After she was rescued from the hands of Boko Haram insurgents, 17-year-old Zara, decided to share the story of the ordeal she went through in the hands of the terrorists.
One year after she was rescued by the Nigerian Army, Zara revealed that she sometimes wished she remained in the forest than suffer the stigma of being a former Boko Haram ‘bride’.
Although she is not among the missing schoolgirls who were abducted from the Chibok area of Borno State sometime in 2014, Zara was got married in the terrorists’ camp at Sambisa forest.
She said: “They gave us a choice – to be married, or to be a slave. I decided to marry.”
Zara’s uncle, Mohamed Umaru, who narrated her story to Vanguard said: “The women in our family realised she was three months pregnant.
“In our family it happens that some of us are Christians and some are Muslims. She was a Christian before she was kidnapped, but the Boko Haram, who married her turned her into a Muslim.”
“There was a split in the family over what to do and they took a vote as to whether she should abort or keep the child. The majority prevailed and she gave birth to a boy.
“She said her husband’s father is called Usman, so that is how she named the child.”
Zara who couldn’t hold back the tears in a video on BBC: “People call me a Boko Haram wife and called me a criminal. They didn’t want me near. They didn’t like me.
It was gathered that she now confines herself inside the small walled compound around her house, and is scared to go out because of the cruel insults and hate from the neighbourhood children which they learned from their parents.
She said: “They didn’t like my child. When he fell sick nobody would look after him.”
Unfortunately, a snake got into their compound and killed nine-month old Usman last weekend while Zara slept outside with him because of the hot weather.
Zara recollected amidst sobs that most of the family members were happy with the development as they felt that it was God’s way of removing the Boko Haram blood from their family.
“Some were happy that he died. They were happy the blood of Boko Haram had gone from the family,” she said.
