By Apoorva Mandavilli and Ruth MacLean
For over six years, Alice Loksha Ngaddah waited, hoping for a chance to break free from her captors.
She was taken in Nigeria by a faction of Boko Haram, one of the world’s most lethal terrorist groups.
Her chance to escape came in October when Loksha, along with her 3-year-old son born during captivity and fellow captive Fayina Ali Akilawus, fled the militants’ camp as night fell. They traveled using a donkey, ox cart, boat, and car for over three days until they reached a military outpost in northeastern Nigeria.
As they approached safety, the women broke into praises for Jesus, exclaiming, “We are truly saved,” Loksha recounted in her first interview with The New York Times since regaining her freedom.
After her abduction, Loksha became one of the most notable cases among the thousands kidnapped by Boko Haram over the past decade. A nurse and mother of two, she worked for UNICEF at a clinic in Rann, Nigeria, a region plagued by conflict between the military and Boko Haram. Despite the dangers, she took the job to provide for her mother’s dementia needs.
One day in March 2018, after finishing work, she and a group of aid workers went to the military base in Rann to access Wi-Fi and connect with family. Suddenly, gunfire erupted, causing them to take cover as a fierce battle ensued. Armed fighters burst into their room, killing and injuring some of the aid workers.
Loksha and two midwives were seized by the terrorists and transported in a truck throughout the night into the wilderness. For the next six years, she would concentrate on surviving and planning her escape.
Forced Marriage
After 11 days of being moved repeatedly by their captors, Loksha and the midwives arrived at Kangaruwa, a camp operated by their captors, the Islamic State West Africa Province, a Boko Haram offshoot.
Initially, the insurgents left the women undisturbed. They contacted the aid organizations the women had worked for and the Nigerian government, attempting to obtain ransoms and the release of their imprisoned associates. When their demands went unmet, their frustration escalated, warning the women to brace for the worst.
“The nation will be shocked,” Loksha recalled the fighters saying to them.
On September 16, Saifura Khorsa, one of the midwives, felt especially anxious. “Perhaps they are coming to take us home,” Loksha remembered her saying. It was Khorsa’s birthday, and Loksha tried to cheer her up with jokes and by doing her hair.
Vehicles filled with fighters arrived and took Khorsa away. Loksha later learned she was executed that day. The other midwife, Hauwa Mohammed Liman, was killed the following month. Both women were Muslims; the militants claimed they deserved death for betraying their faith by working with the Red Cross.
When Boko Haram emerged in 2009, its leaders openly advocated violence against Christians. However, their campaign of terror expanded to encompass the Muslim majority in northern Nigeria. The organization has abducted and murdered thousands of Muslim women, some of whom were forcibly “married” to fighters.
Today, the group is largely comprised of common criminals rather than religious extremists, according to Allen Manasseh, a youth leader actively working to free Boko Haram captives. “It has morphed into a criminal enterprise that is entirely devoid of any religious affiliation,” he stated.
Nonetheless, Loksha believes that being a Christian saved her from the fate that befell the midwives. Like many abducted Christian women, she was viewed as an infidel who was unaware of their ways.
In captivity, she utilized her skills as a nurse and midwife to care for her captors’ wounds and assist in childbirth. Valued for her abilities, she was given to a senior commander as a sexual slave.
Feigning Conversion
Less than a year post-abduction, Loksha informed her captors of her intention to convert to Islam, adopting the name Halima. “I had to align myself with them because I was powerless to oppose them,” she confessed.
She pretended to perform the rituals while secretly maintaining her Christian faith, praying privately. “We had to pretend to be Muslims in order to secure our freedom,” she explained regarding herself and other Christian captives.
Initially enslaved by Abu Umar, one of the group’s top five commanders at the time of her abduction, giving birth to his son, Mohammed, elevated her status to that of a wife.
The commander was later stoned to death in 2021 for committing adultery with a Muslim captive. Following this, Loksha was married to another prominent commander, Abu Simak.
Her relationships granted her certain privileges, such as a comfortable living situation, sufficient food, and some privacy. (When she escaped, she appeared healthy and well-fed.) She also convinced four other enslaved Christian women to also pretend to convert, confident they would keep her secret.
“I can’t hide anything from you, because you’re my sister,” she remembers thinking about the Christian women. “We are united.” Throughout, she maintained to her captors that she was happy to live as “Auntie Halima.”
In October 2023, when she met Akilawus, with whom she would eventually escape, they formed an immediate connection. On the very first night, they held hands and prayed together, sharing their life stories and dreams of freedom. “We didn’t sleep until morning,” Loksha recounted. “She was brought to me so we could strategize together.”
While living in captivity, they gradually began selling items from their accommodation—curtains, carpets, bits of corrugated iron—to gather funds for their escape. Once they had enough savings, they sought assistance from a woman from the predominantly nomadic Fulani ethnic group, experts in navigating the wilderness and who have assisted other escapees.
In exchange for approximately $90 — more than most Nigerian workers make in two months — the woman’s husband scouted the militants’ territory and devised a route for their escape.
A Dangerous Journey
On October 24, just after the evening prayers when everyone expected to be resting, the women quietly exited with only two changes of clothes, their basic electronic devices, and cash. Loksha administered half a dose of diazepam, a sedative, to her son to keep him calm.
The Fulani woman led them to her husband, who waited hidden in the bush a three-hour walk from the camp with a pair of donkeys. They rode through the night for the following two days. Once they realized they had escaped the wilderness and Boko Haram’s jurisdiction, they breathed a sigh of relief. In a village, the Fulani man transferred them to one of his brothers.
They embarked on a three-hour journey in a cow-drawn wooden cart, crossed two rivers, and trekked for three more hours to Diffa, a town in Niger located on Nigeria’s northeastern border. Their voyage wasn’t over yet, as they still faced a two-hour drive to the Nigerian town of Geidam.
The women broke into prayer as they neared the town. The driver, a Muslim man, kept saying “Sorry,” Loksha recalled, and took them directly to the nearest Nigerian military checkpoint.
Unclear Future
Some women and girls who escape Boko Haram have faced assault by Nigerian soldiers, but Loksha stated that the troops treated them kindly, offering good food, clothing, and new phones. The military transported them to Maiduguri, a city in northeast Nigeria, where they were handed over to state officials last week.
The lives awaiting both her and Akilawus are starkly different from the ones they left. Akilawus was engaged when she was taken; her fiancé has long since moved on. Loksha is now 42. Her son, who is 13, sat quietly as she attempted to reconnect with him via video. Her 7-year-old daughter has no recollection of her. Her husband remarried shortly after her abduction.
Last Wednesday, she was reunited with her sisters, Comfort Shetima and Joy “Kaka” Atigogo, in Maiduguri. Joy rushed into Loksha’s arms, laughing and crying as Comfort embraced them both.
When the sisters revealed that their mother had passed away just a few weeks after Loksha’s kidnapping, she cried out, “Mama,” and sobbed, swaying as her friend and younger sister consoled her. Mohammed sat on his Auntie Joy’s lap, wiping away his mother’s tears.
Loksha’s safety remains uncertain. The military received credible intelligence this past week indicating her captors were searching for her. She mentioned that she was ready for this possibility and anything else that might come her way.
“The same God who granted me that courage will be the same God to guide me onward,” she stated. “To move forward, you must leave the past behind.”
