When a loved one disappears, it can affect not only close friends and relatives but also their communities as a whole – and nowhere is this more evident than in northeastern Nigeria where thousands of people simply vanished – as if into thin air – during the 13-year insurgency.

On Tuesday, August 30, the world commemorated the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

The United Nations said hundreds of thousands of people had vanished during conflicts or periods of repression in at least 85 countries around the world.

Most of the disappearances in northeastern Nigeria were linked to the extreme violence perpetrated by members of the Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’way Wa’l-Jihād (JAS), better known as Boko Haram, who were responsible for thousands of deaths and the displacement of millions of people. Although somewhat abated, attacks by the JAS and members of its now more powerful and even more violent splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), still occurred and the insurgents had spread their onslaught into other parts of Nigeria, as well as the neighbouring countries of Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

Families in the northeast told RNI reporter Zainab Alhaji Ali about the desperate loss and enduring grief they still felt about the people they loved who disappeared. Some still held on to the belief that they would see them again; others had simply lost all hope.

Amina Mustapha, a mother who lives in Maiduguri, said: “I lost a daughter. Her name is Yakolo. She got married. It was an arranged marriage, long before we knew that he had joined Boko Haram and was one of the sect’s fighters.

“As a cultural practice, after the wedding I used to shop and take foodstuff to her home in the fasting period. For a long time they lived a peaceful life. That was before he joined Boko Haram.

“Later I heard news that my daughter was nowhere to be found. We searched and searched for her for a long time. Then we heard that her husband had taken her away forcibly to live with him in the bushes with other members of the sect.

“Her neighbours told us that she was shouting and screaming as her husband dragged her away with him. They said she did not want to leave and it was obvious that she was forced by her husband. Right now, I do not have any idea where my daughter is. I have not seen her for eight years. I don’t even know if she is still alive.

“We heard that she was taken to Sambisa Forest, to one of the strongholds of Boko Haram. Apparently, she tried to escape but to no avail. I don’t know how she is doing now.”

Mustapha said she still wept for her missing daughter.

Yakolo Bukar, an internally displaced person from Damboa said her son-in-law went missing when troops arrested him and took him away.

“My son-in-law was inside his room resting when the troops arrived to arrest him. He was a vigilante. The troops arrested nearly 100 people at that time.

“To this day we do not know why he was arrested. It has been six years now and we have not been told anything about him. He had two wives, my daughter and another woman. Neither of them have given up hope and they have refused to remarry. They are still living in hope that he will show up.

“He has four children. Three of them are my grandchildren and the fourth one is the other wife’s child. Both wives are taking care of the children. Neither receives any help feeding them or bringing them up. They used to depend on humanitarian aid for food but now they are working on a farm and get wages.”

Bukar said that someone had told them that her son-in-law had been released by the troops a year ago and that he was living in Abuja. “But we have not heard anything from him and he has not contacted either of his wives.”

Aisha Muhammad, a mother from Sandiya village in the Konduga Local Government Area, said: “My daughter was taken away by Boko Haram members. She was only 13 years old when they took her. One day when we were at home, we were sitting talking when a few Boko Haram members burst through the door. They told us they wanted to take our daughter and we refused. They threatened to kill her father if we did not allow them to take her and that’s when they left with her and we have not heard from her again.”

Muhammad said they had arranged for her to get married at the age of 15. “By then, we would have had two season’s worth of harvest and we would have been financially stable and ready to allow her get married. But they took her away from us.”

The mother said she still felt a deep sadness inside because of the loss of her daughter. “It has been eight years now and I don’t think she is still alive but, even though I think that, I still hold on to the hope that I will see her again one day. I pray every day that she will return to me.”

The United Nations said those forcibly removed were frequently tortured and feared for their lives. They were well aware that their families did not know what had become of them.

Even if death was not the final outcome and the victim was eventually released or escaped, the physical and psychological scars of this form of dehumanisation and the brutality remained.

The organisation said the families and friends of the victims experienced mental anguish, not knowing whether the victim was still alive and, if so, where he or she was being held, under what conditions and in what state of health. They alternated between hope and despair, wondering and waiting, sometimes for years, for news that often never came.

The disappeared person was often the family’s main breadwinner, the only one able to cultivate the crops or run the family business. In these cases, the emotional upheaval was exacerbated by material deprivation.

“Having been removed from the protective precinct of the law and ‘disappeared’ from society, victims of enforced disappearance are in fact deprived of all their rights and are at the mercy of their captors,” said the United Nations, adding that it was a serious violation of human rights.

AISHA SD JAMAL