Five more victims of the ill-fated Abuja-Kaduna bound train regained their freedom, yesterday, more than four months after their abduction.
Those who walked away from the terrorists den were Mustapha Umar Imam, professor of Medicine at the Usman Dan Fodio University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto; Akibu Lawal, Abubakar Ahmed Rufai, Mukthar Shu’aibu and Sidi Aminu Sharif.
The release is coming a few days after four other victims were freed after paying hundreds of millions of naira as ransom.
The victims, who consist of two males and a female, secured their freedom on July 25.
So far, 37 victims have regained their freedom while those still in the terrorists den are 35. They are mostly women and children.
Recounting his experience, Prof. Imam said captives were going through hell with no food and medication and called on government to do whatever was possible to rescue the remaining captives who, he said, were in a terrible situation.
“They are very hungry and there is no medication for them.”
“The situation is really, really dire and terrible. My experience is really terrible…quite frankly the experience I’ve gone through in the last 4 months is not something I will even wish my enemy to go through .There was barely no food to eat, we were hungry for the last three and half months…When I say very hungry, this is an understatement. There were days that we actually ate once. Just imagine there were children just 1 year old, there was a 90 year old person just feeding once a day.You can imagine that.”
“When you talk about medication, I was literally the medical doctor on camp. I was treating the captives as well as the bandits, the Boko Haram members. There wasn’t medication to be frank with you. We had on the radio somebody was claiming they would bring medication whenever it was needed, there wasn’t medication on camp.”
“There was a day a particular lady had malaria, you could treat malaria with N1 thousand..But this lady was literally going into coma because there wasn’t any medication for malaria. I personally did not experience any molestation, but sone women on camp claimed there were attempts at molestation. But I personally did not experienced any. This happened one to two weeks after we were held captive.”
Gunmen had, on March 28, blown up the rail track, killing some and abducting scores of passengers.
Kaduna-based Publisher, Tukur Mamu, who voluntary engaged in negotiating the release of the victims but backed out due to threats to his life, confirmed their release and urged the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to hasten and negotiate the release of the remaining victims in captivity.