Pregnant Teenage Boko Haram Returnee Recounts Harrowing Experience

Um who was forced to watch men, women and children slaughtered during her captivity, was also forced into marriage and waited on a “husband” she hated. While she watched and endured it all, she was prepared to take any opportunity to escape. Her chance to break free came after six long months of emotional and physical turmoil.

“I had planned my escape from the beginning. There was a time my husband spent two weeks away, so I attempted to escape but guards returned me and beat me,” she said.

Eventually, her captors’ vigilance began to slip and she managed to escape. In her fear, all she remembers is walking for what felt like days until she finally reached safety.

She arrived home to discover that her father had been killed by the same Boko Haram militants who had held her captive for almost a year. She also found she had become pregnant by her Boko Haram husband.

Now, seven months along in her pregnancy, the fear, she says, is still with her. This time, though, it’s the men in her own community she is scared of.

“People in this village are rejecting me because of the pregnancy. Some will be happy to have me dead. Many people are even saying that I should go for an abortion,” she said.

It’s an option she refuses to contemplate, even though she says local men have let it be known they will not tolerate the children of Boko Haram living amongst them. She says they have threatened to kill both her and her baby.

Regardless of what others say, surviving both abduction and escape has made her realize that she has the strength to see this through. Her child, she says, deserves to live.

Her mother unlike most of the others mothers in her shoes also insists abortion is not a risk she’s willing to take with her daughter.

“We heard about one girl who died after she attempted an abortion, losing both the mother and the baby. The girl was the only child to her mother, so that scared us. If God wishes, she will give birth safely. Life is in the hands of God alone,” she said.

The vigilante leader in Um’s village said that his group didn’t believe she had been forced into marriage and that she and her unborn child will always be viewed with suspicion. He however refused to comment on what he and his men might do about it.

Source: CNN