How bandits starve, torture Islamiyya pupils daily

How bandits starve, torture Islamiyya pupils daily

Leadership

One of the abducted pupils of Salihu Tanko Islamiyya School, Tegina, Niger State, Zaynab Salle Boka, has revealed that bandits starve and manhandle the pupils in their captivity on a daily basis.

The 12-year-old, who escaped from captivity and is now on admission in a private hospital, Minna,  gave an insight into the deplorable mental and health state of the children who, she said, are grouped in 30 each and underfed.

Zaynab said the pupils were moved almost every other day from one point to another, and that they hardly feed well.

She further disclosed that the children are usually flogged on the back and bottom to the extent that some of them can hardly sit or lie on their back, saying that most of the pupils were in that condition when she escaped.

On how she escaped the bandits, Zaynab said when the pupils were to be moved to another location, she stayed at the back and covered herself with dry leaves.

According to her, she walked in the bush for two days before a commercial motorcycle operator (popularly called Okada man) saw her near Pandogari axis of Rafi local government area and took her to the district head of the area.

Speaking further on the pupils’ ordeal, she said there were days they walked the whole day and were fed only once, along with constant flogging.

“We were grouped into 30 pupils with each group allocated a mudu (measure) of rice and sometimes two packs of Spaghetti (pasta). We always scramble for food after a long trek through the forest,” she said.

The headmaster of the Islamiyya School, Alhassan Garba Abubakar, told LEADERSHIP that the gory picture painted by Zaynab had further traumatised them as parents.

He said that he was not just the headmaster but a parent whose children were among those abducted.

“We are terrified, and boiling with anger also because we feel the authorities are not doing enough to help our cause for the safe release of the underage pupils,” he said.

Abubakar said even though the parents did not want a full security operation that will jeopardise the safety of the children, they want more practical steps from the authorities to urgently rescue the children.

“From what we gathered from her, 70 per cent of the children are sick. They are not in good condition to cope with the trekking as they are moved from one point to the other,” the headmaster said.

It is a month now that 136 Islamiyya pupils, aged between three and 12 years, were kidnapped from their school in Niger State by bandits who first demanded N200 million ransom and later reduced it to N150 million for their release.

One of the victims, a three-year-old girl, reportedly died of exhaustion after she could not keep pace with the abductors.

However, the Niger State government has insisted it will not pay ransom and lately said it had discovered the bandits’ hideout but was reluctant to attempt a rescue in order not to put the children at risk.

Read the full story in Leadership 

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