Several of my former friends now each have three insurgent children: the freed Chibok girl

Amina Nkeki, one of the 2016 escapees from the Chibok schoolgirl abduction, has revealed that some of her old classmates who are still in captivity now each had at least three children for rebels.

Nkeki made a statement during her Sunday appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily broadcast.

About 276 girls were kidnapped by militants on April 14, 2014, when they broke into the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State. Over the years, some of the girls have been freed, some have managed to escape, and roughly 108 remain unaccounted for.

Nkeki said: “Some of them are mothers of three children, four children. It’s not easy for them. I feel so sad because that place is not a good place for anyone.”

She added that the former schoolgirls are facing hunger, sickness and many other challenges of motherhood in captivity.
On why she agreed to marry one of the insurgents while in captivity as an escape strategy, she said: “For me, I married so that I will get the freedom to go where I wanted and from there, I will escape.

“They (insurgents) told us that if we didn’t agree to marry them, we were going to be their slaves. So, because of that fear, some of us thought instead of being slaves, let’s get married.

“That’s how some people decided to get married. And some people took all the risk. Some of us got married that maybe it will be a way of escape, most especially a person like me.”

Nkeki also recounted how she escaped, saying it happened when the troops engaged the insurgents in a gun battle.
She said: “I escaped when soldiers were in the forest to fight those Boko Haram people. They (insurgents) were running to the bush to hide and we (the hostages) also ran.

“After that, we went our own way. That was how we escaped but because of how big the bush was, we didn’t know our way. It took us one month plus before we came out (of the forest).”