Reporting the Nigerian school kidnappings

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0:46Estás escuchando The Fifth Floor. The Fifth Floor, ¿reduy? ¿Ves? ¿Ves? ¿Ves? ¿Ves? ¿V? ¿V? ¿V? ¿V? ¿V? ¿V? ¿V? ¿V? ¿V? fifth floor at the heart of global storytelling with BBC journalists from all around the world. I'm your host, Faranak Amidi.

1:14A team of BBC journalists were the first to reach the remote location of a school kidnapping back in November in the village of Papiri, western Nigeria. More than 300 children were taken from a state boarding school by armed groups. Nigeria has been experiencing a kidnapping crisis for over a decade, including the infamous kidnapping of 276 girls from a boarding school in Chibok, Eastern Nigeria, in 2014 by the Islamist group Boko Haram. And a spate of abductions last month has underlined the persistence of the issue. One of the journalists from that team is online with me right now, Madina Meishanu, senior journalist from BBC Africa.

1:59So Madina, I know you are on a deployment and in a car talking to us, but just tell us, why was it important for you to be on the location in the village of Papiri after the kidnapping happened? So for me, it was important because there was a lot of confusion already going on while the parents were left in the limbo. So everyone from outside of Papua reported that 303 school children were taken. And then the information that was gotten from the authorities is something different. You know, the police was saying that they cannot actually confirm that those students were taken. And the governor was also saying that he thought the numbers were exaggerated.

2:41So for me, I felt like it was good to go on the ground, to go there and actually understand what was actually happening, rather than everything that was being reported. And also to, you know, speak to these parents firsthand. We were one of the first media, if not the only media, that spoke to parents to understand the grievances and the kind of pain they were going through. So it was good to actually amplify that. Why are there so many children in boarding schools in Nigeria? So boarding schools in Nigeria, it's something that is very common. I also went to boarding school myself. Some parents feel that when you are in boarding school, you get better training, you get better discipline, but also it gives children that sense of independence.

3:26You learn how to, you know, do things yourself, how to survive alone. So that is the mindset, giving children the chance to grow on their own. And also just to note that school in Papiri also served as an orphanage. So a lot of the children that were there, They just didn't have anywhere to go to. So it was best to, you know, keep them in the school that served as an orphanage. So that's it. And what were some of the risks that you had to take into account going there? So for us, it was a huge risk because the road was a 1 ,000 kilometer road from Abuja back to Abuja. And it's a road that was very dangerous.

4:08It's one of the most dangerous roads in the country filled with insecurity. So even us when we were traveling, there were several times we had to change our routes because our security advisors would tell us, oh, some people were just abducted in the nearest village or in the village we were approaching. So we had to turn back and change our routes. At some point, we had to even stop following the roads and take routes by water because that was apparently the safest. That was the route where the bandits could not reach to. So it took us about two days because we had to keep stopping at some points because of the insecurity.

4:45So for us too, it was very dangerous. And we also had to keep our protective gear on most of the times in case anything would happen. And we also had to, you know, go with security, a truck with about eight policemen guarding us while we were going there. We really didn't know what could happen at any time and what we were walking into. The scariest moment for me was when we were at the school. So immediately we arrived at school. We got a call to say we had to evacuate the premises immediately because 50 children have said to escape from these unknown gunmen. And so anything can happen at that time.

5:22It was a very dire situation at that time. So we got calls to say that we should leave the area. So it was scary for us all through because we really didn't know whether we would return back home to our families. And what about the village, the region where the village Papiri is located? What kind of a region is that? So that is the northern part of Niger State. That is a part that it has a lot of insecurity over the past years. It's been known to be a hotspot for kidnaps, for ransom. And, you know, these bandits, they attack at any given time. and also the security there is very, very poor. It's a big state, right?

6:06So that state, some of the people there also told me that they feel abandoned, maybe because of how far away they are from town. Most things happen there and people won't even notice it. One of the fathers of the abducted children told me that he feels like they're not even part of the state because they have been facing insecurity for so long and the government has not done anything according to him. And, you know, so it's a part of the state where it's really a hotspot. A politician also got attacked a few weeks ago in that same area and one of his security details was killed. How long were you able to stay in that village?

6:45So we were only able to stay in the village for about three hours because it wasn't safe for us to stay more than that. And tell me, what kind of information and stories were you able to gather? And how did it change what you understood about the situation before you got there? So we were able to crack open how conflicting the statements from the authorities were. Because before, everyone just believed what they got from the authorities. But to see us actually speaking to these leaders, holding them to account, a lot of people understood that the authorities are actually saying different things.

