Nigeria-terrorist

The 300 metres separating Aisha Ali’s new house from the old farmhouse may seem short, but it represents the long journey of her life. The 45-year-old widow crosses fields of various crops that she tends. 

Aisha was not an active farmer; her late husband handled that. However, he was abducted in 2023 by Boko Haram terrorists while working on their farm in Malari Village, Mafa Local Government Area of Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, and was later killed after they failed to pay a ransom. 

“My life changed tragically,” she recounted with a weary calm. 

Aisha’s husband’s death made her the breadwinner of a 10-person household, which included her six children and three of her husband’s siblings. She had no choice but to take up the hoe. 

A year later, her 10-year-old son was abducted by terrorists. He was later released when they learned that they had killed his father in the past.

It was under this constant shadow of fear, relying on subsistence farming and petty trade, that Aisha and her family found a fragile balance until the night the water came.

The midnight escape

In September 2024, a ruptured dam in nearby Alau, coupled with heavy rainfall, led to floods that submerged Maiduguri and surrounding communities, including Muna displacement camp, where Aisha lived with her family. 

They had gone to bed after an exhausting day, but around midnight, screams from the neighbours woke them up. “I woke up and saw water everywhere,” she recounted. 

Amid the terrifying mix of darkness and rising water, there was no time to save their belongings. She rallied her children, strapped the youngest to her back, and fled into the downpour. 

Together with other displaced persons, they walked for hours until they found dry land, where they stayed until dawn. When the water subsided, Aisha returned to find her entire life washed away. “We became homeless without our belongings,” she said.

A doorless shelter and hope

Staying at the displacement camp was not an option, as the government had already planned to shut it down. “Returning to Dubula, our ancestral home, was not an option either,” she said 

Aisha looked for shelter nearby and found one on credit—an uncompleted building. The structure had no doors, leaving her family vulnerable to constant theft. What few items they acquired were often stolen when they stepped out, turning their temporary shelter into a trap of insecurity. The widow, who had survived both Boko Haram and the flood, now faced the demoralising grind of daily survival in an exposed space.

Since there was no other alternative, they continued living in the building.

Aisha said it was overwhelming, but she held onto hope and did the best she could to care for her children. Weeks later, SOS Children’s Village, a global humanitarian organisation, visited the community for an assessment. “When they came around, I initially dismissed them for one of those numerous NGOs that normally come around to take our data but offer nothing much but some measures of grains,” Aisha told HumAngle. However, she registered with them as a widow and head of her household. 

SOS returned with support that Aisha describes as “an investment in dignity”. She underwent training in smart farming techniques, followed by a starter kit of essential tools: a pumping machine for irrigation, a spraying machine, insecticides, fertiliser, a wheelbarrow, and processed seeds.

“This support transformed our lives and brought relative comfort to us,” she added.

The first harvest 

With the implements, cash support, and farming inputs, Aisha got to work. She cultivated beans, pepper, tomato, okra, onion, and yams. 

She made her first harvest this farming season. “I was able to use the money from my first farm harvest to escape the unsafe shed,” she said, adding that she paid ₦30,000 for half a year’s rent on their current house. Her family now has enough food, and the surplus is sold to cover essential needs like medication.

“I am most excited that for the first time, my children are now in school—something we could not afford before,” she told HumAngle. 

Aisha explained that her income varies depending on what she takes to the market and how much she can harvest. “There is no fixed amount,” she said. “For beans, a full ‘mudu’ — that’s a standard measuring bowl — sells for between ₦1,200 and ₦1,300. Sometimes I sell up to half a bag, which is about 20 mudus. For tomatoes, a basket goes for about ₦25,000, and we usually get two or three baskets, depending on the yield.”

She hopes that the cycle of loss and disaster has finally been broken. 

“I thank the SOS people for coming to our aid because only God knows the fate that would have befallen me and my family if I had not received their support. They didn’t come to give us fish, but they came to teach us fishing,”  she said. 

Aisha said other women also received the support: “I saw them during the training, and I believe they are doing well with their families as well.”

According to Fredson Ogbeche, the Humanitarian Action Manager at SOS Children’s Village Nigeria, “One hundred families, many headed by women transforming grief into drive just like Aisha, benefitted from the intervention.”

