I lost my pregnancy during captivity, freed Afaka student laments

A PREGNANT woman, Fatima Ibrahim Shamaki, who was among the 37 students abducted by bandits from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State, has disclosed that she lost her pregnancy while in captivity.

The woman, along with 26 other abductees, spent almost 60 days in captivity before they were, on Wednesday, released by the bandits.

Shamaki, in an interview with Daily Trust after she was reunited with her husband at the college premises on Friday, said she was two months pregnant when she and her colleagues were kidnapped on March 11, 2021.

She stated that she lost the pregnancy due to stress they endured in the bush. She said their abductors were not aware she was pregnant, though they were constantly asked.

According to her, she hid her condition for fear she may be harmed.

“I was scared because anytime some of us say we are ill, they will imply that they will just ‘finish’ the person. So I felt knowing my condition, they may decide to harm me.

“I relied on my fellow female students to help me during the period. We all helped one another even during the monthly cycle, we would tear out our wrappers to help one another,” she narrated.

One of the released students, who also lost her father, while in captivity, stated that she was so ill in the forest that she fainted three times.

She said sometimes the bandits would give them drugs such as Buscopan to relieve stomach cramp.

Narrating their ordeals in the hands of the bandits, she said they changed their location up to four times, trekked in the deep forest for many hours, and were constantly tortured.

She, however, said none of the female students was sexually assaulted.

“While we were in the forest, we slept in the open; under trees and we saw a lot of monkeys and hyenas, there were cattle too but they belonged to the bandits,” she added.