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Escaped Chibok girl: I miss my Boko Haram husband

EDITED BY KALAHAN DENG

What a strange love after all?

Escaped Chibok girl Amina Ali Nkeki says she misses her Boko Haram fighter husband and is still thinking about him three months afterescaping the militants’ camp.Chibok girl Amina Ali Nkeki (in red), who was kidnapped by Boko Haram, with her baby daughter.

Amina Ali, who was held hostage by the terrorist group for more than two years, says she was married off a year into her ordeal and later had a baby girl, Safiya.
The couple and their daughter were found on the outskirts of Nigeria’s Sambisa Forest in May. She says they fled the camp by themselves and were not rescued by the Nigerian military, contrary to reports.

Her husband, identified as Mohammed Hayatu at the time of their escape, told a witness that he too had been kidnapped by Boko Haram.
He was placed in military detention for interrogation by Nigeria’s joint intelligence centre.

Amina Ali says she has no idea where he is now and is keen to be reunited with him.
“I’m not comfortable with the way I’m being kept from him,” the painfully shy 21-year-old told the media in her first worldwide interview, at an undisclosed location in Abuja Tuesday.
Addressing the father of her child directly, she says: “I want you to know that I’m still thinking about you, and just because we are separated doesn’t mean I have forgotten about you.”

Courage to flee

Her statements came two days after the terrorist group released a grisly video showing the dead bodies of young women, taken in the aftermath of what Boko Haram says was a Nigerian airstrike.
Amina Ali says a dozen captives died in a bombing more than a year ago, which suggests that the footage is not new, according to a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Security Adviser.

The video also shows a Chibok girl reciting a scripted plea for the release of Boko Haram fighters in exchange for the kidnapped girls.
Amina Ali was one of 276 schoolgirls abducted at gunpoint from their boarding school in Chibok in April 2014, by Boko Haram fighters. As many as 57 girls were able to escape almost immediately, but more than 200 remain missing.
The kidnapping sparked global outrage and prompted global figures, including activist Malala Yousafzai and first lady Michelle Obama, to support the campaign to #BringBackOurGirls.
Amina Ali refuses to talk about the attack, saying only she cannot remember what happened that fateful day.
For a year after they were taken, the abducted girls were kept together, she says. Then some of the teenagers — including her — were “given” to the terrorists as wives.