One of the women, Aisha Bukar, is also a widow. The 55-year-old lives in the Elmiskin 2 area of Jere LGA, Borno State. Life has been a relentless succession of personal loss as she has buried seven of her 12 children over the years due to the conflict and lost her husband to a prolonged illness. This overwhelming hardship was compounded last year when destructive floodwaters swept through her home. Having lost everything in the flood, she had to start all over again. 

“What the government offered as a palliative for the flood survivors did not go around to many of us. We were almost stranded until SOS came to assist us,” she said. 

SOS Children’s Villages Nigeria is one of the humanitarian organisations that provided post-flooding recovery support for survivors. Aside from the farm implements and inputs, the organisation gave ₦395,000 to each beneficiary. 

Bukar did not go to the farm. She used the funding to meet domestic needs and also started a tailoring business where they mass-produce and sell children’s clothes.

She said that the steady income has given her daughter a second chance at education. 

United States President Donald Trump has directed the Department of War to prepare for what he called “possible action” to eliminate Islamic terrorists in Nigeria, citing alleged widespread attacks on Christians. The directive, issued through his Truth Social media platform on Saturday, marks one of the most aggressive foreign policy statements by the Trump administration since returning to office.

In the post, President Trump accused the Nigerian government of “allowing” the killing of Christians and threatened to end all U.S. aid and assistance to the country if what he described as “Christian persecution” continued.

“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump wrote. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!”

The remarks came barely a day after Washington redesignated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), a status applied to nations accused of tolerating or engaging in severe violations of religious freedom. Nigeria was previously placed on and later removed from the CPC list under the Biden administration. 

Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responds cautiously, “Nigeria is a Secular Democracy.” He rejected Trump’s claims and designation, describing them as “ill-informed and unhelpful”, adding that “Nigeria remains a secular democracy anchored on constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and belief.”

The Nigerian presidential office said in a statement from Abuja, “We reject any characterisation that seeks to define our complex security challenges through a single religious lens.” The Nigerian government maintains that ongoing violence in the country’s Middle Belt and northern regions is driven by multiple intersecting factors—including poverty, criminality, land disputes, and weak governance—rather than a campaign of religious persecution.

Security analysts and conflict researchers have similarly warned against oversimplifying Nigeria’s insecurity as a Christian–Muslim conflict. “What we see in places like Plateau, Benue, Zamfara, and Borno are overlapping crises involving ethnic competition, resource scarcity, violent crimes, and terrorism,” said a recent HumAngle report.

The HumAngle analysis titled Nigeria’s Conflicts Defy Simple Religious Labels revealed that communities of both faiths have suffered from terrorism and violent crimes, and that attackers often frame violence around identity to justify or mobilise support for their actions.

While Boko Haram and its offshoot, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), continue to target civilians and security forces in attacks that often include Christian victims, the violence has also claimed thousands of Muslim lives.

HumAngle’s investigations have shown that the narrative of a “Christian genocide” obscures the complex and fluid alliances that define local conflicts. Extremist groups, criminal gangs, and vigilante forces often operate with shifting motives, depending on context.

Analysts say Trump’s statement may reflect both foreign policy posturing and domestic political calculation. With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, evangelical Christian groups have increasingly highlighted claims of Christian persecution across the world, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.

Earlier this year, Ya Jalo Mustapha stayed with her two sons, Ali and Bor, in Njimiya, a village in Sambisa Forest, Borno State, North East Nigeria, an area under the governance of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). 

In Njimiya, as in other villages under its control, ISWAP’s authority is absolute — enforced through rules, fear, and constant surveillance.

One day, Ya Jalao’s sons went out and never returned. No one could say where they had gone or whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, rumours spread that some men from nearby settlements had been seized by the military during raids.

Such disappearances are not uncommon in Borno State, where years of insurgency have blurred the lines between civilians and suspects. In one well-known case, 42 men from Gallari village were arrested by the military on suspicion of being Boko Haram members and detained for 12 years without trial; only three were recently released. Other times, the insurgents also abduct and forcibly recruit young men. 

In October, five months after their disappearance, Ya Jalo’s daughters-in-law remarried Boko Haram terrorists. 

