Three weeks after gun-blazing bandits freed her abducted son, Hauwa’u Haruna still feels despair resulting from the incident that led to the abduction of 137 schoolchildren in the remote town of Kuriga in Kaduna state. The shock in her is apparent, and her teary eyes betray her grief, even as she struggles to hold back the tears cascading down her cheeks during the interview.
When the bandits kidnapped the schoolchildren, her husband, Abubakar Isah, who happened to be the school principal, was taken along but would not return alive as he died in captivity, succumbing to the torture and continuous beating inflicted on him by the bandits.
Haruna says she remembers her forty-year-old husband anytime she sets her eyes on her son, Isah Abubakar, who witnessed the gruesome killing of his father. “When I heard the news that the terrorists kidnapped the students, including my first child and my husband, I was really shocked. I was in this difficult situation when I learnt that my husband died in the hands of the bandits,” Haruna says.
The couple has five children together, and the burden of responsibilities has now completely shifted to her despite being a full housewife with no means of income.
“I do not have any business when my husband is alive as he took care of the family, but I am thinking of continuing with my husband’s business, which is selling cosmetics products,” she adds.
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