Rescued Nigerian girl says she would rather be with the Boko Haram militant who kidnapped and impregnated her

Almost a year after she was rescued from Boko
Haram captivity by the Nigerian army, Zara John,
16, is still in love with one of the fighters who
abducted her and impregnated her, AlJazeera
reports.
She was delighted to discover that she was
pregnant with his child following a urine and
blood test carried out by a doctor in the refugee
camp to which she was taken after her rescue.
"I wanted to give birth to my child so that I could
have someone to replace his father, since I
cannot reconnect with him again," said Zara, one
of hundreds of girls kidnapped by Boko Haram
during a seven-year insurgency in northeast
Nigeria.
But any decision over the baby was taken out of
her hands. Her father drowned during flooding in
2010 so her uncles intervened. Some were
adamant that they did not want Boko Haram
offspring in their family - and insisted on an
abortion. Others felt the child should not be
blamed for its father's crimes. In the end, the
majority carried the vote and Zara was allowed to
keep her child, a son she named Usman who is
now seven months old.
"Everybody in the family has embraced the child,"
Zara in a telephone interview, asking that her
location remain undisclosed. "My uncle just
bought him tins of Cerelac [instant cereal] and
milk."
Zara was 14 when Boko Haram members fighting
to establish an Islamic state raided her village of
Izge, in northeast Nigeria, in February 2014.
They razed homes in the village, slaughtered men
and loaded women, girls and children on to
trucks.
Two of Zara's brothers were out of town when
the assailants struck in one of a wave of hit-and-
run attacks on villages, as well as suicide
bombings, on places of worship or markets.
Zara's mother fell off one of the overloaded
trucks but tried to chase after the vehicle that
was ferrying away her only daughter and her
four-year-old son, but was unable to keep up as it
drove 22km to Bita.
At the time, Bita and other surrounding towns
near the Sambisa forest were in Boko Haram
control.
"As soon as we arrived, they told us that we were
now their slaves," Zara recalled
Her days were spent doing chores and learning
the tenets of her new religion, Islam, until two
months later when she was given away in
marriage to Ali, a Boko Haram commander, and
moved from a shared house to his
accommodation.
"After I became a commander's wife, I had
freedom. I slept any time I wanted, I woke up any
time I wanted," she said.
He bought me food and clothes and gave me
everything that a woman needs from a man." She
added that he also gave her a mobile phone with
his number in it, and tattooed his name on her
stomach to mark her as a Boko Haram wife.
Ali assured her the fight would soon be over and
they would return to his hometown of Baga,
where he intended his new wife to join his fishing
business.
He told her he abandoned his trade and joined
Boko Haram after his father and elder brother,
both fishermen like himself, were killed by
Nigerian soldiers.
In a June 2015 report based on years of research
and analysis, Amnesty International said the
Nigerian army was guilty of gross human rights
abuse and extrajudicial killings of civilians in
parts of northeast Nigeria, calling for an
investigation into war crimes.
Ali was not at home when the Nigerian army
stormed Bita in March 2015 and rescued Zara and
scores of other women, taking them to a refugee
camp in Yola in northeast Nigeria.
The raid came as international scrutiny on Nigeria
increased after the high-profile abduction of 200
schoolgirls from Chibok in northern Nigeria in
April 2014, which caused outrage internationally
and sparked the global campaign
#bringbackourgirls. The girls are yet to be found.
But Zara and Ali stayed in touch by phone until
Nigerian soldiers realised some of the girls in the
camp were still in touch with their abductors,
seized their phones, and moved them to another
camp until they were reunited with their families.
Zara now lives with her extended family and son
in a town far away from Izge.
Her male relatives took over control of her life
again, with requests for interviews fielded by
them and all of her movements monitored by her
family. But asked her opinion, she said she would
rather be with her Boko Haram "husband".
"If I had my way, I would retrieve the phone
number he gave me," she said, regretting not
committing his number to memory.
But Zara is realistic and knows the possibility of
being reunited with Ali is slim.
Instead she wants to return to school when
Usman stops breast-feeding, and maybe then run
her own business.
"I want to do a business that is suitable for a
woman, something that will not take me out of
the house," she said.