How I phoned my father from Sambisa – Escapee schoolgirl.

Adulkareem Haruma

— June 30, 2014

One of the 57 escapee Chibok schoolgirls that made it back from Sambisa Forest after Boko Haram abducted over 200 others on April 14, said she was able to make a phone call to her father before fleeing from their abductors.

The girl, who spoke to LEADERSHIP on phone from Chibok yesterday, said while they were all asked to surrender their phones to their abductors, she summoned courage to hide hers inside her undies.

The 21- year-old girl, whose name could not be mentioned as demanded by her relatives before she agreed to speak to LEADERSHIP, said “Something told me to quickly hide my phone when they were taking us away, when some of them were ordering that we had to surrender all our phones.

“I secretly put off the phone and put it inside my bra. I resisted all attempts to put it on when they were taking us away in the truck; even when they had to change us to another vehicle when the first truck got broken down, I refused to bring out the phone until we finally got to Sambisa Forest.”

According to the girl, she kept the phone hidden all through the first day, until the next day that she had to secretly bring it out and then put it on to see if there could be network in the area.

She said: “I was shocked to see that there was some bars of signal on the phone, so in the night when I noticed that the gunmen that were guarding us were not paying attention, I tried calling my father and he was happy to hear my voice.

“ I told him we are in Sambisa and I promised him that I will try to escape. Though he cautioned me not to take risk that would put my life in danger, I told him that I would be safe and quickly put off the phone.

“Some of my classmates thought I was doing something very dangerous, but I had to summon courage the next time when I and three other girls managed to escape and fled”.

The girl also confirmed that they were split into three groups and taken to different camps when they got to Sambisa Forest.

“It seems where we were kept is very close to some towns because there was GSM network”, she added.