Stories from the Camp: Aishatu Saidu

My name is Aishatu  Saidu, I came from Gwoza because of Boko Haram.

I was standing  at the edge of the market , near one mountain, because in our town there was no phone service. That day I was standing near the mountain.

The day that Boko Haram came to our town,  they had brough service. My husband had left town on Monday and the next day Boko Haram came to the town. I climbed the mountain to call my husband to check whether he had arrived at his destination  in Abuja safely. We were on the phone for a little while, then I saw these men had climbed the mountain to where I was. They looked like soldiers and they were also making phone calls.

A lot of them gathered where I was and started to make phone calls. Suddenly I heard gunshots and bombs in the village below. They  the men started running, some would fall down , some would break their bones,  it was just chaos and people were running and trying to come down from where they were making calls.

The village was full with the sound of gunshots. Everyone stayed quietly in their houses.  My husband was not around, I was all alone with my children and we were next to the mountain. In the morning everything was quiet. So the men felt safe to come down to check their homes, to see if everything was okay. (They had spent the night in the mountain. ) Just when they were returning to their homes the Boko Haram men came back , they had been waiting for the village men to return.

It was at the entrance of the market that the men had come down from the mounains. And it was there that Boko Haram caught the men and cut their necks near some of the market stalls. There were about six men that they slaughtered at once. The other men that were coming saw this and started running. Some would go back up the mountain, others on their way to their homes would be caught by boko haram and killed.  Some escaped too. We really struggled. We spent 5 nights at home and our food finished as there was no market to buy food. Sometimes I would go to my fathers house to find food to feed my family.

I saw at the entrance of my doorway where  I make phone calls there were 2 corpses of soldiers that were killed.

It scared me . so I locked my house packed my things and went to my fathers house. In my fathers house everyone was crying because they had killed my brother. They told us to go and look for his body. When we were looking they blocked us and said they killed my brother and 3 other boys, the children of the chief.