A nurse, Amirah Salihu, who was recently rescued after spending nearly six months in captivity, has recounted the difficult conditions she and other victims faced in the hands of terrorists.

Salihu, who was among those abducted during the February 3 attack on Woro and Nuku communities in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State, said she helped 10 pregnant women deliver their babies while they were in captivity.

The nurse, who is the daughter of the Chief of Woro, Umar Salihu, disclosed this in an interview aired on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday.

She said the captives were poorly fed and often slept in the open, sometimes close to a river, despite heavy rainfall.

“The kind of food that they were giving us was bad. The day that we got there, they just dropped guinea corn for us with salt and Maggi. Every day after, they gave us one bag of corn without oil, pepper, nothing. There was a day that they didn’t even give us Maggi again, just salt,” she said.

Salihu said the captives were sometimes given kuka, a local food preparation, but that this was later stopped.

She added that they were often forced to sleep in the open and were not allowed to make fires when it rained.

“And they kept us inside the river. The place where we slept was inside the river. And rain always used to fall sometimes. If we set fire, they asked us to put out the fire,” she said.

Recalling how she helped pregnant women in captivity, Salihu said she initially did not disclose that she was a nurse.

She said she later assisted women who went into labour after the terrorists asked if there was a nurse among the captives.

“Sometimes they gave us fruits, sometimes they didn’t. That’s how we used to sleep with our children. And I saw pregnant women there who delivered their babies.

“They asked, ‘Is there any nurse with us?’ I said no because I was… I am also a nurse. I just used to help pregnant women deliver their babies. I helped about 10 women deliver without gloves. I used my hands to help them,” she said.

According to her, the terrorists later discovered that she was a nurse and wanted her to remain with them, but she refused.

“But at last, when they got to know, they wanted to keep me, that I should stay with them, but I said no. I wanted to come back,” she said.

Salihu said the terrorists told the captives that they were fighting for Allah and opposed Nigeria’s Constitution and democratic system.

“They always said that they were working for Allah’s work. They said they wanted us to work according to what Allah said.

“They said everything we were doing under the Constitution and democracy was not good and that they wanted us to work with the Quran. That’s the reason why they entered our village and killed everybody,” she said.

She also disclosed that her two brothers were killed during the attack.

“They even killed my brothers—my senior brother and my junior brother. And they said it was because of my dad, because my dad did not allow them to come to our village,” she said.

Salihu said her father had resisted the terrorists’ attempts to enter the community and had brought soldiers to protect the village.

However, she said the attackers eventually came after the soldiers had left.

“They just came to our house that day, suddenly, and people came to our house. The way I saw them, I knew that, yes, they were Boko Haram, because of the way they dressed. I knew that they were Boko Haram,” she said.

Asked whether the captives were subjected to rape or sexual assault, Salihu said there was no such incident.

“No, no case of rape or sexual assault, no,” she said.

The victims were among 176 women and children abducted during the February 3 attack on Woro and neighbouring Nuku communities.

The abductees regained their freedom on Wednesday after nearly six months in captivity.

The Kwara State Government said 13 children died in captivity, while 12 others remained behind.