Amid a violent insurgency devastating the Northeast, many families are trapped in a harrowing ordeal, haunted by the agonising uncertainty over the fate of their missing loved ones. Every day, they wrestle with the torment of not having answers about whether their beloved family members are still alive or lost forever. These families carry the weighty burden of waiting, their lives forever changed by the inexplicable emptiness left behind by the separation. In this report, ONIMISI ALAO captures the experiences of those gripped by perpetual uncertainty, their stories resonating with the heart-rending accounts of countless others enduring similar trials
A heart-wrenching tale emerges out of countless attacks carried out by Boko Haram terrorists in the states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa State. It’s a tale of a family profoundly affected by the unrelenting violence. This family, like many others, experienced the agony of seven of its members vanishing without a trace. These seven individuals did not meet a conclusive fate during the attack; instead, they simply disappeared, leaving behind a shroud of uncertainty.
The possibilities surrounding their disappearance are hauntingly familiar in conflict-ridden regions, particularly in the case of the Northeast’s Boko Haram insurgency. People can vanish due to abduction, self-imposed flight that leads to becoming lost, or tragically meeting their end. For a significant number of these missing individuals, estimated at 25,000 as of last year, they either never returned or remain absent to this day.
Among the family who endured the loss of seven members under such circumstances, there is a lady known simply as Jumai. Her mother counts among the seven whose whereabouts remain unknown. This heart-wrenching incident unfolded in Demboa, Borno State, back in 2017. To this day, Jumai clings to the tiny thread of hope, offering daily prayers for her mother’s miraculous return. Yet, her existence is a solitary one, marked by the absence of the maternal love she once cherished. Her mother’s fate, whether of existence or absence, has remained unknown for six long years since that fateful 2017 attack.
In the poignant narrative of Jumai, which was shared through visual storytelling in the Adamawa State capital on last week, her words resonate: “My mother taught me everything except how to live without her.”
Jumai’s story was just one among many narratives featured in an exhibition that marked the International Day of the Disappeared (IDoD) in Yola. This event was organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In one of the exhibited photographs, an unnamed family member who had lost relatives in an attack stated: “My life changed the day our community was attacked in 2014. In our family, six people were missing. Three returned over the years.”
Another poignant pictorial story from the exhibition featured a man known simply as Ishaku, who expressed, “Since I got separated from my children, my heart has been heavy. You (my children) are always in my thoughts. I pray God to protect you wherever you are. May God bring the day soon when we will be reunited.”
During the event, Mr. Joshua Audu, a representative of the Families of Missing Persons, conveyed the immense pain that accompanies losing a loved one while not knowing their fate. He emphasised: “Only the family of the missing can know the pain.” Officials from the ICRC and representatives of the Adamawa State Government, who attended the International Day of the Disappeared in Yola, acknowledged the profound anguish experienced by those who have lost contact with their loved ones amid the uncertainty surrounding missing individuals. They recognised that the weight of this wait is most acutely felt by those directly affected, especially considering the slim hopes of finding a missing person after a violent incident.
In her opening address, Fatima Ibrahim, the Deputy Head of Sub-delegation of the ICRC, provided insight into the global issue of missing persons. She stated, “Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are missing or separated from their families due to armed conflict, other situations of violence, disasters, or migration. Many people never return and are never heard from again.” She expressed hope that events like the International Day for the Disappeared would continue to foster engagement, cooperation, and bridge-building efforts to address this tragic issue, noting the ICRC’s commitment to tackling it.
Fatima Ibrahim also shared some statistics, revealing the ICRC’s substantial efforts in addressing missing persons globally. She highlighted that every minute, the ICRC helps four families separated by various crises to reconnect. Moreover, every hour, they assist in clarifying the fate or whereabouts of a missing person, and each day, they facilitate the reunification of 13 people with their families. Providing specific figures related to missing persons in Nigeria, Precious Yaro, the Families of the Missing Field Officer of the ICRC, stated that over 25,000 individuals had been reported missing to the ICRC by their families “following the ongoing conflict in the Northeast.” She underscored the enduring uncertainty faced by the families of these missing individuals, emphasising the emotional toll it exacts. Yaro explained that the quest for answers by the families of missing persons can span years and even decades, prompting the Red Cross to provide support and engage with authorities to draw attention to the missing and their families.
