Slain aid workers: For the lives of others, they lost theirs

More than 32 people have been killed by insurgents in December from attacks by armed groups suspected to be members of the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP). Among the deceased were 11 captives executed on Boxing Day while seven people were killed on Christmas Day in a village near Chibok in Borno State. […]

More than 32 people have been killed by insurgents in December from attacks by armed groups suspected to be members of the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP). Among the deceased were 11 captives executed on Boxing Day while seven people were killed on Christmas Day in a village near Chibok in Borno State. Caught in the middle of the fight are hundreds of aid workers employed by international and domestic agencies to offer humanitarian aids to the survivors of the decade-long crisis.

Eight aid workers were killed in December 2019. This is the highest death toll to be recorded of aid workers since the killing of nine polio workers in Kano State in 2013.

The United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock said 38 United Nations (UN) and Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) workers, most of them Nigerian, have been killed since 2011. The killings are related to the Boko Haram violence in the northeastern region of Nigeria.

The figure, according to Lowcock includes 10 aid workers who died in nearly two years. Since Lowcock comments in October 2019, eight aid workers have been killed and two others abducted in December.

Among the eight were four aid workers of the six people abducted in July 2019. One was reportedly killed in September, leaving one, identified by Action Against Hunger as Grace, still in captivity. They were killed on December 13.

Grace was last seen alongside five others (males, now deceased) in a video released by the insurgents in July. They were attacked on the road to Damasak, Borno State. Officials of the Action Against Hunger said one of the drivers was killed when their convoy was attacked.

Also, on Sunday, 22nd December 2019, suspected Boko Haram insurgents killed four aid workers and abducted two others along Monguno-Maiduguri highway in the northern part of Borno State.

The humanitarian aid workers, sources said, were males, working with Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) including a pastor. They were ambushed by the suspected insurgents, who opened fire on them while two others were abducted.

The abduction of three aid workers in March 2018 by the insurgents followed the same pattern with the executed AAH workers. The aid workers were abducted in March and executed in September and October 2018.

They were Saifura Hussaini Ahmed Khorsa, Hauwa Mohammed Liman and Alice Loksha

Hauwa Mohammed Liman, a midwife was murdered in a ‘despicable act of cruelty,’ according to the ICRC in October.

Hauwa Mohammed Liman, 24, was abducted in an attack in north-eastern town on Rann alongside, Saifura Hussaini Ahmed Khorsa and Alice Loksha.

Saifura was killed on 16 September.

Hauwa and Saifura worked in a health-care centre supported by the ICRC; Alice worked in a centre supported by UNICEF.

Alice Loksha, abducted along with Hauwa and Saifura, was also reportedly killed later.

Also in March 2018, three aid workers with the United Nations were killed at an internally displaced persons camp in Rann, Borno State. One of the three deceased aid workers, Doctor Izuogu Anthony Onyedikachi, 33, was from Imo State, and the 10th of 11 children. He led UNICEF health and nutritional response in Rann and was also the inter-sector coordinator for the locality.

Through the 2017 rainy season, for months on end, when food supplies, clean water, and other basic things could not reach Rann, Dr. Kachi endured the hardship and deprivations and repeatedly placed the comfort of others ahead of his own.

When hostilities intensified in December, he was asked once again if he and his colleague, nurse Alice, wanted to move to a different location and he once again rejected the offer: “You can’t be serious,” he said, “We just finally started providing ante-natal care. We have to stay.”

“No words can describe this kind of courage, determination and unconditional generosity,” said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, Edward Kallon. Others were Emmanuel Yawe Sonter, an economist and an alumnus of the University of Maiduguri as well as Ibrahim Lawan.

Also, nine women who were vaccinating children against polio were killed in 2013. They were shot in Kano, by gunmen suspected of belonging to the Boko Haram sect. Also in 2011, 18 people were killed in a bomb blast at the UN building in Abuja.

 

Parents, relatives grieving over killings

Parents and relations of slain aid workers have expressed grief over their deaths.

Mohammed Liman, the father if ICRC’s Hawwa Liman, in an interview with Daily Trust  immediately after Hawwa was killed in 2018, expressed deep shock and disbelief over the killing of his daughter.

“They (her abductors) wanted a ransom to be paid to free my daughter; they  (government) say they would do their best and President (Buhari) sent a  delegation led by Minister for Information, Lai Mohammed and two others;  that was before her supposed execution because we are not sure; even though I am not sure that my daughter has been killed. Yes I am not sure because there was no evidence.

Mohammed said the federal government should expressly rescue other captives without any further delay. “I want the government to take immediate action as it has happened to my daughter I don’t want it to happen to other daughters, whatever means must be applied to rescue those in captivity. I will always remember her for what she chose to do; she chose to serve humanity, and that will not be forgotten.” Mohammed had said, weeping profusely.

The rising spate of abductions by the terrorists, in a seeming change of  war strategy, continues to cast a dark shadow over the activities of humanitarian workers struggling to save lives in the North-East.