Adam Withnall
Woman won’t condemn Boko Haram captor, writes
THE first Chibok schoolgirl rescued from Boko Haram in more than two years says she still misses the man she was forced to marry during her captivity, who is suspected of being an Islamist militant.
Amina Ali was rescued by vigilantes working with the Nigerian military in May this year, along with her 4-monthold baby and a man who she said was her husband, identified as Mohammed Hayatu.
She and her baby are being held in a government facility, a common process for former victims of Boko Haram through which they are supposed to be “deradicalised”.
Speaking in the first interview since her return to her family, the 21-year-old said she is “not comfortable with the way she is being kept from him. I want him to know that I am still thinking about him. Just because we got separated, that does not mean that I don’t think about him”.
Doubt remains over Hayatu’s role in the militant group, which has terrorised north-eastern Nigeria since 2009 and abducted at least 2 000 women and girls.
Ali’s mother, Binta Ali, has told the BBC the man claiming to be her daughter’s husband was a mechanic before he was himself captured by Boko Haram, and that he had organised their escape.
But earlier, her brother told the broadcaster Hayatu had been a fighter for Boko Haram until an increase in Nigerian government air strikes meant he was no longer willing to continue fighting.
Ali’s would not be the first case in which a psychologically traumatised victim of Boko Haram refused to condemn her alleged captor.
International Alert, a char-