It is Saturday afternoon and the time is five minutes past two. At Government Secondary School, Uba in Borno State, a boy, about seven years old, seats on a table behind empty classrooms. Holding a gun-shaped broken arm of a chair, he takes aim across the field, squints his left eye for a perfect shot. As he settles his tiny index finger on an imaginary trigger, another boy, about his age and seated next to him, disrupts the mission. After attending to the fellow, the boy returns to his plot. Fastidiously, he levels the ‘gun’, coils the forefinger and then his mouth sounds the outburst of hot volleys: ‘Kpa-kpa-kpa-kpa‘. He raises his head to assess the result – all in the name play. Ironically, the youngster and all the targets of his simulation were victims and survivors of a real world industrial scale killings and destruction that the Boko Haram sect has unleashed on communities in Borno and parts of Adamawa. At the government-owned secondary school in Uba, they found peace, away from their homes and communities that have been besieged and overran by the marauding sect. The school is one of the designated camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) fleeing the violence. Since August, Boko Haram insurgents have stepped up attacks and conquered swathes of Borno and Adamawa states. In Borno, towns like Gwoza and Bama have fallen into the hands of the insurgents, while across the border in Adamawa, the sect has captured Madagali, Gulak, Michika and Baza. According to the camp’’s head, Ali Bello Gunaju, about 18000 displaced persons who escaped from the various theatres were registered there since it was opened in August, the month that Boko Haram declared Gwoza, which is 105km away, the headquarters of its caliphate. “About 10,000 additional displaced persons are scattered around Uba town, some of them being haboured by relatives, while others sleep in parks and market stalls,” he said. Bello disclosed that majority of the people at the camp were from Gwoza and its surrounding villages, comprising Goshe, Kirawa, Wala 1 and 2, Warabe, Fulka, Liman Kara, Hambadga and Goshen Sama. And others came from areas like Gulak, Michika, Shuwa, Madagali, Gubula, Sabon Gari, Baza, Usara, Kirshings and Izge in Adamawa State, he explained. Among the motley crowd that was the boy’s target was Amina Usman, the newest comer to the centre and one with fresh wound of Boko Haram violence. She arrived in the presence of our reporter with a fractured knee, broken spirit and splintered family. The woman, who appeared to be in her late 50s, said she was in Michika when Boko Harama took over the town. Worried about their safety, Amina and her family moved out of the town and relocated to Baza, which also fell to the insurgents, days after. “We were seated outside when, all of a sudden, we heard gunshots,” she recalled. “Every one of us jumped up from their seats and dashed into the house. In the ensuing melee, I fell down and when I stood up again and made to run, one of my legs failed,” the mother said amidst cry of pains. She suffered a fracture around the knee. Save one of her daughters who was in her company, Amina had no idea the whereabouts of her remaining eight children. All the classrooms and dormitories in the school had been taken over by the displaced persons, officials said. Outside the camp’s store, children had set fire, cooking handful of grains they collected from around the store. Close by, a girl was preparing meal and three children were peeping into the steaming pot, apparently longing to quench their raging hunger. Elsewhere, a group of women was knitting local caps and chatting boisterously. Though bursting at the seams with many people, the camp was still receiving streams of freshly displaced persons. Uba has not come under Boko Haram’s attacks previously but its proximity to towns like Bama (146km away), Damboa (111km away), Gwoza (105km away) and Chibok (71km away) that have witnessed Boko Haram’s atrocities stoked tension
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 05:29:06 +0000
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