Boko Haram: “I cried for help, but no one would help me”, A Victim’s Story.

Abuja, Nigeria (CNN) — With every attack by
Islamist militants in northern Nigeria, Daniel
Ayuba relives a nightmare.

Two years ago, attackers planted a bomb near
a car wash in Maiduguri. The explosion
shattered his leg and left 80% of his body
covered in shrapnel.
It also flattened cars and motorbikes, and left
an entire neighborhood smoldering.
“I looked around me and there was fire burning, houses blown up and dead people,” said Ayuba, the scars still visible on most of
his body. “I kept on crying, crying for someone to come help me, but no one would come.”
Ayuba is among a fast-growing list of Boko
Haram victims.
The Islamist militants have
intensified their wave of terror targeting the
north and beyond.
And every attack gets more brazen.
They swoop in on foot, motorcycles
and car convoys. They hurl bombs
and pull guns with lightening
speed.
In April the terrorist group
attracted worldwide attention —
and condemnation — when it
abducted an estimated 276 girls in
April from a boarding school in
Chibok in northeastern Nigeria.
Dozens escaped, but more than
200 are still missing.
A few days earlier, the militants
bombed a bus station, killing at
least 71 people on the outskirts of
the capital of Abuja.
“When I heard the news, I started crying,” Ayuba said. “I said to myself, ‘What’s wrong with these people?'”
Father ambushed, killed
In his case, the car wash bombing
was not his first brush with the
militants.
Years before that, members of the
terror group ambushed his father, a police
officer, and sprayed his car with bullets. “When my father arrived … they came out, one of them shot him in the head”, he said. His
father died.
The lawless Borno state, whose capital is
Maiduguri, is a major hot spot for the
militants. So much so, it had banned
motorbikes a few years ago to prevent drive-
by attacks by Boko Haram.
The group is known to use gunmen on
motorbikes to kill.
Ripple effects
For nearly a year, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa
states have been under a state of emergency
due to the relentless assaults.
The Islamist militant group has bombed
churches and mosques; kidnapped women and
children; and assassinated politicians and
religious leaders.
Boko Haram — whose name means “Western
education is sin” in the local Hausa language
— says it wants to impose a stricter
enforcement of Sharia law.
Violence related to the group killed 1,500 in
the first three months of this year alone.
As the Nigerian military battles the brutal
militants, it’s breaking the rules as well.
Rights group accuse both sides of
ruthlessness — Boko Haram of indiscriminate
attacks, and the military of extrajudicial
killings.
And as the militants step up their attacks,
Ayuba is just glad to be alive. “It was God that saved me. He kept me alive on purpose, and I ask God every day to relieve that purpose to me,” he said.
He walks away with a limp, his scars a symbol
of an insurgency that will not be forgotten.
News Source: CNN