Woman who gave birth a week after surviving herdsmen’ attack on Benue IDP shares her near death experience
21-year-old housewife, Jennifer Uta, has narrated how herdsmen almost killed her unborn twins during the attack on Abagena Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp in Makurdi, Benue State few weeks ago.
Woman who gave birth a week after surviving herders’ attack shared her near death experience with The Sun.
Jennifer, who was heavily pregnant as at the time of the incident narrated how she had stepped out at about 11:55pm to ease herself when she noticed that some strange persons had sneaked into their camp.
“When I looked again, I noticed they were herdsmen going by their language and their dressing. I saw that they were also all armed and smoking. I knew something bad was about to happen and my heart skipped several beats. Frightened, I quietly crawled back to the house and alerted my husband, who in turn, quietly alerted the members of our compound about their presence. Before long, the entire community was informed of their strange visitors.”
Her husband, Isaiah, recalled that it was while he was trying to alert other members of the community about the strangers that they sighted him and shot him at the back.
Speaking to Daily Sun, Isaiah said : “When my wife woke me up and told me about what she saw outside. I peeped through the window and saw that what she said was true. I saw them moving about in the dark. I quickly alerted the members of our compound and was on the move to alerting others, when they shot me. The wicked herdsmen also shot my mother. I don’t know how my heavily pregnant wife managed to escape the terror of that day. I had to feign death following the shot, before they left me and moved on with their onslaught.” he narrated.
Isaiah and his mother were among nine injured members of the IDP community, who were evacuated to Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BENSUTH), for medical attention.
It was while his pregnant wife was taking care of him and his mother that she went into labour and was delivered of a set of male twins through caesarean operation a week after the incident.
“My family is an IDP from Gborgyo village of Guma Local Government. We were first displaced in 2011 after several people were killed and a lot of property destroyed by herdsmen in our village. That is why we ran to Abagana community. We tried to go back to our village in 2017, but we were attacked by herdsmen again this April. We narrowly escaped back to Abagana community. Unfortunately, the Abagana community was also attacked,” Isaiah narrated.
“The babies are our first set of children since we got married. We have decided to name the boys after Governor Samuel Ortom because of his stance against open-grazing. One of the boys shall be called Samuel and the other Ortom. The naming ceremony will be conducted soon.”
Jennifer admitted she had the fear that she would not have a successful delivery due to the trauma from the attack. She thanked God for keeping both her and the twins.
