214 Rescued Women Impregnated By Boko Haram Say They Don’t Want To Keep Their Pregnancies

by Musa Abdullahi

A relief official in one of the Internally Displace Persons camp, Hadiza Waziri, says most of the rescued women from Sambisa forest who are pregnant with children of Boko Haram members say they don’t want keep their pregnancies.

Hadiza said this to the New York Times crew who visited their camp recently.

“We are going to have another set of Boko Haram. Most of these women now, they don’t want these pregnancies. You can’t love the child” – she said.

Many of the rescued women have shared tales of how they were converted to sex slaves while in Boko Haram captivity.

The United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), had said about 214 of the 687 women and girls so far rescued by the Nigerian Army from the dreaded Sambisa Forest in Borno State are at various stages of pregnancy.

UNFPA’s Executive Director, Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin said: “Consequently, since we have discovered that the magnitude of the challenge on ground is huge and there aren’t sufficient human resources to cope with this, we have sought for foreign assistance in human resources to help in the recovery process for these women and young girls.”

Meanwhile, Kashim Shettima, Borno state governor, had also said the rape of abducted women by Boko Haram insurgents is a deliberate agenda of the sect to get them pregnant so that they will give birth to future insurgents who would inherit their violent struggles.

Shettima, who spoke through a statement issued by Isa Gusau, his special adviser on media, called for urgent action to end the deliberate attempt of breeding future insurgents.

“From studies of practices associated with the insurgents, there is a general belief among them that whoever doesn’t share their ideology is an infidel, and as such, his wife and property can be freely acquired by the sect members, with the wives serving as slaves that should satisfy the sexual urge of their masters,” he said.

“I am happy with the recovery of hundreds of women and children; it is a thing of joy that they have been freed alive. However, I am also very worried about what the future holds for us if what I have gathered about these insurgents works according to their plan.