Many women have bravely resisted extremists' plans in quiet and unheralded ways. One of such women is Balaraba Muhammad, who reportedly arrived at the Boko Haram camp in 2012. The terror group had murdered her husband in front of her after he criticized the group. Days later, they came back for her, throwing her baby to the ground and abducting her.
Dozens of abducted women have said that Boko Haram gave them a terrible choice: Marry the group's fighters or be deployed as bombers. Captives have said some women chose to blow up only themselves instead.
A very few survived this ordeal and want to tell their stories. Balaraba Muhammad is one.
At the camp, Muhammad said she listened as two women began discussing ways to kill themselves in order to end their suffering there. A militant overheard them and became exasperated. "What is so difficult about killing yourselves?" he asked. He shot them both to death. Muhammad was very scared. At some point, she considered suicide, but the thought of her ailing grandmother who needed her as caretaker kept her from killing herself.
Muhammad was one of six women dispatched to blow up a mosque and everyone in it. The women wanted to get rid of their bombs without killing anyone, including themselves. 19-year-old Muhammad who was kidnapped a few months earlier came up with a plan: they made a long rope out of their hijabs to which they attached the bombs and gingerly lowered them into a well, praying it was filled with water.
After letting go of the rope, the ran for their lives, she said.
Muhammad said to wriggle out of being married off to a fighter, she feigned sickness and to get out of weapons training she feigned mental illness. When fighters gave her a bomb, she said she knew she would have to go or be shot too.
Which was how she found herself with five others at the edge of that well.
The bombs did not detonate and the young women scared and unsure what to do ran back to the camp. They swore on a Qur'an to their captors they had accomplished their mission and that they ran so fast to escape and lost their hijabs on the way. Cheers went up in the camp and the fighters convened a feast to celebrate the women they thought has become killers.
But the women's relief was short-lived as the fighters soon decided they were ruthless enough to be ready for weapons training. The women were handed guns and captives were lined up for live targets. One of the girls who was part of the six at the well was so distraught that she ran into hail of bullets fired by the firing squad, killing herself, Muhammad said.
After the trick at the well, fighters sent Muhammad and the other women on a second suicide mission, replacing the girl who died with a new captive. Their target was to be a market in Banki, a once-bustling town in Maiduguri. One of the fighters planned to escort the women but the new captive assured the militants she was from Banki and knew her way through the countryside.
The women collected their bombs and again used their hijabs to lower them into the well. They sprinted back to the fighters' camp expecting the same joyous reception. Instead, the fighters were shocked to see them arrive so soon. Just then the radio crackled with news; a bombing had been reported in Banki - not in the market, but in a small village outside the main town. The fighters turned on the new captive, thinking she had led the women to the wrong place. They shot and killed her.
Days went by and fighters came and went, engaging in fierce battles that claimed some of their lives. They wanted revenge. They prepared Muhammad and other women for a major operation: to blow up the Monday market, the biggest in northeast Nigeria.
They loaded some 20 cars, mototbikes and stolen military trucks with bombers and fighters and drove to the market. Muhammad says she was sick and too weak to even get out of the car. She sat inside as bombs exploded, and the vehicle sped away.
Muhammad was driven back to the camp and remained ill for several days, locked in a tin shack with other captives as they listened to fighters preparing for vigilante forces to invade the camp.
"I was saying in my heart that 'Oh God, even if I would die, let my relatives find my corpse'," she says.
She heard gunshots and a loud noise. She lost consciousness.
Hadiza Musa, who had joined the local vigilante force to avenge the Boko Haram capture of her sister, arrived to find a horrific scene: The entire camp was on fire, and there was carnage everywhere. Musa said, in an attempt to distract the vigilantes, it appeared that Boko Haram had blown up their own camp and their captives and fled.
Musa said she sifted through the dead and came across Muhammad, who was unconscious with burns covering her body and blood pouring from what looked like a bullet wound to her leg. Musa cried as she helped ferry Muhammad to a hospital. She stayed by Muhammad, caring for her until she was conscious. She also tracked down Muhammad's grandmother and told her the first good news she had heard in months: her baby Hairat, whom the terrorists threw to the floor as she was being abducted, was alive.
Boko Haram is still plaguing Maiduguri where their movement began. On February 9, 2020, militants attacked vehicles lined up at a checkpoint at Auno, a town about 24 kilometres west of Maiduguri. At least 30 people lost their lives in the attack; some reportedly burnt to death while sleeping in their cars.
When President Muhammadu Buhar arrived in Maiduguri to console mourners, he was jeered. The Nigerian military has long been struggling to gain upper hand against the fighters who are now better armed than the military.
