- Amirah Salihu, a nurse and daughter of the Woro community chief, was among 176 women and children abducted on February 3
- Salihu said captives were fed poorly, slept in the open near a river, and were sometimes denied fire during heavy rain
- Terrorists later discovered Salihu’s nursing skills and tried to keep her with them, but she refused to stay
A nurse among the women rescued from terrorist captivity in Kwara State has described how she delivered 10 babies without gloves or medical equipment during nearly six months in the bush, after abductors asked whether anyone among the captives had nursing skills.
Amirah Salihu, the daughter of Umar Salihu, the chief of Woro community in Kaiama Local Government Area, spoke in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, July 25, days after she and other survivors were freed on Wednesday following their abduction on Tuesday, February 3.
Source: Twitter
Hunger, rain, and childbirth in captivity
Salihu said the captives were fed barely enough to survive.
“The kind of food that they were giving us was bad. The day that we got there, they just dropped guinea corn for us with salt and Maggi. Every day after, they gave us one bag of corn without oil, pepper, nothing. There was a day that they didn’t even give us Maggi again, just salt,” she said.
As reported by Punch, Beyond hunger, the group slept outdoors near a river, exposed to rainfall.
“They kept us inside river. The place that we sleep is inside river. And rain always used to fall, sometimes. If we set fire, they asked us to put off the fire,” she said.
When pregnant women among the captives went into labour, the abductors called for a nurse. Salihu initially stayed quiet, but eventually assisted.
“They asked of nurse, ‘Is there any nurse with us?’ I said no, because I was… I am also a nurse, I just used to help pregnant women do delivery. I helped like 10 women for the delivery, without gloves. I used my hands to help them,” she said.
Once the terrorists realised her skills, they tried to hold her back.
“When they got to know, they wanted to keep me, that I should stay with them, but I said no. I want to come back,” she said.
Why the community was attacked
Salihu said the attackers justified the violence in religious terms.
Source: Twitter
“They always say that they are working for Allah’s work. That they want us to work with what Allah said. That all what we are doing, we are doing constitution, democracy—that it is not good. That they want us to work with Quran. That’s the reason why they entered our village, killed everybody,” she said.
She lost two brothers in the attack, which she attributed to her father’s earlier resistance to the group.
“They said it’s because of my dad, because my dad did not allow them to come to our village,” she said, adding that her father had previously brought soldiers to the area, but the attackers struck after the soldiers had left.
Salihu confirmed there were no cases of r@pe or sexual assault during the period in captivity.
The 176 women and children were taken from Woro and the neighbouring Nuku community. The Kwara State Government said 13 children died in captivity and 12 others were not among those freed. Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq received the survivors in Ilorin on Friday, July 25, and later visited a general hospital where 14 sick victims, including three women who gave birth in captivity, were receiving treatment.
176 victims abducted in Kwara regain freedom
Previously, Legit.ng reported that Kwara state Government on Wednesday, August 5, confirmed that victims taken during the deadly February 3, 2026, attack on Woro and Nuku communities in Kaiama Local Government Area had been freed.
The announcement came through a post on the Kwara State Government’s official Facebook page, more than five months after 176 people were seized during one of the most violent raids the state has recorded.
Source: Legit.ng