7:28And in most cases, they actually also don't even have the facts. So, Madina, how likely do you think it is for these children and, of course, the teachers and the staff who were kidnapped to be returned to their homes and families? So for now, no one can really say. But according to the police and the government, they are doing all that they can to make sure that these children are being reunited with their parents. The governor said to me that he has deployed all the forces from the military to the police forces to that specific area. to make sure that they go into the ungoverned forests and actually find their children.

8:08But at the end of the day, the parents are just left in a limbo and hopelessness, just waiting for their children to return home. So for now, no one can really see how it's going to play out. So, Madina, I understand that you spoke to one of the parents and they wanted to be anonymous. First of all, why did they want to be anonymous? Okay, so I spoke to about three parents and all of them wanted to be anonymous. I could remember one father actually followed me to the car, like begging me to make sure I keep to my word, make sure I don't expose his identity because according to them, they would put themselves and their children in harm's way if people knew their identity.

8:50These unknown gunmen could come and say, oh, they're giving information to the press or giving information to the government that could lead to them being captured. Because one of the parents, he actually told me that he witnessed how the children were abducted. They passed behind his home on about 50 motorcycles. So he saw how they, you know, did the whole operation, how they took the children. But he was helpless because even if he came out, there's nothing really he could do. So, you know, when you're providing valuable information like that, you could actually be under attack at any time. So that's why they were scared to mention who they actually are.

9:28And another father told me that he felt, you know, it was a bitter feeling for him sleeping at night on his bed. Sometimes he actually refuses to sleep on the bed and sleeps on the floor because he doesn't see any reason why he would be sleeping on the bed and his daughter is outside, you know, sleeping probably on sand or on grass. So, you know, for me, one thing that unites all these, the parents that I spoke to is just the anger, the hopelessness and the sadness that all of them feel. And then also the mistrust in the government. All of them feel like they've been let down by the government.

10:04They feel like, you know, the government is not doing enough or even helping them find their children. I assume you're still covering the story. How are you going about doing that? So I'm still in contact with the parents and the school proprietor and the forces, the police forces, and who constantly keep me updated. So the last time I spoke to the police commissioner, he told me that the National Security Advisor had come to the state and had spoken to the parents to assure them and had also went to the area to assess how things are presently. So also, some of the parents notified me that due to the shock, about two parents had lost their lives due to the shock of their children and not coming back.

10:51So it's still something that is unfolding. Thank you so much. We just hope for the best. Thank you, Madina.

11:00You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. This is The Fifth Floor, and I'm Farina Khamidi.

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11:43In October this year, a young Chechen woman was found dead in Armenia's capital, Yerevan. believed to be murdered. Her name was Aishat Baymuradova, and she had told friends that she was seeking a freer life outside her home country. Aishat is thought to be the first Chechen woman to be killed outside of Russia, a fact with security implications for the lives of other Chechens who've escaped Chechnya. Zlata Anufrieva and Olga Prosvirova of BBC Russian, who've been piecing Aishat's story together, are with me right now. Welcome to both of you. Zlata, I'm going to start with you. Can you just tell us who was Aishat?

12:24Aishat was a young woman in her early 20s. She wanted to have a different life than the one she had. She was married, she had a kid, and she contacted activists at some point. She contacted anyone she could asking for help. And the help she needed was to get out of your life situation, because she claimed that she was forcibly married, that she didn't choose this partner, she didn't want to be in this marriage, that she actually was controlled, she was monitored, she wasn't allowed to walk outside home freely. And she felt that was the life she wanted to live. And she decided to ask for help for activists to relocate her and help her get away.

13:09Do we have any details of her life that you can confirm back in Chechnya? Confirming would be not easy because Chechnya is a very enclosed community. But what we can say for sure that we have evidence from dozens of other Chechen women who have been through the same issues where every movement you have, everything you do is controlled by men of your family. It's either father or brother or when you're married of your husband or husband's family. How did she end up in Armenia? Why Armenia? Well, I think Armenia is one of few countries where Russians are allowed to go without visa and also where Russians can go without travel passport.

