“The worst day of my life”
An unnamed victim of the Boko Haram insurgency in northern Nigeria has described the worst day he had ever experienced in the country.
Abdul-Hamid Ahmed told Al Jazeera’s Amal Clooney on Thursday that he was travelling with his wife and daughter to the north of the country in early December 2014 when he heard gunshots and saw the bodies of four men.
He said he immediately ran for cover and hid in the bushes.
“My wife ran to get a bucket of water, my daughter hid behind the bushes and then hid behind a tree, and I hid in a tree as well.
Then we all got frightened,” Ahmed said.”
Then we went outside and we saw three vehicles and two men inside of them and I realised that they were Boko Haram,” he said.
He then realised that one of them was the father of the four men he had seen with the guns.
“They were very tall, very muscular and they were wearing military uniforms and they had weapons in their hands.
I realised what they were doing.
I was afraid for my wife and my daughter,” he added.
He added that they ran into a group of people who were trying to help him.
“I said to them: ‘You are Boko Haram.
They are terrorists,'” he said, adding that they told him to get down.”
We then went inside the house where my wife was staying.
They asked us to get out.
So we went out and we got some water, and then we ran outside again,” he explained.”
But I could not move.
I could hear gunfire coming from inside the car.
The gunmen were firing and then they were running outside.
My wife said: ‘Don’t get scared.’
We got out, and we ran inside the next house,” he continued.
Abdel-Hamad Ahmed said he was hiding in the bush as Boko Haram fired.
Abu Ibrahim al-Anani, a teacher at a secondary school in Maiduguri, was killed on the day of his wedding when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle.
Abdullah, a farmer from Maidugur, was also shot dead by Boko Haram gunmen in early October, while a woman was killed and her three children were injured by gunfire at a market in the town of Baga on the outskirts of Maiduguru.
Abraham said he and his wife had fled to Maidugura on a train, but that Boko Haram militants were waiting for them there.
“When they got on the train, they shot us.
They shot our children and their wives.
They came to us and said: We have killed Abdullah.
We have murdered him,” he told Clooney.
Abel, a taxi driver from Maidaguri, said he saw the gunmen take the women and children into the town’s main square.
“A man in a white shirt walked up to us with a knife and said, ‘Kill us’,” he said.
“We got on board the train and we were not allowed to go to Maidagura,” he recalled.
Abul-Samad was also killed in the square.
His wife, who was sitting in the passenger seat, heard gunfire and called for him to be killed.
“She said: Stop shooting!
I could see bullets coming at us.
I ran and my wife died.
She died in front of me,” he recounted.
Abuela, a shopkeeper from Maidu, told Cloone that he saw gunmen in civilian clothes entering Maiduguran’s market and firing into the crowd.
“Boko Haram came and they started shooting and killing people.
I saw people running for their lives,” he alleged.”
And then they started coming towards me,” Abuela said.
Abula, a doctor from Maidugu, also said he had been targeted by Boko Haras gunmen.
“One day, I went to the market with my wife.
There were two gunmen, a man and a woman.
We were sitting in a booth.
One of the men asked me to go with him to the house, where we were hiding.
I asked: ‘Do you know where we are?’, and he said: No, I don’t know.
Then he came up to me and he started shooting at us,” he claimed.”
The gunman was shooting in the back of my head.
I lost my sight in my left eye,” he went on.”
There was a woman who was standing with me.
He was standing next to her and I saw blood coming from her hand,” he confirmed.
Abuzar, a school teacher from Maideguru, also told Cloony that he and other teachers and students had been shot and injured by gunmen who were firing on them.
Abusir, a construction worker from Maiduhu, said gunmen were waiting in the street and were shooting at the students.
“At that time, they opened fire at a truck which was transporting some students and some construction workers.