Nigerian Wives, Mothers of Detainees Say Their Men are Not Boko Haram

 

At sundown in Nigeria, children are playing a game called egalagala.

The children play near their home. As they play, their mother looks sad. Their two older brothers, Abuna and Dunoma, are missing. They were arrested in 2013 by Nigerian soldiers.

The woman asked to be called Bintu because she fears being harmed by Nigerian security agents. She told VOA, "One night, soldiers came around 3 a.m., hitting our door and asking, ‘Where are the boys? Where are the boys? Bring out your sons.’"

Bintu says soldiers had gone throughout the neighborhood that night, arresting teenage boys. She and the other mothers whose sons were taken followed the soldiers’ vehicle.

"They took them (the boys) to a place and they told the children to lie face down in the ground and they were beating them," she said.

Abuna and Dunoma were high school students when they were arrested.

Bintu’s story is not unusual.

Forced disappearances²

Amnesty International has documented thousands of cases of what it calls forced disappearances. That is the term it uses for people held in secret detention³ centers without facing charges or being put on trial.

The Nigerian military has repeatedly denied cases of forced disappearance¹. It began trials last year of more than 2,300 suspected Boko Haram militants⁴. But those trials have been kept in secret.

Recently, Human Rights Watch raised concern about the fairness of the trials.

Hamsatu Allamin, a local activist⁵, decided⁶ to find a way to give a voice to the women who have been separated from their sons and husbands. She decided to create a kind of network or organization; one for wives, and the other for mothers.

More than 1,300 people are now active with Allamin’s group. Most live in camps for people displaced within the country.

Allamin’s goal is to get Nigerian officials to tell these women where their loved ones are, so she has equipped them with tools to speak out.

Descriptions of loss

Last year, Allamin helped the women release a campaign video that was shared on social media. In the video, some of the women explain how their husbands or sons were arrested.

Earlier this year, the women wrote an open letter to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. They asked for him to help with the cases of 1,269 detained loved ones.

But Justice Wakil Alkali Gana said the detainees may not be as innocent as the women say they are.

He told VOA, "People will always say that…they’re innocent, that they’re rights are being abused…When you go through it, you’ll see. They have reasons to be brought here.”

The judge works at the High Court in Maiduguri where hundreds of Boko Haram-related cased have been tried.

A reunion

One day, something surprising happened at one of the largest camps in the Maiduguri area.

A young man in his early 20s walked up to a woman sitting in the entrance to a shelter. As soon as she saw him, she recognized he was her son.

The man told her that he had been released from a nearby military camp. Years ago, he and his father were arrested because Nigerian officials thought they were Boko Haram members. The young man said he was released, but his father is still in detention.

The woman who wants to be called Bintu still has important documents belonging to her sons Abuna and Dunoma. There are birth records, old homework and report cards from school and health records.

A few years ago, someone told her that her boys were dead. But with these documents, she will keep them alive, waiting for the government to tell her where they are.

I’m Jonathan Evans.

Words in This Story

a.m. – abbreviation for the Latin term ante meridiem, which means before 12 noon.

network – n. a group of people

1 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

2 disappearances   

n.消失( disappearance的名词复数 )；丢失；失踪；失踪案

参考例句：

• Most disappearances are the result of the terrorist activity. 大多数的失踪案都是恐怖分子造成的。 来自辞典例句
• The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. 间谍活动、叛党卖国、逮捕拷打、处决灭迹，这种事情永远不会完。 来自英汉文学

3 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

4 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

5 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。