13:50You know, unlike in Western Europe, for example, in Russia, we have inner ID, which we call passport, actually, and we have a passport for travel. And 70 % of Russians actually never had this passport. And of course, if you go in this kind of family, none of those girls who escape have this passport. You know, they only have inside like the ID for inside the country. And we know that there are many women who flee Chechnya like this and go into exile. What is their approach to life? How do they live their lives in exile? Oh, yeah, that's an interesting question in a way that this women, they run away to have freedom.

14:30But do they ever achieve their fully freedom in the like our idea of freedom of the words, It's a freedom of expression, freedom of, you know, have social media like we all do, publishing everything, talking about whatever they want. Not, I would say that most of women who escape the region, they always have low-key life. If they have social media, it's always closed. People who follow them as a very small group of people, of close people, you know, in person. Of course, they would never dare publicly accuse anyone. Because, you know, they just want to live their life. Finally, they've got this freedom.

15:06They can't risk it. It's very dangerous. They wouldn't even be in contact with diasporas because it's dangerous. They would pretend not to be Chechen. They wouldn't speak this language because they would be scared to be recognized by their own people abroad as well because they can be shamed and there can be like... You never know. Also, their families could be told about their whereabouts. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. But with Eyeshot, I think the difference was that she was very sensitive in a way that sensitive, passionate, she really cared. And I think the way she cared, the way she wanted to be who she was, the way she felt like I got this freedom and I want other women like me to get this freedom as well was so strong that no matter how many times activists approach her and ask her, please, I should, don't publish anything on social media.

15:56Please don't publish Instagram stories saying how every man in your region is terrible. Please don't. She was literally in the comments of like news from Chechnya, for example. She would have arguments with other Chechens directly. With her own identity. With her name and picture. Yes. So she was very open. And for example, there is one story that I actually wanted to share. That's when this story became public, I was contacted by the girl who knew her in Armenia. And basically the story was she was walking, this girl who contacted me walking in the street. she looked unusual she has some tattoos and I shot approach you and she's like look you look so cool I'm looking for friends like can we talk can we have tea and they just became friends instantly and then I shot was coming over to the house where this girl lived and they were chatting hanging out with your friends that's very unusual for these cheshire women it's absolutely they don't do it she was very open she really wanted to leave and she even sent me an audio message from iShut with your voice that was very painful to listen to where i can imagine yeah where i started saying stuff i can't believe this is my life now like you guys are so friendly so sweet so nice and the girl who contacted me she really wanted to talk about this because she was touched by her story she was like she was so open she was happy to be friends with everyone and to be honest sometimes it's not it's a privilege she didn't really have yeah what else do we know about her life and her friends in Yerevan what kind of life was she living so at some point she moved to Yerevan to have more job opportunities more life opportunities and then she very quickly found new people and new friends to live with which is all very unusual normally girls who escape they either live with by themselves or with other girls who also escape They don't open up to the world.

17:54They live in their small community and open up slowly. Aishat was just open straight away. Olga, I want to bring you in now. Can you tell us about this woman who Aishat met online? Who was she? Indeed, there was a person who had recently become very visible in Aishat's life. And I'm talking about a young woman who I'm going to call Maria. but I have to mention it is not her real name. The main reason I changed her name is because this woman plays significant part in Aishat's case but she was not officially named by the police. This is Maria. Friends say she first reached out to Aishat on social media and quickly positioned herself as a new friend.

18:42She was fun, open and ready to pull Aishat into her most social world. Maria didn't try to hide who she was. She openly spent time with Aishat's friends. Friends appeared in their group photos and even showed up on Aishat's Instagram feed. There's actually a picture of the two of them, cheek to cheek, posted on September 20th, captioned, My dearest, and this caption was made by Aishat herself. People who know Maria personally describe her as a striking and somewhat unsettling figure. She's glamorous, unpredictable, and at times aggressively confrontational. And Olga, this woman that we're calling Maria, where is she from?

19:25So she was claiming to be from Dagestan, which is a republic neighbouring Chechnya. And they have a very similar situation regarding women's rights. Maria wasn't born in this republic, but her family originated from this. And I believe this is how she could establish a good relationship with Aishat, who felt that they are in some sort of a similar situation because Maria knew a lot about women being suppressed by men, about women being forced into marriages. And that could be a good talking point, could have been a good talking point for them to discuss. But at the same time, Maria was very different from Aishat in every way you can possibly imagine.

