WE LOST FIVE OF OUR MATES TO BOKO HARAM, ONE STILL IN CAPTIVITY FOR REFUSING TO PUT ON HIJAB, SAYS KHADIJA ONE OF THE FREED GIRLS

“We had our prayers after breaking the fast. Then we continued our journey until we got to a place with a big tree, they stopped and we were asked to cook food, it was dark, so they put on lamps. After eating, then we continued the journey for a long time until we got to a place where there is river, we came down from the trucks and they asked us to enter some canoes that took us across the river.

“Across the river, they took us to a house in one village that I don’t know; we stayed there for sometime. The next day, they came to ask us to come out and we were taken to the river and continued the journey until we got to where a thick forest area. That was where they kept us; and they have not changed our location since then.

“They have been feeding us very well, they treated us very well. They did not beat us; they did not molest us. The people that took us away were all speaking Kanuri and Arabic. They didn’t tell us any meaningful reason why we were freed and returned. They just said we are Muslims and they felt it was right for them to free us so that we will not suffer.”

Narrating their experience further, she said their abductors did not molest them sexually and promised them that they would one day be allowed to go home except one of the girls, Leah Sherubu, who was a Christian and who refused to put on the Hijab or accept Islam.

In her remark, a parent of one of the freed girls, Kachalla Bukar lamented the refusal of the Boko Haram to release her because she refused to put on Hijab, adding, “It was sad when we heard that Leah was not released. We were told by the Boko Haram that she was not released because she refused to put on Hijab.”