Parents of the abducted and now released students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka in Kaduna State, have said their wards reported being shielded from rape by their abductors throughout their stay in captivity.
The bandits had gone away with 37 students and staff, after raiding the school’s hostels.
They had been confronted by troops who freed about 180 from the invaders’ initial harvest of over 200 students and staff.
Denying reports that the 56 days the young men and women spent with the bandits were filled with the horrors of rape, the parents denied a story that sexual molestation by both homosexual and heterosexual bandits took place against their helpless victims.
They said their wards were so divinely shielded from any form of sexual violence that one abductor was cut down by his colleagues for even suggesting it.
Their rejoinder reads in full: “While we were basking in the joy of having reunited with our precious children, who were released unharmed after 56 gruesome days in captivity, our attention was drawn to a May 11th 2021 error-ridden online publication by Reuben Abati and some online Media including Daily Times to the effect that an unidentified parent of one of the 27 students released on May 5th, speaking on the condition of anonymity, had disclosed that the students, both male and female, ‘were sexually, homosexually molested by the bandits’ while in captivity.
“Other online media outlets also published the self-same report.
“On behalf of the parents of the Forum of the 37 Abducted Students (now released), we wish to set the records straight and hope that this will end the circulation of the fabrication which the story is. We state in unequivocal terms that none of the 37 kidnapped (now freed) Afaka students was sexually or homosexually molested by the bandits. In fact, by divine Providence, according to the testimony of all the released students, one bandit lost his life on the mere mention of the desire to sexually molest a student.
“To be sure, the students confessed that, ‘He didn’t even actually attempt it; he was just saying it, and yet he was killed and we were asked to take his corpse and deposit it in a nearby bush because they said he was not worthy of a proper burial.’
“As parents of the released students, our primary focus now is the rehabilitation of our treasures, whom God has brought back to us alive and miraculously unharmed. Distractions such as occasioned by this false report, purportedly a revelation by an anonymous parent, is unfortunate and irresponsible and should be retracted as it does nothing but aggravate the trauma we and our released children are working hard to overcome.
“We wish to call on Nigerians, who stood by us from the time our children were abducted to the date the last 27 were released, to disregard the story and continue to pray for us as we continue with the rehabilitation of our children so that they may get back to normal life again very soon.”