20:12So Olga, can you tell us about the circumstances of Aishat's death and how she was found? Sure. Yeah. It was the evening of October 14th. Aishat told her friends that she was going to visit this girl Maria in some apartment that was rented. throughout this evening she was sending photos and videos showing the two of them drinking alcohol and having a good time but unfortunately around 3 a.m on October 15th Aishat stopped responding to any messages she never came back home that day and obviously it worried her friends and they began searching for her and informed right activists her body was found a few days later on October 19th in this rented apartment, when the owner of the place came back to check on the flat.

21:08And the circumstances of her death have not been disclosed, but rights activists say she may have been strangled. And this is also the reason why we have to look at Maria's story in more depth, because some people, Aishat's friends, were questioned by the police later in Armenia, and they were shown CCTV footage of two people living in this particular house when Aishat's body was later found. And while they didn't recognize the male figure, they definitely did recognize the female one, and they identified this female figure as Maria. And how did you go about identifying her yourself? And has she been questioned by the police?

21:59She hasn't been questioned by the police because she and this second person who she was with, they left for Moscow the same day. And unfortunately, no one could reach them. right after Aishad's body was found Maria turned off her phone and she deleted her whatsapp account and we tried to reach her by different social media accounts her phone numbers but she never applied but we wanted to learn more who this woman was and what her role in this whole thing could have been. So we started checking her digital traces. We performed a reverse image search and we pulled up the photos of Maria on a Moscow modeling website and we found out that those very same images also appear on a website advertising sex services in Moscow.

22:58We also have multiple sources who confirmed very interesting information. For example, one source with access to flight records confirmed one more detail that Maria had traveled to Armenia several times over the past year and she hasn't been there before like not five years before that not 10 years before that she only started doing it recently another source with access to leaked databases and I must say here that it is very common that lots of databases are leaked in Russia so this particular person provided even more insight, including where exactly Marie was living in Russia. And that's how we found out that although this woman doesn't have high education, and she doesn't have any official job, she owns at least one apartment in Moscow and is living in a very expensive residential complex in a very good and a nice place in Moscow.

23:54And how does Aishat's death change your understanding of the threat to Chechens in exile, especially those who are maybe critical of the regime in Chechnya? Yeah, Aishad's death marks a deeply unsettling shift. Up until now, most Chechen women who fled domestic violence were threatened almost exclusively by their families. Relatives pressured them to return, harassed them online, and in most extreme cases, struck them down abroad. we are aware of at least a few cases when women were brought back home and according to human rights activists were later killed. It is important to mention that Aishat's family wasn't looking for her as far as we know.

24:41They had already cut ties and made it clear to her they wouldn't try to bring her back. So it brings us to the second version and the second version is that the Chechen authorities may have been behind Aishat's killing. And it is well established that several high-profile critics of Chechen authorities have been killed abroad. Chechnya is often described by rights groups as a state within a state. It is some sort of a place where power is highly personalized, and loyalty to a long-standing leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, often overrides laws and formal institutions. So for years, human rights organizations have documented enforced disappearances, tolerances, tortures, killings in the republic, as well as systematic persecution of those who dissent.

25:27And while Chichen officials have consistently denied these allegations, and they also did the same in Ayshad's case, this theory is still one of the main theories among the human rights groups. And the third version is that the killing could have been carried out by any individual loyal to the regime, someone angered by her outspoken behavior on social media and her criticism of traditions. All it would take for him or her is money. And that's exactly what makes her killing so frightening for other Chechen women in exile, because they don't know where the threat is coming from. Is it the family?

26:06Is it the regime? Or just a crazy person from the internet. And does that mean the danger is broader, and maybe far less predictable than anyone had assumed. And for many Chichen women living abroad, the impact has been immediate. Several told rights groups that they now struggle with severe anxiety, saying that fear they've been carried since childhood has woken up again. And one woman we talked to described it as a kind of paralysis, Although she's living in Europe and she considers herself to be in a safe place, protected by laws, but still she feels that she's now in more danger because she doesn't understand where the threat might be coming from.

26:57And Olga, this woman that we're calling Maria, once she goes to Russia, no one can reach her. Exactly. Russia doesn't give away citizens for questioning. So it is a very complicated case. Thank you very much, both of you. That's all we've got time for today. If you want to let us know what you think about the show or you have questions for us, send an email to the5thfloor at bbc.co.uk. We love hearing from you. So don't be a stranger. You can write to us at the5thfloor, all one word, at bbc.co.uk.

27:36You've been listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.