Stranded with her four grandchildren, Ya Jalo knew she could not remain in Njimiya. Her eleven-year-old granddaughter, Magana, was next in line to be forced into marriage. “A suitor was already chosen for her,” Ya Jalo told HumAngle. “I was at the risk of losing her, too.”

Staying in the villages is rarely a sign of loyalty. For most families, it is because they risk execution if they flee, while staying at least allows them to eat from their farms.

Every day brought a deeper fear for Ya Jalo. She worried that her grandsons would slowly absorb the teachings of the insurgents. With no schooling except the sermons of Boko Haram, the risk of their indoctrination weighed heavily on her.

She kept her plan secret until the morning of her escape. That day, Ya Jalo informed neighbours that she was visiting a relative in a nearby settlement with her grandchildren. That began the three-day trek to Bama town. They travelled through bush paths, walking mostly at dawn and dusk until they reached the camp. 

“The journey was full of risks and uncertainty,” she said. “Even the children don’t know where we’re heading.” They eventually arrived. 

A different kind of struggle

For families fleeing Boko Haram-held villages, arriving at the Bama IDP Camp feels like stepping out of a nightmare. Many come with the hope that they are walking into safety, a place where food, shelter, and healing will finally be waiting. 

But what they find is a different struggle altogether. The displacement camp has exceeded its capacity, with hundreds of people living there. In early 2025, the government relocated about 3,000 persons to Dar Jamal, a small fraction that barely reduced the camp’s congestion. 

New arrivals, like Ya Jalo, often sleep in the open because no shelters are available. Since she was with children, Ya Jalo moved in with a relative who lives nearby. 

At the camp, individuals are required to register with the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), which forwards the information to ZOA International. The organisation provides breakfast and lunch for five days and a cash token of ₦11,450 per person for three months. 

However, there is no provision for education, healthcare, and psychosocial support.  

Several others who are fleeing their homes for refuge at the camps are confronted with this reality. “We thought this would be a place to rest, but it is only another kind of struggle,” Hajja Kura lamented. She fled Zarmari in October, another Boko Haram stronghold, in early July to the Bama displacement camp.

The absence of proper shelter and long-term care leaves many returnees questioning whether their escape was worthwhile. Some, disillusioned, quietly return to their villages, where the danger of insurgents still lurks.

Children at risk

In Bama, Ya Jalo’s fears for her grandchildren continue in new ways. She often worries about how years of exposure to insurgent preaching may have shaped their minds.

“The children are like wet clay,” said Abba Kura, a community leader at Bama. “Whoever holds them first will shape them. In many of those villages, it was Boko Haram who held them first.”

The effect is visible across the camp. When HumAngle visited, ten-year-old Modu Abbaye recalled lessons he learned in the forest. “Boko Haram are kind,” he said. “They always preach to us not to cheat people, to be kind, and not to insult others.”

Even though the group killed his parents and his friend’s father, a schoolteacher, Modu still speaks of them with a child’s innocence. He has never attended a formal school and insists he never will because “it is forbidden”.

“I don’t want to go to school,” said Modu. He lives with a relative at the camp.

Due to the absence of structured education and psychological support at the camps, many children remain caught between conflicting identities, victims and vessels of the very ideology that uprooted them.

“Children growing up in displacement camps or conflict zones suffer disrupted education, delayed development, and persistent anxiety. They often struggle to imagine futures beyond survival,” said Mohammad Usman Bunu, an educator at Future Prowess School for displaced and vulnerable children in Maiduguri.

For Ya Jalo, that future feels uncertain too. As she watches her grandchildren adjust to life outside of their hometown, she is haunted by the same questions: what kind of lives will they build without their fathers and mothers, and will they ever know peace again? Her thoughts often drift to Ali and Bor, the sons who vanished months earlier.

“I also came here to wait for news of my sons,” she said. “I feel closer to them in Bama. I believe they are with the military, and one day I will be reunited with them.”

In Borno’s camps, stories like hers echo everywhere. Families are displaced, divided, and still holding on to hope that the war has not taken everything from them.

It’s 1:00 p.m., and the sun in Maiduguri, North East Nigeria, scorches without mercy – too hot to stand still and too bright to keep eyes open. Under the blistering heat, however, children clutch their bowls tightly, roaming the streets for food.

