During Easter, I was home in Auchi when seven young women returning from a funeral in Ekperi town were kidnapped by suspected Fulani herdsmen.
At a point, I participated in the negotiations, which at first was N10million per woman before release. It took two weeks for us to raise the N14 million, which they later settled for.
There were many other victims but these seven women were my neighbours’ wives.
And just last Tuesday, I was back in Auchi to receive them after over three weeks in captivity. Believe me, these women were violated and damaged beyond repairs. They were all bleeding from their private parts. The General Hospital Auchi, where the police took them to at first is still there and the Area Command of the Nigeria Police Force in Auchi is there to confirm from.
Some of these young married women were smelling of rotting flesh as they painted stories of endless violent rapes by different gangs of suspected herdsmen. At some points, according to them, some suspected Fulanis from different
camps trooped in to violate them in turns. Some came from different camps in the forest to ravage these women repeatedly.
These lunatics were probably aided by drugs to continually violate these women endlessly throughout the over four weeks they
were held in captivity. The women said they had agreed to maintain silence, but one of them screamed and revealed their ordeal and the rest of them spoke up. None of these women is up to 40 years and one is currently attempting
suicide.
Those of you who find it difficult to believe should wait until it happens to you or your relative. It’s gradually coming down on us as we
keep maintaining the culture of silence and
scepticism.
They don’t respect any religion, so it’s no use having some kind of religious affiliation with these monsters. They have no religion. It’s a form of organised crime syndicate to pillage, extort and rape our
people.
Florence Egbor,
Auchi, Delta State
