On Tuesday February 9,
two Nigerian girls entered a camp for displaced people in the
north-east. Minutes later they detonated their explosive vests, killing
58 people. A third girl refused to take part in the suicide mission for
Islamist group Boko Haram. This is her story:
Hauwa,
not her real name, doesn't know her age, but she looks 17 or 18. She
had been held by Boko Haram for more than a year when her captors
suggested the plan to attack the Dikwa camp. In return for carrying out
their mission, the three girls were told they would go to paradise. But
Hauwa knew that she had to defy them.
"I
said 'No', since my mum is residing in Dikwa, I won't go and kill
people there. I would rather go and stay with my family, even if I die
there," she tells me through a translator.
Both her parents and
her siblings, except for one brother who had been captured with her,
were staying in the camp at Dikwa in Borno state, along with about
50,000 others forced from their homes.
Hauwa explains how she ended up being lured into joining the group.
"I had spiritual problems and so the Boko Haram told me they could help get rid of them," she says.
We
do not know exactly what Hauwa was suffering from, but these so-called
"evil spirits" had caused her to soil herself and even put her hand into
a fire.
Whatever the reason, she saw Boko Haram as the answer to her problems, and they took her in.
She remembers a typical day living with the militants.
"We were
living in grass-thatched houses. When my husband was around, I cooked
three times a day... the men would steal meat and bring it for us to
cook."
After a while, Hauwa separated from her husband and then got remarried.
Her second husband then ran away and when she refused to take a third husband, the group suggested their plan:
"They said since I refused to re-marry, I should take the bomb," she says.
The Dikwa camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) was 85km (50
miles) north-east of Maiduguri, the state capital of Borno and the
birthplace of Boko Haram.
Hauwa knew it well and it was not far
from the place she was being held by the militants, so the night before
the attack was due to take place, she sneaked out very early in the
morning. Her plan was to alert her family and others staying at Dikwa of the impending attack. But she was too late.
By
the time she reached Dikwa camp, the two suicide bombers had already
struck. An army officer showed the BBC team the scene of the attack.
"This
is the spot where the first explosion went off," he said pointing to
brown patches on the tarmac, where blood stains had been darkened by a
layer of dust.
The camp stretches across both
sides of the road
and so residents still have to pass the scene of the attack every day to
get water and food. There are 15,000 people still living here and they
are scared. But they have nowhere safe to go, so they are staying here.
Now, they say they cannot trust anyone, not even children.
An elderly woman, Falmata Mohammed, remembers the minutes before the attack.
"A soldier was trying to arrange our queues... There was this woman wearing a red veil and she had long hair."
Falmata says she looked round when the woman began complaining about the soldiers, who were trying to disperse the crowds.
"As
soon as we moved onto the road, she shouted 'Wayyo', saying she had a
pain in her stomach… People rushed to help her and tried to lift her up
and that's when the bomb detonated."
"We saw fireballs around us,"
she tells me, saying that suddenly she became aware that she was
surrounded by dozens of mutilated bodies.
Hauwa did not see the
attack herself, but she was shown footage of the aftermath by military
investigators and reflect on the fate of the two girls.
"It wasn't a pleasant thing to see. It wasn't good to carry a bomb to go and kill fellow human beings," she says.
"I don't know if the other girls knew they would die when they went on the mission
For parents in this part of Nigeria, the fear of Boko Haram is all too real. The
group is prepared not only to abduct their children, but to send their
own young back as assassins in the very places they have sought refuge. This
is the same state where Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls
from the town of Chibok in April 2014. Most of them are still missing.
Hauwa
chose to defy the group and to escape, saving her own and the many
lives of her would-be victims. We talk about her future, but when the
topic of children comes up, she laughs it off.
"I'd like to get an education," she says.
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