A bride of a Boko Haram commander, Aisha,
has fled her home in Maiduguri, Borno State.
She also took with her the son fathered by
the top kingpin identified as Mamman Nur.
The 25-year-old is one of the 70 women and
children who finished a nine-month deradicalisation programme in February.
They had been freed by troops during the raid
on the Boko Haram camps in Sambisa forest.
The girl's sister, Bintu Yerima, disclosed that
Aisha packed her clothes and vanished after a
phone call.
"Before she left, she had received a phone call from a woman who was with her (in the programme)," 22-year-old Yerima told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"The woman said that she had returned to the
Sambisa forest."
Bintu added that phone calls to Aisha after
she disappeared went unanswered, and her
mobile has since been switched off.
Thomson Reuters Foundation recalled that
Aisha, earlier this year, told its officials that
women kidnapped by Boko Haram were given
to her as "slaves" because she was married
to a leading militant.
Reacting to the development, Fatima Akilu, a
psychologist and head of the Neem.
Foundation, an anti-extremism group, said she
received information that some of the women
who were under her care, including Aisha, had
gone back to Boko Haram.
She observed that some of the girls wanted
to go back because they felt at home and
powerful there, adding that another reason
could be the shame and trauma that comes
from the society.
"Rehabilitation, reintegration is a long process,
complicated by the fact we have an active,
ongoing insurgency," Akilu said.
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