crushed by an armored car and three died when a land
mine exploded as they walked to freedom.
Through tears, smiles and eyes filled with pain, the
survivors of months in the hands of the Islamic
extremists told their tragic stories to The Associated
Press on Sunday, their first day out of the war zone.
"We just have to give praise to God that we are alive,
those of us who have survived," said 27-year-old Lami
Musa as she cradled her 5-day-old baby girl.
She was among 275 girls, women and their young
children, many bewildered and traumatized, who
were getting medical care and being registered a day
after making it to safety.
Nigeria's military said it has freed nearly 700 Boko
Haram captives in the past week. It is still unclear if any
of them were among the so-called "Chibok girls," whose
mass abduction from their school a year ago sparked
outrage worldwide and a campaign for their freedom
under the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.
Musa was in the first group of rescued women and girls
to be transported by road over three days to the safety
of the Malkohi refugee camp, a dust-blown deserted
school set among baobab trees opposite a military
barracks on the outskirts of Yola, the capital of
northeastern Adamawa state.
Last week's rescue saved her from a forced marriage to
one of the killers of her husband, she said.
"They took me so I can marry one of their commanders,"
she said of the militants who carried her away from her
village after slaughtering her husband and forcing her to
abandon their three young children, whose fates remain
unknown. That was five months ago in Lassa village.
"When they realized I was pregnant, they said I was
impregnated by an infidel, and we have killed him. Once
you deliver, within a week we will marry you to our
commander," she said, tears running down her cheeks as
she recalled her husband and lost children.
Musa gave birth to a curly-haired daughter the night
before last week's rescue.
As gunshots rang out, "Boko Haram came and told us
they were moving out and that we should run away with
them. But we said no," she said from a bed in the camp
clinic, a blanket wrapped around ankles so swollen that
each step had been agony.
"Then they started stoning us. I held my baby to my
stomach and doubled over to protect her," she said,
bending reflexively at the waist as though she still had
to shield her newborn.
She and another survivor of the stoning, 20-year-old
Salamatu Bulama, said several girls and women were
killed, but they did not know how many.
The horrors did not end once the military arrived.
A group of women were hiding under some bushes,
where they could not be seen by soldiers riding in an
armored personnel carrier, who drove right over them.
"I think those killed there were about 10," Bulama said.
Other women died from stray bullets, she said,
identifying three by name.
There were not enough vehicles to transport all of the
freed captives and some women had to walk, Musa said.
Those on foot were told to walk in the tire tracks made
by the convoy because Boko Haram militants had mined
much of the forest. But some of the women must have
strayed because a land mine exploded, killing three, she
said.
Source: African Spotlight
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