When it rains, they shiver violently, teeth clattering loud enough to be heard from several feet away, their stomachs rumbling, their eyes scanning for anything edible. With bleeding heels and limps from split soles, their skin looks cracked during the harmattan. They often wander around, drifting through dumpsites with empty bowls or plastic bags clutched to their sides.

At fast food joints, they watch others eat, swatting flies from their eyes and the corners of their mouths, waiting for crumbs or spilt leftovers. By nightfall, they curl under bridges or behind kiosks, sleeping beneath shop awnings, or wherever a patch of shadow might pass for shelter. 

They survive on dumpsites and gutters, scavenging for scraps, stretching out their palms to uninterested pedestrians, and knocking on car windows with quiet pleas. Some chant, some mumble, and some say nothing at all. It rarely makes a difference; most of the time, no one listens. 

HumAngle has spoken to scores of children uprooted and shaped by the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeastern region. Broken and disadvantaged, many of these children say they resort to scavenging at dumpsites to survive, searching through refuse to feed themselves and support their families.

Twelve-year-old Ibrahim Ali, one of the scavenging boys HumAngle interviewed, returns with some metal scraps from a day-long exploration. “I always look for metal scraps that I can sell to support my family,” Ibrahim said. “On a good day, I find three to four kilos of metal that I sell for ₦300 per kilo. But on normal days, I get less than that. Sometimes I may end up without getting any scraps worth selling.”

The Boko Haram conflict unravelled the social safety net entirely. It swelled the ranks of the homeless, turned children into scavengers, and broke the links between family, education, and protection. When two cases of child abuse surfaced recently in the media, the public had a rare glimpse into the routine violence many children silently endure. The first involved a schoolgirl caught plucking mangoes, who was beaten with fists and kicks by the tree’s owner. The second was a video that emerged from a Tsangaya school: a boy stripped shirtless, doused with water, sand poured over him, and lashed mercilessly by his teacher.

The backlash was swift. The teacher was arrested. The state awarded the boy a scholarship. There was outrage. There were hashtags. However, the troubles facing children caught up in war zones are far more disturbing; the future of many of them is held to ransom by terrorists, ruining lives and properties in the suburbs of Borno state.

Bama, for instance, was once a bustling commercial hub, a critical trade link for merchants from Cameroon and neighbouring Nigerian states. But in 2014, it became the first major town to fall to Boko Haram. What followed was the collapse of life as it had once been. When the military reclaimed the town, a deepening humanitarian crisis emerged. Today in Bama, children roam the streets. Many have no idea where their parents are or what it means to be cared for.

These gaps in protection are realities carved into the lives of children like Adamu and Bala, who are forced to navigate survival without the support of family.

Adamu is just 10 years old, yet he carries himself with the hollowed, guarded manner of someone much older. He lives alone in a displacement camp in Bama, a place originally meant to provide safety, but where no one takes responsibility for him. “I don’t know who my parents are,” he said quietly, avoiding eye contact. “I just sleep anywhere in the camp. Sometimes near the fence, or by the market sheds.”

At sunrise, he sets out for Bama town, wandering in search of food. “In the morning, I go to town to beg. That’s how I survive,” he said. 

In Konduga, 12-year-old Bala lives a different but equally difficult life. He shares a shelter in the IDP camp with his mother and two younger brothers, but the conditions are dire. “We don’t have food,” he said. “I beg on the streets to eat.” His father disappeared years ago, and Bala doesn’t know whether he’s alive or dead. Now, as the oldest child, he bears a responsibility far beyond his age, providing for his family.

Both boys are among the estimated 2.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Borno, more than half of whom are children. Despite the scale of the need, investment in education remains limited. Between 2020 and 2023, the Education Cannot Wait (ECW) initiative allocated US$20.1 million to support nearly 2.9 million children across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe. In 2024, it pledged another US$15 million to reach over 130,000 more. 

“We cannot talk about algebra when they haven’t eaten,” said Mohammad Bunu, an educationist working with displaced and vulnerable children in northeastern Nigeria. The real crisis isn’t infrastructure; it’s the disconnect between formal education models and the survival realities of children in camps and communities, he said.

