‘It’s been 12 years, and I’m still hopeful my children will return home.’ These were the words of Sa’adiya Abubakar, whose three children were taken by insurgents when they attacked their village in 2014. Just like her, many parents in her situation hold on to hope that one day their children would return home. For years, these parents have lived with a question no parent should ever have to ask: where is my child?
The insurgency took their children away, but didn’t take away the memories and trauma they experience daily from not knowing where their children are, or if they are alive. Year after year, they waited, searched, and held on to hope, marking anniversaries and keeping belongings that carry the presence of those who many say may never come back home after they were captured.
In a chat with Weekend Trust, parents and relatives tell their stories of unending pain: of the day their children and loved ones disappeared, the trauma years after, and the hope that, one day, they would reunite with them again.
For many residents in Nigeria’s North-East, the heavy boom of artillery may have faded, and the frontline shifted, but a silent, psychological war rages on inside their homes.
Last Sunday, families across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states gathered to commemorate the International Day of the Disappeared.
While the global event brought renewed attention to the missing, for the thousands gathered, it was another day of confronting a decade-old nightmare: the agonising uncertainty of loved ones who vanished during the peak of the Boko Haram insurgency.
According to recent data from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), more than 17,000 people are currently registered as missing in Nigeria.
Over 90 per cent of these disappearances are tied to the armed conflict in the North-East, alongside banditry and mass kidnappings in the North-West and North-Central.
Of this figure, Borno State alone accounts for approximately 9,000 cases, followed by Adamawa with 3,000, and Yobe with 2,500.
Behind these staggering statistics are deeply personal stories of parents, siblings, and children trapped in limbo, neither able to grieve a confirmed death nor embrace a joyful return.
In Adamawa State, families who spoke to Weekend Trust recounted harrowing transition from peaceful village lives to the harsh realities of displacement.
For Mrs Alheri Papka Abuju, the nightmare began in August 2014 when Boko Haram insurgents attacked Kuda village in the Gulak district of Madagali Local Government Area. In the dark chaos of the raid, her 35-year-old brother, Mathew Papka, disappeared. And for over 10 years, he hasn’t been seen or heard from.
‘The fateful day that these bad elements stormed our village, it all started like a film show because they were wielding different dangerous weapons, forcing us to run in confusion,’ Abuju recalled.
She appealed to the authorities to help search for her brother.
Sa’adiya Abubakar, a resident in a suburb of Girei Local Government Area, expressed shock over the tragic fate that befell her community and took away four of her loved ones.
Recalling the fateful day in 2014 when Boko Haram insurgents struck their hometown, she said the attack began with sporadic shooting in nearby villages before theirs was overrun within minutes.
She recounted how he lost four of her loved ones – her 30-year-old sister and her three children, Musa (12), Dauda (10) and Nana (8) at Sabongari Hymbula, lamenting that for 12 years now, they have remained missing.
‘If you add 14 years to their ages, they have become adults elsewhere,’ she noted.
Beyond the vacuum left by their absence, Abubakar lamented the societal stigma attached to their displacement, saying people in their host community look down on them.
For over a decade after the darkest days of insurgency, haunting accounts from Abdulrahaman Bukar Gwoza and Saleh Barkido Madagali shed more light on the brutal tactics used by Boko Haram during their territorial expansion in August 2014.
Their harrowing stories bear striking similarities. Both men recounted how the terrorist group utilised a calculated combination of psychological deception, religious rhetoric and brute force to recruit and take young men away from their communities.
The fall of Gwoza
For Abdulrahaman Bukar Gwoza, the nightmare began on August 8, 2014 when insurgents approached residents in their farmlands before moving into the town under the guise of preaching.
They targeted male youths, urging them not to flee their homes but to cooperate and join them as foot soldiers for a radical religious ideology. However, when local elders advised the youth to sneak away, the true and violent nature of the insurgents was swiftly revealed.
Realising that their recruitment drive was failing, the terrorists began hunting down those who discouraged the youth from joining them.
Among the victims was Gwoza’s elder brother, who he recalled was ‘slaughtered like a chicken’ in front of his grieving family.
To escape the carnage, Gwoza and his surviving family members embarked on a perilous journey through Liman-Kara, Madagali and Uba Askira before finally finding refuge in Yola.
The escape, however, came at a devastating cost. Gwoza said his aunt lost five children during the chaos. Also, her 17-year-old daughter, Zainab Mohammed and two of her friends have remained in the custody of the insurgents after refusing forced marriages to their captors in the bush.
However, a glimmer of hope recently emerged through a relative named Fatima, who managed to escape when military troops raided an insurgents’ stronghold in the Sambisa forest.
Fatima reported that the remaining captives were still alive, albeit held under heavy surveillance.
