How Boko Haram killed my Father, Brother & asked me to lie between their corpses - 15 year old Chibok girl speaks
Category: Boko Haram News
Deborah Peter a 15 year old girl from Chibok survived the Boko Haram slaughter of her family in 2011 after witnessing her dad and brother killed and asked to lie between their corpses .She told her story to U.S. House lawmakers, House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
Read below:
"My name is Deborah Peter and I am the sole survivor of a Boko Haram
attack on my household. On December 22, 2011 at 7 pm, my brother and I
were at home when we started hearing some guns shooting. My brother
called my dad and told him not to come home because some people were
shooting guns. But my dad said he should not worry because it was not
the first time he had come home when people were fighting. When my dad
came home, he said that he was going to take a shower because he was
hot. At 7:30 pm, three men knocked on the door. My brother answered the
door because he recognized one of the men as a Muslim in our community.
The men asked where my dad was and I told them that he was in the
shower. The men waited. After three minutes, they went into the bathroom
and dragged my dad into the main room. They said that my dad was
wasting their time and that they did not have time to wait on him. The
men told my dad that he should deny his Christian faith. My dad told
them that he would not deny his faith. They said that if he did not deny
his faith they were going to kill him. My dad refused, saying that
Jesus said whoever acknowledges Him in front of man, He will acknowledge
in front of God; and whoever denies Him in front of man, He will deny
in front of God in heaven.
My dad said that he would rather die than go to hell fire. After he
told the men that, the men shot him three times in his chest. My brother
was in shock. He started demanding, “What did my dad do to you? Why did
you shoot him?” The men told him to be quiet or else they were going to
shoot him too. Then, the men discussed whether they should kill my
brother. One of the Boko Harams said they should kill Caleb, my brother.
The second man said that he was just a boy and that he was too young to
kill. But the third man said that they should make an exception in this
case because Caleb will only grow up to be a Christian pastor. Caleb
asked me to plead with them for his life but they told me to shut up or
they would kill me too. The leader agreed that they should kill him and
shot my brother two times. My dad had still been breathing but when he
saw them shoot Caleb, he died. My brother fell down but was still alive
and gasping. The men shot him in his mouth. Then, my brother stopped
moving and died. I was in shock. I did not know what was happening. The
men put me in the middle of my dad and brother’s corpses, told me to be
quiet or be killed, and left me there. I stayed there until the next day
when the army came. They removed my dad and brother’s bodies to the
mortuary and took me to the hospital.
I was traumatized. A nearby pastor paid for me to get out of town when
he discovered that Boko Haram said they made a mistake by not also
killing me. Boko Haram decided later that they should have killed me
because I am the daughter of an apostate Muslim mother who converted to
Christianity. So the pastor paid for me to get out of that region. I
fled and Jubilee Campaign helped me come to a 9/11 child survivors of
terrorism camp in America.
My family was targeted by Boko Haram because we are Christians. My dad
was a pastor. We had to move from place to place because Boko Haram
always attacked my father and told him that they would kill him. In
November, they burned his church and threatened him. My dad refused to
deny his faith and rebuilt his church. That is why they killed
him—because he is a Christian.
I decided to tell the world my story when the Chibok girls were taken
because everyone needs to know how horrible Boko Haram is. They kill
innocent people who never hurt them. I want the world to understand what
happened to me. I hope that the kidnapped Chibok girls will take
courage from my story, and know more of what God says, and know what it
means to stand strong in the face of bad people. I hope that they will
be free and be able to go to school and worship freely. I hope that like
me, some of them can come and continue their education in America. "
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