A Nightmare in Gyallesu, Zaria: How I Survived the Army's Attack
"They said, 'Make sure you kill them all.' I was shot, surrounded by fire, and trapped with the dead. This is the moment I chose to climb, to limp through a nightmare, and fight for my life. My name is Nasiru Abdulmalik, and this is my story of survival in the Gyallesu attack.
Read my full, harrowing account of endurance, loss, and the slim chance of escape. Share to let the world know what happened.
My name is Nasiru Abdulmalik, from Saminaka in Kaduna State. What I witnessed in the Gyallesu area of Zaria in December 2015 was not just an attack; it was a descent into hell.
It began on the night of December 12th. We had just arrived in the area when the soldiers came. The night erupted with gunfire, a relentless barrage that lasted until dawn. As a First Aid volunteer, my duty was to the wounded. We scrambled in the darkness, evacuating victims to a temporary medics centre, desperately bandaging wounds and trying to stem the bleeding.
The next morning, after dawn prayers, I stepped outside. The soldiers had been reinforced and were everywhere. Near the second transformer, close to Sheikh Zakzaky's residence, a bullet found me. I was carried to Sheikh Maina’s house, which had become a makeshift clinic for the wounded. The cold was biting, so I was moved to a passageway where it was warmer. It was a small mercy, soon to be drowned in horror.
From our refuge, we heard the world outside disintegrate. The shelling was constant. Then, the sounds grew closer. They entered the very house we were in. We listened, frozen in terror, as they moved from room to room. The sound of gunshots was followed by an eerie silence. They were executing the critically wounded, even shooting those who were already dead. Then came the smell of petrol and the roar of flames as they set the bodies ablaze. We heard their footsteps above us, burning everything of value. One voice, chillingly clear, cut through the chaos: “There are lots of people out there who are not dead! So make sure you kill them all.” We prayed in silence, hidden in the dark, and by some miracle, they passed us by.
By Monday morning, I knew I had to try to escape. I told the others—the wounded and the whole—that I was leaving. I crept out, tiptoeing through a landscape of death, my feet navigating a grisly path between charred corpses. Nearing the gate, I saw the shadow of a soldier and retreated. My only way out was over a wall. Agony shot through my wounded body as I limped, climbed, and fell to the other side.
I moved like a ghost through abandoned compounds until I found a house to hide in. I broke a window to get into a room that felt like a disused chicken coop, then squeezed myself under a cupboard. Later, I spotted another survivor hiding outside and brought him in. Our sanctuary was short-lived. We heard shooting, and then saw smoke. They were setting Sheikh Maina’s house on fire.
On Tuesday, the soldiers found our hiding place. A kick shattered the door, and we were dragged out. A bayonet was plunged into my head; blood poured down my face. They told me to cover it with a rug. After robbing us of our money and phones, they marched us to our leader’s residence. Later, they took us to their barracks and down into an underground cell—a place of torture with a staircase leading into darkness. They tied our hands behind our backs with our own belts.
I was too weak to walk. When one soldier threatened to leave me, another simply threw me over his shoulder and dumped me into a detention room. We were chained, packed in with other abducted brothers, sisters, and even children. That night, we were forced to lie face down. There was no food, no water. The only responses to pleas or movement were the crack of a belt or the weight of a boot.
In the morning, they ordered us to stand. Among us was a man, also tied, who was riddled with gunshot wounds. His suffering was immense, his body writhing in a futile battle against death. By dawn, he was gone.
His death seemed to stir a single conscience—a female soldier who demanded the wounded be taken to a hospital. Her insistence was our salvation. The wounded were separated, and we were finally taken to an army hospital. The sight was harrowing: men and women with shattered limbs, their bodies broken. Finally, that evening, we were transferred to the ABU Teaching Hospital in Shika.
There, for the first time, we were given proper medical treatment. There, for the first time, we were given food. The nightmare was over, but the memory of what we survived in Gyallesu is a scar that will never fade.
Culled from the book "Survivors of the December 2015 Massacre of Shiites in Nigeria: The Unsilenced Voices".
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