A similar tragedy befell the community of Wagachawa ward in Madagali, where Saleh Barkido Madagali witnessed the terrorists arrive on August 28, 2014.
According to Barkido Madagali, the insurgents initially adopted a friendly demeanor, claiming they were not enemies of the local populace but adversaries of the federal forces.
They utilised monetary inducements and persuasive preaching to lure Muslims in the community into adopting their ideology.
However, that didn’t last. On a fateful Saturday, the insurgents rounded up neighbouring villages, including Mildu, Shuwa, Kamale and Madagali towns, giving residents a grim ultimatum: forced indoctrination or death.
Madagali’s family was deeply fractured by that invasion. Four of his relatives-Abubakar Buba (30), Suleiman Barkido (46), Mamudu Barkido (32), and Asiya Aminu (20), remain unaccounted for, believed to be languishing in militant captivity.
‘We learnt that they are still alive,’ Barkido said, holding onto hope for their eventual release.
Joshua Audu, the Adamawa State secretary of the Families of the Disappeared also recalled the harrowing events of September 5, 2014 when insurgents violently uprooted him from his thriving poultry farm in Mildu village.
Recalling how the sudden and violent onslaught shattered his livelihood and tore his family apart, Audu said, ‘Amid the chaos and tension, my wife’s younger brother and his assistant, Peter Ali, were captured by the attackers.’
Taken away during the raid, he has remained missing ever since, leaving the family in a painful state of uncertainty.
Across the state, numerous families share the same haunting grief, caught between hope and despair as they search for relatives who disappeared during the height of the insurgency.
Those interviewed by our reporter described a harrowing cycle of dashed hope. In several cases, families were told that their missing loved ones had been spotted in distant locations, including neighbouring towns and across the border in the Republic of Cameroon.
Driven by desperation, many relatives undertook perilous journeys to verify these rumours, only to find no trace of truth to the claims. These dead-ends have compounded the psychological toll on families, who are left with neither closure nor confirmation of their loved ones’ fates.
Compounding tragedies in Borno
In Borno State, the quest for missing relatives has often been compounded by secondary tragedies, stripping families of even their physical memories.
For Kashim Mohammed, the chairman of Families of Missing Persons in Borno State, the pain of losing his 30-year-old half-sister, Falmata, is as raw as it was 14 years ago.
Falmata went missing while migrating towards Port-Harcourt to escape the relentless violence in Maiduguri. Just as the family found a glimmer of hope through an informant who claimed to have seen her across the border, the informant died, cutting off their only lead.
To compound Mohammed’s grief, the devastating September 11, 2024 flood that struck Maiduguri washed away a metal box containing Falmata’s childhood pictures. Left with no photographs, Mohammed relies entirely on memory.
‘I recall that when I was in school, she sold her television set, gave me the whole money and encouraged me to continue with my education. She was the firstborn of my stepmother. I will never forget this,’ Mohammed said, his voice heavy with emotion.
For others, the psychological toll manifested physically. Ba Modu Ali lost his 13-year-old daughter, Adama, when she was snatched by insurgents on motorcycles over a decade ago. The heartbreak was intense. Ali said he literally cried until he lost his sight.
‘Now, I can barely even see my own hand, but the pain is still very fresh in my heart,’ he said.
Hajiya Yakura Abatcha lost three children: Habu, Abba, and Aisha during the violent sack of Baga town 12 years ago as families fled by boat towards Chad.
She narrated how trauma pushed her to the brink of a mental health crisis.
‘A few weeks later, I lost my senses and barely remembered or recognised anything,’ Yakura recalled.
Today, Yakura’s routine is simple, yet heartbreaking: ‘I only supplicate to God to reunite me with my children or forgive them if they are dead.’
Yobe families bear heavy burden of uncertainty
In Yobe State, the passage of time has done little to ease the pains of the families of missing persons.
For some, the search for husbands, wives, brothers and sisters has spanned more than a decade, leaving shattered households, and orphaned children.
For these families, the hardest part isn’t just the absence but the absolute uncertainty of not knowing if their loved ones are dead or alive, where they are, or if they would ever walk through the door again.
Malama Fatima Mustapha’s life was disrupted 13 years ago when her brother, Bukar Mustapha, disappeared following a Boko Haram attack on the weekly market in Buni Gari, Gujba Local Government Area.
Since then, she has not seen or heard from him. And his disappearance triggered a cascade of tragedies for the family.
Shortly after the incident, both their father and stepmother passed away. In 2016, Fatima suffered another devastating blow when her husband, a member of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), was killed in a firefight between security forces and insurgents.
Now, Fatima shoulders the responsibility of providing for both her own children and her missing brother’s children, while grappling with the complete loss of the family’s livelihood.
‘If he was here he would have replaced them, but since he is not around, I have to step into his position. If he is anywhere close, please let him come back home,’ Fatima said, holding back tears.
