Leah Sharibu, the only Dapchi schoolgirl left in Boko Haram captivity, is said to have made an attempt to escape from the camp of her captors.
The bid however failed and was returned to the terrorists three days after by those who found her in the bush, according to The Guardian of London quoting her fellow captives.
Leah, the only Christian among the 110 abductees, remains in captivity because she refused to renounce her Christian faith.
Her mates also said she was emotionally strong enough to send her mother a present as a remembrance.
The present is the jerry can she and her friends were given milk in by the man who thwarted their escape.
The girls have not had time to give it to her mother yet, the Guardian reported.
The Dapchi girls speaking in their first face-to-face interview since they were returned to their families related what they went through in captivity.
Aisha Ibiwa said Leah and two others were involved in the escape bid.
She said: “She didn’t tell us she was leaving. We thought she was just going round the corner, but she sneaked out along with Maryam and Amira [two classmates].”
After wandering about for three days in the bush, the three hungry and exhausted girls met a nomadic Fulani family from whom they sought help on how to return to Dapchi.
It turned out to be a big mistake on their part for the Fulani, rather than assisting them took them straight back to their kidnappers.
“The Fulani man said to them: ‘So you are the missing girls that we’ve heard about on the radio,’” Hajara Adamu said.
He gave them a jerry can filled with cow’s milk and returned them to the terrorists.
“Leah and her group weren’t flogged. They [Boko Haram] said it was because they had suffered a lot while trying to escape.”
Hajara herself also attempted to escape.
When she was found, the terrorists were furious and whipped and frogmarched her back to the camp with a gun at her back.
She was given out by some local women she had asked for directions.
Hajara said they were insulted and told “we wanted to go back to the land of unbelievers.”
Painting a graphic picture of their journey into the den of the terrorists which claimed the lives of five of them, Fatima Abdullahi said: “They (the victims) were saying: ‘Pull us up or we’ll die,’ but I couldn’t help them.
“They just threw us all into the vehicle, that’s why we were piled up like that. I was lucky that someone pulled me up.”
The girls shouted that some of them were dying, but by the time their kidnappers paid attention, five were dead. They kept driving through the night.
“In the early morning, they dug a hole and put their bodies in it. They didn’t give them an Islamic burial, and they didn’t pray,” Hajara said.
When they eventually got to a village – Tumbu Gini – near the Lake Chad, the girls were left with only two guards watching aircraft circle overhead.
Every week, a tall, dark-skinned, youngish man with a long beard whom the girls only knew as “the Khalifa” would come around to see them and preach to them.
The “Khalifa’, reportedly reassured them that they would not stay in captivity for long.
They quoted him as saying: “We don’t have any issue with you – our issue is with the government.
“They’ve taken our men. Don’t worry, you’ll all go home soon.”
