Brave, desperate return to town

HOME: VICTIMS MAKE THEIR WAY BACK TO MICHIKA

The area is freed from Boko Haram, but there’s still a chance they may return.

Michika

Spent bullets crunch underfoot, a raided bank lies in ruins and burned out cars and motorbikes dot the streets. Michika may now be free from Boko Haram, but the town in the remote north of Nigeria’s Adamawa state is eerily quiet and signs of the militants’ presence are everywhere.

Workshops are empty, markets deserted, shops and schools shut.

“There is no God, but Allah” is scrawled in Arabic on walls with chalk or paint. English and Hausa-language signs have been scrubbed out by the Islamists, who believed them to be “sinful”, locals say.

Angelina Linus fled Michika when Boko Haram arrived last September and spent seven months hiding in the mountains that overlook the town and Cameroon beyond. She returned in April when it was liberated.

But even though the rebels have gone, the almost deserted town is still under threat, she said.

“We need help before the rains. We don’t have anything...” the 38-year-old said.

“Two of my four children are in (the state capital) Yola. I need them back, but I have nothing to feed them, so they are better off staying there.”

“The rains may come, but there’s no way to farm, because we don’t have anything to cultivate,” added Jamila Gambo, as civilian vigilantes manned a checkpoint with home-made weapons.

“(If) there’s no food at the end of the day, people will starve,” said the 15-year-old.

Michika’s only link with communities further south and the state capital Yola 230km away is a single, potholed road.

Further down the road, sections of a road bridge lie like a concertina, blown up by the Nigerian Army to try to halt the militants’ progress.

Cars, lorries and motorbikes are forced off the tarmac road down a dirt track to the banks of a river.

Young men and boys wade in to push vehicles up the opposite side. Gears scrape and engines strain, as the wheels emerge from the water.

The army says it has driven Boko Haram out of Adamawa, spurring many to come back, to assess for the first time the damage to their homes and resume their lives. –