Suicide bombings have declined as Boko Haram and its factions have focused on targeting military forces. Yet the incidents persist; in January in nearby Chad, a woman bomber killed nine people and in Maiduguri two female bombers blew up a market killing two people.
Musa and Muhammad now consider themselves sisters. Muhammad still bears scars from burns to her face, arms and legs. In Maiduguri where she lives with Hairat who is now in school, some neighbors who know she was abducted are suspicious and think she might be loyal to Boko Haram.
"The best thing is for you to be killed," a neighbor once told Muhammad.
She tries to ignore those kinds of comments bearing in mind none of the ordeal was her fault. She pays for Hairat's schooling by knitting caps and selling soft drinks from a rented mini refrigerator and makes regular trips to the morgue in search of her brother's body; he disappeared after he dropped out of college to join the vigilantes to avenge Muhammad's capture.
Muhammad has commenced training to become a nurse. She wants to give back. But she couldn't afford fees for recent exams after an uncle kicked her out of his house, still suspicious of her time with the militants.
Until she can save up money to the exam, she keeps a first aid kit with her, in case she comes across anyone needing help.
Days went by and fighters came and went, engaging in fierce battles that claimed some of their lives. They wanted revenge. They prepared Muhammad and other women for a major operation: to blow up the Monday market, the biggest in northeast Nigeria.
They loaded some 20 cars, mototbikes and stolen military trucks with bombers and fighters and drove to the market. Muhammad says she was sick and too weak to even get out of the car. She sat inside as bombs exploded, and the vehicle sped away.
Muhammad was driven back to the camp and remained ill for several days, locked in a tin shack with other captives as they listened to fighters preparing for vigilante forces to invade the camp.
"I was saying in my heart that 'Oh God, even if I would die, let my relatives find my corpse'," she says.
She heard gunshots and a loud noise. She lost consciousness.
Hadiza Musa, who had joined the local vigilante force to avenge the Boko Haram capture of her sister, arrived to find a horrific scene: The entire camp was on fire, and there was carnage everywhere. Musa said, in an attempt to distract the vigilantes, it appeared that Boko Haram had blown up their own camp and their captives and fled.
Musa said she sifted through the dead and came across Muhammad, who was unconscious with burns covering her body and blood pouring from what looked like a bullet wound to her leg. Musa cried as she helped ferry Muhammad to a hospital. She stayed by Muhammad, caring for her until she was conscious. She also tracked down Muhammad's grandmother and told her the first good news she had heard in months: her baby Hairat, whom the terrorists threw to the floor as she was being abducted, was alive.
Boko Haram is still plaguing Maiduguri where their movement began. On February 9, 2020, militants attacked vehicles lined up at a checkpoint at Auno, a town about 24 kilometres west of Maiduguri. At least 30 people lost their lives in the attack; some reportedly burnt to death while sleeping in their cars.
When President Muhammadu Buhar arrived in Maiduguri to console mourners, he was jeered. The Nigerian military has long been struggling to gain upper hand against the fighters who are now better armed than the military.
Suicide bombings have declined as Boko Haram and its factions have focused on targeting military forces. Yet the incidents persist; in January in nearby Chad, a woman bomber killed nine people and in Maiduguri two female bombers blew up a market killing two people.
Musa and Muhammad now consider themselves sisters. Muhammad still bears scars from burns to her face, arms and legs. In Maiduguri where she lives with Hairat who is now in school, some neighbors who know she was abducted are suspicious and think she might be loyal to Boko Haram.
"The best thing is for you to be killed," a neighbor once told Muhammad.
She tries to ignore those kinds of comments bearing in mind none of the ordeal was her fault. She pays for Hairat's schooling by knitting caps and selling soft drinks from a rented mini refrigerator and makes regular trips to the morgue in search of her brother's body; he disappeared after he dropped out of college to join the vigilantes to avenge Muhammad's capture.
Muhammad has commenced training to become a nurse. She wants to give back. But she couldn't afford fees for recent exams after an uncle kicked her out of his house, still suspicious of her time with the militants.
Until she can save up money to the exam, she keeps a first aid kit with her, in case she comes across anyone needing help.
A shout out to Muhammad and the women at the well and to the other women like them who have bravely resisted, foiling the extremists' plans in quiet and unheralded ways. Most of them who broke away from Boko Haram keep their abductions secret for fear of stigmatization as terrorist sympathizers even though they were held against their wills. We hail them for standing up to Boko Haram and all those who lost their lives for doing so.
Adapted from: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/women/boko-haram-women-suicide-bombing-nigeria-a9421166.html
Adapted from: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/women/boko-haram-women-suicide-bombing-nigeria-a9421166.html
© The New York Times
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