A Morning of Celebration, a Night of Terror: The Day I Lost My Daughter
The morning of Saturday was supposed to be one of peace and celebration. We gathered at the Hussainiyya for a flag-hoisting ceremony to mark the holy birth month of the Prophet Muhammad (SAWA). As organizers, we were busy with the final preparations, ready to replace the Ashura flag with that of the Maulud.
The peace was shattered by the wail of a siren.
We hurried outside to find armed soldiers surrounding the building. When some of our men asked why they had come, the answer was absurd: they were looking for a lost beret. The lie hung in the air, thin and unconvincing. We knew then that something was terribly wrong.
After a tense retreat, the shooting began.
We scrambled inside, the air cracking with gunfire. Almost immediately, we started bringing in the wounded and the dead. Through the chaos, we saw soldiers dragging away the bodies of those they had just killed. Their numbers swelled, and they laid siege to the Hussainiyya, their relentless shooting only subsiding as midnight approached.
Then, a voice boomed from a loudspeaker, ordering everyone out, threatening to break in. We were in the middle of prayers. We turned off the lights, hoping for mercy, for reason. Instead, they flooded the building with a powerful searchlight. They knew we were unarmed, yet they launched grenades at us.
The main gate shattered. They stormed in with full force, firing without discrimination at those deep in prayer and those already lying injured on the floor. They showed no mercy, executing the wounded at point-blank range.
As dawn broke, they brought in petrol. They set our sanctuary ablaze, intent on burning it all to the ground. The air filled with the cries of children—young students who attended Islamic lessons here on weekends. They were traumatized, hungry, and terrified, forced to watch as their friends were killed before their eyes. I managed to hide a group of them in a nearby part of the complex, but the soldiers torched that building, too. Their pity for children was nonexistent.
We escaped the inferno only to be waylaid. They ordered us to remove our hijabs. I refused, explaining it was our religious dress. My defiance enraged them. They beat me savagely; the blow from an axe handle on my back is a pain I will never forget. They chained us, dragged us along the ground, and threw us into a military truck like cargo, piled atop children and corpses.
The barracks offered no respite, only deeper circles of hell. A female soldier slapped me repeatedly; another beat me until my vision failed. They then threw us into a filthy, unused swimming pool. There, we found at least thirty young Almajiri children who told us they had been arrested while sleeping.
I do not believe one human being can do to another what they did to us. They demonized us with abusive words, falsely accusing us of blocking their convoy. It was a lie. We were praying in our place of worship.
I survived this ordeal. But I did not escape whole.
The soldiers killed my daughter.
May Allah bear witness to what was done to us, and may He grant us justice.
Culled from the book "Survivors of the December 2015 Massacre of Shiites in Nigeria: The Unsilenced Voices".
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