Frail and malnourished women and children lay across rows of hospital beds, their weakened bodies showing the physical toll of six months held captive in Nigeria’s remote bush.
They were among 163 kidnapping victims rescued in August from the forests of Kainji Lake National Park after suspected terrorists attacked their village of Woro.
In all, 308 people were freed in what the government called the country’s largest single-day rescue operation. At Kwara State University Teaching Hospital in Ilorin, however, the ordeal was far from over as survivors began the long road to recovery.
A child lay motionless beneath a blue sheet, connected to a respirator as doctors and nurses gathered around the bed.
Nearby, a girl believed to be no more than 6 years old sat sobbing alone on a hospital bed, her family still nowhere to be seen.
“They are all responding to treatment,” a nurse said, holding the tiny hand of a boy about 4 years old. “Some of them still need blood.”
Suspected terrorists attacked Woro, near the border with Benin, in February, killing at least 165 people and kidnapping scores.
Abductions have become a key source of income for criminal groups in Nigeria, particularly terrorists and nonideological bandit groups across the north and center of the country.
The victims were held at a camp along with more than 100 others seized from other villages, including Kasuwan Daji and Konkoso, both in Niger state, Woro village head Umar Bio Salihu told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Thirteen people from Woro died in captivity, he said, while 13 others remain captive.
Interviews with victims at the hospital were brief and stymied by officials who repeatedly directed AFP journalists between different offices to seek approval.
The government has touted the rescue of the Woro villagers as a major success in its campaign. But it still faces a crisis as kidnappings have become so rampant across the country that they have grown into a multimillion-dollar industry, according to SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based consultancy.
“We thank God we are out,” one gaunt victim, Hajara, said. “I do not wish that on even my enemies. It was like we just came back from hellfire.”
While being held by the gunmen, the captives were fed tuwo, a thick, porridge-like meal made from guinea corn, and a “soup” made from a mixture of river water and salt. When they were lucky, their captors gave them seasoning cubes.
Occasionally, they got beef from cattle they assumed had been rustled.
“When they came, they were quite bad ... severe malnutrition, lots of skin diseases, some had fractures, some mothers had just delivered,” the hospital’s chief medical director, Ahmed Bola Abdulkadir, told AFP, adding that many need care for “psychological trauma.”
Babies delivered by torchlight
While in captivity, those who went to relieve themselves without the guards’ permission were beaten, said 25-year-old nurse Amira Salihu, whose two brothers were killed during the February attack.
The daughter of the Woro village head’s gentle smile belied her harrowing experience as she spoke to AFP from a hotel guarded by police where some freed abductees were staying.
More than a dozen women went into labor while in captivity, Amira Salihu said.
With little visibility, with battery-powered torches the only sources of light, she helped deliver the babies using her bare hands.
“I borrowed a razor blade to cut the placenta,” she told AFP.
At the hotel, scores of victims, mostly young children, noisily gathered around plastic tables in a hall for lunch.
“I am happy seeing them like this,” Umar Bio Salihu, the village head, told AFP.
He has been shuttling between Woro and Ilorin, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) away, to check on the victims as they recover under government care in the state capital.
Despite the scale of the tragedy, Woro is coming back to life, resident Isah Mogaji told AFP, with the village market in full swing.
“The community is very happy now,” village head Salihu said. “They are waiting to receive their people.”