Bunu calls for a shift toward community-based education that combines basic literacy with vocational training, such as carpentry, tailoring, agriculture, and technology. “They need a path beyond begging or just attending school. Reintegration isn’t only for ex-combatants. We must invest in skills that restore dignity.

Longkat Enock, a clinical psychologist, adds that education must have structured emotional support. “You can’t heal a broken society if you ignore its broken children,” he warned. “They’ve seen killings, starvation and abandonment, yet no one asks how they feel.”

Longkat advocates for trained counsellors, safe spaces, and mentorship. “If we keep acting like food and books alone are enough, we’ll be here again in ten years, facing even more shattered futures.”

“We’re not just talking about children missing school, we’re talking about children missing entire stages of development,” said Bunu. “In many of these camps, there’s no structure, no routine, no trained teachers. It’s impossible to talk about rebuilding a society without rebuilding its education system first.”

The coordinators of a makeshift displacement camp at the Government Day Science Secondary School (GDSSS) in Bama say they host over 109,000 people, including more than 64,000 children.

When HumAngle visited the GDSSS school within the camp, the classrooms were empty, and only five teachers were present. “We don’t have more than 50 pupils attending class regularly,” one teacher said.

“When these boys grow up without any care, what will they turn into?” asked Bulama Abdu, a community elder in Bama. “We suffered from one generation of angry boys with guns. Are we raising another?”

“Conflict doesn’t end by hosting displaced people at camps or even back to their communities. If children are left without education, stability, or guidance, the trauma festers. They become vulnerable to criminality, violence, even new forms of extremism,” Enock added.

This concern is similar in post-conflict zones. In South Sudan, neglected war-affected youth became prime targets for militia recruitment. In post-war Liberia, years of childhood abandonment fed into cycles of urban violence. The Nigerian government has refused to articulate a long-term reintegration and education policy specifically targeting children displaced or affected by the Boko Haram conflict. 

Reintegration efforts in the northeastern region largely prioritise ex-combatants, neglecting civilian victims and displaced children. Education-in-emergencies programs, such as learning centres for orphans, remain donor-dependent and limited in scale. Just 27 per cent of school-aged children in humanitarian response plans have received adequate education support, leaving the vast majority without access.

Health educators note that many Nigerians resist birth control on religious grounds. One family-planning counsellor explained that when the term for “family planning” (literally “limiting birth”) was introduced in Hausa (“Kaiyadde Iyali”), people instantly objected, asking, “Who are you to limit birth?”.  They cite Qur’anic teaching that “Allah will provide for all children.” Many of them see large families as divinely ordained and avoid family planning on faith-based grounds.

Traditional socioeconomics also favour big families.  In rural northern society, women live mostly at home and rely on children for chores and farm work.  Children thus serve as household labour and social security.  Having many sons or daughters brings status and assistance.

When HumAngle randomly spoke to some young persons in Maiduguri, the sentiment was nearly unanimous: family planning is perceived as a Western concept, alien to their values. Most respondents said they desired at least eight children, with several aiming for ten or more. “It is God who takes care of children,” said one of the young men. “Every child comes with their destiny. If he makes it, he will make it. If not, nothing the parents do will change that.”

For 27-year-old Adamu Ali, fathering ten children is part of his plan. “At least five of them will grow up to look after me when I’m old,” he said with conviction. His rationale is not uncommon in most northern communities where the collapse of formal social safety nets has reinforced the reliance on children as a form of long-term security.

UNICEF reports that Borno has one of Nigeria’s highest out-of-school rates, as roughly 1.8 million children lack access to schooling. A study found that conflict-affected women showed increased preference for larger families, viewing “more children as a coping strategy amid insecurity, seeking enhanced social and economic security, or replacing lost members during the conflict”. 

In other words, families often cling to the belief that God will provide for any children they have, even when resources vanish.  Humanitarian workers and relatives thus become the de facto caregivers for these unplanned generations, as villagers insist on growing their families in the hope of divine provision.

The ongoing boko haram conflict has shattered traditional support systems. Where once extended families or religious communities would help raise children, displacement and poverty have made that impossible.

“We don’t plan children,” said Hajja Fatima, a 45-year-old widow in Maiduguri raising six children alone. “That is God’s work. If he gives, you take.”