11 Boko Haram hostages from Kolofata attack freed

11 teenage Cameroonians who were kidnapped alongside the vice prime minister’s wife by Boko Haram insurgents during the July 27 attack which left over 20 people dead in Kolofata are currently under the protection of administrative and security forces in Cameroon after they escaped from the camp they were being held.

Reports say that the children whose ages range between 7 and 15, were being held in a camp in Gozo, Nigeria. They crossed two Nigerian villages, Madagali and Vizik and got to Mokolo in Cameroon.

The children, who come from four families, explained to Cameroonian authorities that they escaped when an Islamic school in which they had been registered to study the Quran came under attack. They did not disclose who the attackers were.

However, they narrated how they journeyed from Gozo in the Nigerian Adamawa state to their home town, Mokolo in the Mayo Tsanaga Division, Far North region. They said it was facilitated by a passer-by who recognised one of them. The passer-by gave them his phone with which they called their parents who sent two people to pick them up.

The two envoys got to the children with the help of truck drivers who usually transport illicit fuel to Mokolo. They carried the emissaries and the victims to Mokolo. When the children arrived Mokolo, they could only speak Hausa and a little Arabic which they apparently learnt from the Quran School under Boko Haram. They revealed that the teachings in the Quran School are an initiation stage of Boko Haram training for its captives.

A local newspaper, reported yesterday that the children who got to Mokolo on August 15 are still under custody of security operatives. They will not let some two individuals mandated by a traditional ruler of the locality, Lawan Boukar, to take the children to their parents. Security insisted that only the immediate family members of the children will take them home from the motel in which they are being lodged.

The divisional officer for Mokolo, is said to have instructed the gendarmerie company commander of the sub-division to trace the parents of the children. The authorities fear that the kids could have been brainwashed and could be on a mission, reason why they want to hand them only to their parents.