15 year old Boko Haram survivor Deborah Peter testifies before US Congress

FIFTEEN year old Boko Haram survivor Deborah Peter has testified before the US Congress telling legislators how the terrorist group murdered her father and brother in a gruesome attack in 2011.

Ms Peter, told US congressmen and women how on the evening of December 22, 2011, she saw her father, a Christian pastor, shot three times in the chest by three members of Boko Haram. She added that while her father lay on the floor, the men debated whether or not they should kill her brother Caleb and as her father breathed his last, they killed Caleb too.

According to Deborah, the Boko Haram men then made her lie between the corpses and she stayed there until the next morning. The next day, a local pastor paid for her to get out of the region and that same pastor was killed in 2013 by Boko Haram.

Ms Peter added: “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 so I want the world to understand what happened to me.

“I hope 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 think they’re bad nut I can’t judge them because the Bible said do not judge."

US legislators will now have to decide on how the US confronts the Boko Haram issue following the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls. There are widespread calls for a US invasion of Borno State to rescue the girls and engage Boko Haram until it is defeated.

Meanwhile, US commerce secretary Penny Pritzker told a group of business leaders in Lagos yesterday that Washington would stand by Nigeria to defeat Boko Haram. Offering condolences to the families bereaved as a result of the explosions in Jos, the Plateau State capital and Kano, the Kano State capital, Ms Pritzker said it was important to defeat terrorism to allow Nigeria's economic growth to continue.

She added: “I want to offer my condolences to the families in Jos, following the tragic attack there and I want to address the issue that is on all of our minds. To the north of here in the town of Chibok, hundreds of families are without their daughters today and as a mother of two myself, my heart breaks for these girls and their loved ones and friends.

“All parents, no matter where they were born or where they reside, hope that their children are always safe and that their children have the opportunity to realise their dreams. That these young girls were kidnapped while pursuing their education is particularly unsettling and the world is anxiously awaiting their safe return."

According to Ms Pritzker, Nigeria is too important to be allowed to be consumed by insurgency, adding that the opportunities in the country are abundant. She added that being the largest economy in Africa and with one in five Africans being Nigerian, Washington considers the country a very important ally.


- The Nation

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