THEY are here, they will take us. We came from Allah and we (shall) return to him. Call my parents, they don’t know my situation. Call Fatima to tell my parents, but don’t tell them my situation. We are in the barracks. Surely we come from Allah and we (shall) return to him. They have entered.”
The above is the translation of the final words of Hauwa Liman, a former aid worker with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), on the day she and two of her colleagues were abducted by the Boko Haram in Rann, Borno State.
When the insurgents attacked the community, Hauwa took refuge inside a room from where she sent a voice note via Whatsapp, an instant messaging mobile application, to one of her friends informing her of her predicament. That message was the last time anybody heard from Hauwa.
Saifura Ahmed, a UNICEF employee who was kidnapped alongside Hauwa Liman, was executed by Boko Haram in September, and Hauwa herself was killed on Monday, October 15, 2018, exactly one month apart. According to video clips released by the insurgents, both ladies had their hands tied behind them before being shot at close range.
Hauwa was only 24.
Nigeria failed them
The federal government had successfully negotiated the release of many Boko Haram hostages, including some of the Chibok schoolgirls, the University of Maiduguri lecturers, some policewomen abducted on their way to a colleague’s funeral, and almost all the abducted Dapchi schoolgirls. But somehow, the government appeared helpless in the cases of Saifura Ahmed and Hauwa Liman.
When Saifura was executed, a spokesman of Boko Haram said that they had “contacted the government through writing and also sent audio messages but the government have ignored us”, so the execution was “a message of blood”. Apparently, this message too was ignored.
However, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, denied that the government ignored Boko Haram. “It is very unfortunate that it has come to this,” Mohammed stated.
“The Federal Government did everything any responsible government should do to save the aid worker. We kept the line of negotiations open all through. In all the negotiations, we acted in the best interest of the women and the country as a whole,” he explained.
Two other hostages remain with the Boko Haram. They are, Alice Ngaddah, who was abducted in Rann alongside Hauwa, and Leah Sharibu, the Dapchi schoolgirl that was not released alongside her colleagues because she refused to convert to Islam.
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