While Fatima Ibrahim highlighted the global figure of locating 13,000 out of 95,000 missing persons worldwide since 2022, an official from the Adamawa State Government said that, of the approximately 25,000 individuals known to the ICRC as missing, primarily from the Boko Haram-affected states in the Northeast, Adamawa State had successfully located and reunited 81 individuals with their families. While affirming that some 13,000 families had by end of 2022 missed 25,000 loved ones, the Permanent Secretary in the state Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Saso Ali, said that in Adamawa State, with the ministry making the necessary moves. “Eighty-one of these missing ones have been located and reunited with their families so far this year alone,” she disclosed. Talking from the experience of an official who has interacted closely with people facing the grim realities of loved ones suddenly disappearing, Mrs. Ali said that in a large measure, it is better to deal with a dead family member than one regarded as missing.
“Better to see your relation die and buried than for you to live with the anxiety of having to wait and wait for a relative who drops out who may never show up,” she said. She advised, however, that there is no alternative to believing that a missing person will return and to take steps to facilitate such possibility.
“Let’s never think that it is over. We must hope always to find our loved ones,” she added.
As things stand, discussions on missing persons would always return to the huge majority who are yet to return and how their family members are living with the mixed feelings that they may or may not return. The August 30 International Day of the Disappesred event, which was held at the Yola Campus of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, featured stage performances in which families of missing persons in different communities in the state sang their respective stories. In their performance, the group of families of missing persons in Malkohi, Yola South Local Government Area, rendered a song summarised in these words: “We travel to where we hear of a missing person being seen, only for the trip to end in nothing.”
On their part, families of missing persons who attended the event from Damare, in Girei Local Government Area, preached love with their presentation. They sang: “We have found ourselves in this situation because of lack of love. Our generation has to learn to love.”
In the meantime, for those expecting missing relations to return, the cloud of uncertainty prevails. They are asking, as the ICRC captures in a logo accompanying its intervention, ‘Where Are You Now?’ An accepted definition of a missing person is rendered as one who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed because the location and condition are unknown. Now, technically, in the eye of the law, how long can a missing person remain missing? Section 90 of the Nigeria Police Act makes it mandatory on every person to report any case of a missing relation within 24 hours.
This rarely applies around the Northeast where virtually every resident of a community under attack usually disappears first, and he/she begins to reappear afterwards, and it would take days before some could reappear or before it could be safely assumed that the missing ones would indeed not reappear soon. The established standard, nonetheless, stands that the presumption of death in Nigeria, when a missing person can be legally assumed dead, is seven years. By the provision of Nigerian Evidence Act Section 164(1), a person who furnished evidence and convinced a court that a relative who went missing had not been seen or heard from since seven years ago could get the court to declare such a person dead.
In the area of inheritance, however, and in accordance to Islamic law practised around Northern Nigeria, if a person goes missing, his status on his property is considered as if he is alive. His property will not be shared or inherited. Instead, the property is preserved, and if he returns by the age of 70, his property is returned to him. However, if it is still unknown whether he is alive or dead when he turns 70, an Islamic judge can make a ruling declaring his death, after which whatever possessions he has at that time will be distributed among the individuals who are alive at the time of his presumed death.
While insurgency has become the major cause of disappearance in Nigeria’s Northeast, people disappear for many other reasons in the sub-region and elsewhere in the country and across the world. It could be as a consequence of other forms of violence or attacks when residents are killed and bodies taken away or when such residents are simply abducted and never returned or at best not immediately freed. Natural disasters such as floods have also been accountable for people going missing. Some individuals choose on their own to disappear, for instance, to evade arrest after committing a crime, or to escape domestic violence. It could be suicide perpetuated in an unknown place to spare the family of the shame. For others, disappearance results from force, including abduction. Some people could fall victim of murder, in which case the body is destroyed or hidden to conceal the truth.
Mental illness has also been known to cause people to go away to some place, forget themselves there and be unable to say who they are. Suddenly disappearing could also result from death by natural causes, such as disease or accident far from home. Although Nigeria rates as African country with the highest number of missing persons, globally it comes as one of a number of countries with such reputation. The United States has what may be the world’s highest number of missing persons. According to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Missing Person and Unidentified Person Files for the 2021 operational year, 521,705 people were reported missing in 2021 in the United States. An update has it that 93,718 of those people remained actively missing at the start of 2022. The report notes that the fact of the United States having the third highest population in the world likely contributes to its high number of missing persons.
Another of the world’s most populous countries, India, has statistics showing that 88 people go missing by the hour; 2,130 people go missing every day, and 64,851 people every month. In the United Kingdom, statistics show that roughly 180,000 people go missing every year. It should be noted quickly, however, that in most of these countries, as against the matter of insurgency in Nigeria’s Northeast, a vast majority of people who go missing in those countries return home almost as easily as they disappear, making it relatively easy for relations to cope.