The story is similar in Damaturu, where Musa Garba Bularafa still searches for his eldest sister. She vanished in January 2021 after insurgents attacked their family home in Bularafa, Gulani Local Government Area, leaving two young children behind.
The news proved fatal for their father, whose blood pressure spiked dangerously upon hearing of his daughter’s disappearance, leading to his death.
‘Her disappearance affected everybody in our house and changed the course of our family’s life,’ Musa said, noting that he has taken in her children as he continues his desperate search.
For Bana Modu, a 47-year-old woman from Damaturu, hope has kept her single for over a decade despite multiple proposals. Her husband vanished more than 10 years ago, leaving her to raise four children alone, amidst crushing food inflation and poverty.
Compounding her trauma, two of her children were killed during the insurgency, and she could not even see their bodies.
‘I was 35 years old then, but now, I am 47. Although I am still young, I refused to remarry because I am optimistic that he will come back,’ Bana said, weeping.
A collective call for support, answers
The Yobe State chairman of Families of the Missing, Ali Idris, said those who vanished were far more than mere statistics. He said, ‘Every missing person is a father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, friend or loved one.’
According to Idris, for many of them, not knowing what happened to their loved ones is a burden they carry every day.
Beyond the emotional torment, Idris highlighted the severe legal, administrative, and economic challenges left in the wake of disappearances, such as difficulties accessing documentation and basic livelihoods.
He called for a coordinated, multi-sectoral approach involving the government, security agencies and humanitarian organisations to not only clarify the fate of the missing and support the left-behind families, but also to prioritise prevention.
Despite the profound sorrow, Idris offered a final word of encouragement to those walking the same painful path: ‘Do not lose hope. We understand the pain that comes with uncertainty – the sleepless nights, the questions, the memories and moments when hope becomes difficult to sustain.’
As the sun sets over the North-East, thousands of families continue to dial disconnected phone numbers, hold onto fading photographs, and wait for answers that may never come-trapped in a war without an end date.
Amid their ongoing pain, families of the disappeared expressed profound gratitude to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). They praised the humanitarian organisation for providing continuous counsel and multifaceted assistance, which they described as a vital source of inspiration and hope.
Reflecting on the unresolved plight of their families and numerous other citizens, the survivors called for the establishment of a dedicated government parastatal or a full-fledged ministry specifically mandated to handle issues concerning missing persons across the country, ensuring that victims of the insurgency are neither forgotten nor left to search alone.
How a mother lost 6 kids after 74-kilometer trek
The Special Adviser to the President on Health, Dr Salma Ibrahim Anas, who spoke on the crisis facing displaced families during the National Dialogue on Psychological Impact of Conflicts on Children, recounted the agonising journey of a mother who fled the violence in Bama, Borno State with her seven children, embarking on a grueling 74-kilometer trek to safety.
‘By the time she finally reached the relative safety of the Dalori Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, she had only one child left-with no knowledge of whether the other six were still alive or dead,’ Dr Anas said.
This heart-wrenching narrative, the presidential aide noted, is a symbol of a much broader, systemic crisis. Beyond the thousands of individuals officially listed as missing or unaccounted for, countless children remain alive but entirely severed from their families and support systems, wandering the landscape of displacement alone.
Dr Anas drew urgent attention to the plight of a generation born in Borno State since 2011. Having known nothing but conflict, displacement and instability, these children have endured compounding and profound trauma that she warns requires immediate, systematic intervention.
Without targeted psychological and social healing, the crisis threatens to echo far beyond the immediate humanitarian emergency.
‘I mean the psychosocial impact and what this child would carry to the next generation, in terms of behaviour, action, even nurturing, as well as their contribution to societal development,’ Dr Anas warned, underscoring the risk of trauma cascading into future generations of Nigerians.
Health and humanitarian experts who were engaged in the dialogue called for redoubled efforts to trace unaccompanied minors, reunite fractured families and deploy massive, long-term mental health resources to the region to break the cycle of generational suffering, highlighted by the Bama mother’s tragic journey
Aligning discussions with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ‘Renewed Hope Agenda,’ Dr Anas stressed that no country could progress without prioritising the health, protection and development of women and children.
According to her, Nigeria currently bears the highest number of out-of-school children globally, calling for evidence-based policies rather than speculation to dismantle the barriers affecting young lives.
Echoing these concerns, a former Minister of State for Education, Yusuf Tanko Sununu, shared the example of the psychological damage inflicted on the younger generation.
He referenced a widely circulated video of a child orphaned by Boko Haram who vowed to take up weapons to seek revenge after watching his father killed and his mother slaughtered in his presence.
Sununu stressed that such traumatised children desperately need urgent psychosocial support.
He warned that children who lack care ultimately lack compassion, creating a dangerous cycle of future instability.