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Stare blank from her hospital bed, 14-year-old Precious struggles to recover after 21 days at the hands of heavily armed gunmen who kidnapped her from her school in northwest Nigeria.
“Walking is a problem, talking is a problem … if she happened to sit down, she would just be scared and shivering,” said her mother, Esther Joseph, using a scarf to wipe the tears off her cheek. her daughter.
The attackers stormed Precious’ Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna state in the dead of night on July 5, kidnapping 121 students from their dormitories.
This is the latest attack by criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, which has long plagued northwest and central Nigeria.
“She remembers those guns the kidnappers used to shoot in the bush to scare them,” said Joseph, speaking on behalf of her only child, who is still in shock and unable to speak to the press.
On Saturday, Precious and 27 others were released. A school official, Joseph Hayab, said the ransom was paid but declined to say how much.
Before releasing her, the kidnappers asked Precious if she had parents.
Joseph said the teenager had to explain that her father was dead and that she only had one mother. She was set apart with the orphans and the “little ones” and told they could leave.
“Always in fear”
Once reunited with her mother, Precious was rushed to hospital.
“Until now, she is still scared,” Joseph said, adding that her health had improved.
In the green hospital room, a nurse walks in and changes the drip in her arm. After nearly three weeks in the bush, Precious is very weak.
“They sleep outside during the rainy season, so they’re exposed,” said Williams Ayet, a doctor who came to check on Precious.
“So far none of them have cholera but they have malaria and typhoid and they are currently on treatment for these things.”
During the captivity, the children barely ate, and the kidnappers even asked the parents to provide them with food.
They complied with bringing rice, beans and oil to the bush where the children were kept.
Five other Bethel students escaped and one was released for health reasons, but more than 80 others remain in detention.
Joseph, who says she does odd jobs to pay school fees, called on the government and security forces “to get into the bush” and rescue the remaining students.
It is unfortunate that the children of the poor are targeted by the kidnappers when “the children of civil servants are educated abroad,” she said.
Recently, gunmen have turned to kidnapping schoolchildren, with around 1,000 students abducted across Nigeria since December.
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