time, she has a bad conscience for not being able to protect her two children, for the abortion and for the anger she cannot get rid of. She doesn’t know how to make life better.

– We pray for change and for the world to become a better place again, she says.

Boko Haram has not been available to comment on the matter.