'Sambisa Is All Forest, No Houses' - Escapee Schoolgirl

The schoolgirls

One of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls who were able to make their way back home from Sambisa Forest, said the camps they were taken to were all trees and shrubs, with no buildings for shelter.

The escapee schoolgirl, who disclosed this to LEADERSHIP in Maiduguri when she and 27 other of the girls who had been abducted were brought to Government House, Maiduguri to meet with the state governor, said she doubted whether the over 200 of her schoolmates still in captivity were comfortable there.

The 20-year-old schoolgirl, who agreed to talk to LEADERSHIP but begged not to be named in the print, said she ran for nearly two days to get home.

“The place they took us to after abducting us from the school was all forest with short
trees and shrubs everywhere. There is no single building or house there, but there are tents made from plastic sheets in some places. I don’t know if that is where they call Sambisa. Some of the areas are thick and dark; some places have pools of water. 

On the day we arrived there we were given food, but some of us did not eat and they warned us that we should better eat, because we would spend a long time with them there and that they did not intend to harm us, but to make us good Muslim women.

I was scared of eating the rice that we were given to eat, but I drank the can of Malt drink. It was when they asked us to go fetch water the next day that I and other girls summoned the courage to escape. We ran all day; we kept on running until we got to some place where we were assisted by villagers to get home,” she said.

Explaining how they were taken into the forest, the girl said there was no visible road leading to it.

“They kept on driving through the bush. You can’t see any visible route ahead, but the men just tore through the forest, avoiding trees and thick shrubs. Even when their vehicle tyres burst they didn’t stop; they continued to drive and if they came across any vehicle, they would forcefully take over the vehicle or seize the tyre, fix it and continue to move until we got to the place where they said we had arrived.”