Fatima Mohammed

She Hid Her 12-Year-Old Daughter in a Ditch for Nine Months to Save Her From Boko Haram In August 2014, Zainabu Hamayaji made a decision that would keep her daughter alive but force the young girl to spend nine months hidden underground. Hassana was only 12 years old. Her mother feared that Boko Haram fighters would abduct her and force her to become a child bride. To protect her, Zainabu hid her in a deep ditch behind their home in Madagali, Adamawa State, Nigeria. Then, she did something that made the plan even more extraordinary. She pretended to be mentally ill so the insurgents would leave her family alone. When Boko Haram invaded Madagali, families faced a terrifying choice. People who tried to escape were being killed, and Zainabu witnessed the violence firsthand. Her husband was among those killed. She was left trying to protect her children in a town controlled by the same fighters she feared would take her eldest daughter away. Zainabu had heard that the insurgents were looking for young girls to marry. When they learned she had a daughter of marriageable age, they came to her home. She denied having such a daughter, but they did not believe her. They beat her repeatedly. Her shoulder was dislocated, and she lost a tooth during the attacks. Zainabu realised that simply denying Hassana's existence would not be enough. She needed to make the fighters believe there was something about her family that made it dangerous to interfere with them. So she began acting as though she had lost her sanity. She loosened her hair, stripped off her clothes and wandered around the community. She rolled in rubbish and smeared herself with urine and faeces. The woman who had once lived an ordinary life was deliberately making herself an object of avoidance. The insurgents returned repeatedly to check whether her behaviour was genuine. Each time, Zainabu continued the act. Her younger children helped her maintain the deception. When the fighters questioned them about their mother's behaviour, they insisted that she had been mentally unwell for a long time and had previously visited a psychiatric hospital. The children were frightened, but they played their part. Eventually, the insurgents began to believe the story. According to Zainabu's account, they feared that harming a mentally ill woman or taking her child could bring a curse upon them. They even left a warning on the family's house telling other fighters not to attack them. But while Zainabu was trying to convince the insurgents that she was mentally unstable, Hassana was facing a different kind of ordeal. She was living inside a ditch. Her mother had prepared the hiding place with supplies, including food, water and matches. Hassana had to cook and manage her basic needs in the confined space. She also had to find a way to dispose of her waste. For nine months, the ditch became her hiding place. She could not simply walk outside whenever she wanted. Her safety depended on remaining hidden while her mother continued the deception above ground. It was an extraordinary burden for a child who should have been able to live without fear of being abducted and forced into marriage. Zainabu kept up the act, despite the beatings and the physical injuries she had suffered. Then, in March 2015, Nigerian soldiers recaptured Madagali from Boko Haram. When the soldiers encountered Zainabu, they were suspicious. They wanted to know how she had survived in the occupied town and questioned whether she had been married to a Boko Haram fighter. She denied it and explained what she had done to protect her children. The soldiers did not immediately believe her. So she took them to the hiding place. When they opened the ditch, Hassana was there. After nine months underground, the 12-year-old girl was finally brought out of hiding. The soldiers took the family to a camp for displaced people in Gwoza, where Zainabu later told her story to journalists.