A 30-year-old Kaduna-based lady, Fayina Akilawus has recounted her four years ordeal in the enclave of kidnappers with kidnappers taking sexual advantage of eight (8) female abductees and abductors’ plan to marry them.
Akilawus told LEADERSHIP that her ordeal began when she boarded a 14-seater bus on October 19, 2020 on her way to Adamawa when bandits numbering about 10 stopped their vehicle and shot the driver and one passenger while ordering the rest of them out of the vehicle and marched them into the forest.
According to the victim, she was going to Adamawa in preparation for her wedding scheduled for December 2020.
“I was preparing for my weeding in December 2020 before the ugly incident happened on October 19, 2020. After staying few months with the bandits, I pleaded with them to call my family and demand for ransom, but they refused.
“Throughout my stay in captivity, the kidnappers didn’t call my family to demand for ransom. After about few months, I became more worried as I didn’t know what their plans were. I begged them severally that I want to speak with my family so that they will know that I am still alive, but they refused. I also begged them to demand for ransom so that they will set me free but they said no”, she explained.
She added that victims were fed once a day in the first month of her abduction, “and you needed to be hasty, if not, the food would finish as there were other victims”.
Akilawus said on one or two occasions, some of her abductors made advances to sleep with her but their commander intervened and warned them not to touch her. “But whenever their commander is not around they would have their way”.
“Anytime I am menstruating, they will stop coming to our hut. The other woman said menstrual blood could neutralise their charms. I was supposed to menstruate for 4 days, but in the first month I was kidnapped it lasted for 10 days due to anxiety and subsequently, it became normal.”
She stressed that; “The most painful and hurtful experience was during mensuration. Most times the blood dried on my body. And whenever they ask me to fetch water from the nearby river, that was when I will clean up and wash out the stains of blood”.
“I wore one cloth in the first six month before one of the bandit gave me another cloth to change. The bandit gave me the cloth because the one I was wearing got torn and I was almost half naked.
“I became depressed and I was asking myself if I would ever see my family again. A lot of things were coming to my mind at that moment.
“Despite all these, my major desire was to be at home with my family who for sometimes thought that I was dead and also do my wedding with my husband to be then”.
She added that they were 8 young ladies and others who were men and old people, “the kidnappers had plans of marrying 8 of us.
“Most times, the bandits would go to abduct people from their homes or on highways, it was really terrible situation”.
She further said that the well-armed bandits use walkie-talkie to communicate, especially when they heard that the military were in the bush.
“After two years they developed confidence in me. Sometimes they send me on an errand without being followed. So, I started thinking of how to escape since they don’t have plans of releasing me and 7 other ladies.
“In October 2024, one of them asked me to go fetch water from the stream. I went there alone and that was how I escaped and because I already know the route having stayed there for a long time that was how I was able to get to the road where people saw me and helped me to locate my family”.
However, she narrated that her fiance had married another woman because he did not hear from her.
“My fiancee married another lady as they didn’t hear from the bandits,” she said.
