Martha Mathias, a teacher at St. Mary Catholic School Papiri in the Agwara local government area of Niger, has described how her daughter’s courage prevented her and the other staff members and students from being kidnapped.
According to Mathias, one of the bandits put a gun to her daughter’s head and then put it in her mouth to stop her from pursuing Martha and her husband, who were already bound by the bandits.
The teacher also mentioned that the bandit leader told his boys to abandon the girl and her daughter after witnessing the girl’s bravery.
Mathias lives on the school grounds and works as a teacher in the elementary school.
“We heard the cry of children calling for help around 1am, and I was about to go outside when my husband said I should lay down and wait for him to check and he came back to say they were Bandits,” she remembered.
He went on, “After they had finished gathering the kids, they asked them where their parents were. The kids replied that they were at school and didn’t have any parents.”
“They now say where are your teachers and they now pointed at the rooms they now started with the matron, they went to her room and then to our room, they now tied my husband’s hands and carried him away,” Mathias added as he continued to describe her experience.
“Later they came back saying that I should come out,” she claims. My child began to wail as I was ready to leave, so I told them to let me see her.
“So when I was about to follow them, my daughter started crying that she would follow Daddy and Mummy. They pointed a gun at her, but she insisted that she had to follow us. In the process, they said they should leave us, which is how they left us and took my husband with them,” she claimed.
Reverend Sister Felicia Gyam, who also described her experience, recalled that shortly after midnight, they heard numerous cars and motorcycles passing through the school’s grounds. Suddenly, they began to hear haphazard knocks on the school’s gates while the kids were screaming for assistance.
Fortunately, the criminals were unable to reach some of the youngsters who were immediately taken into hiding within the school, according to the reverend sister.
“We heard knocks and cries from the other children, who came with many motorcycles, and we were confused looking for the key to the other gates, so what we did was make sure that we found a way to make sure the children who weren’t in danger were taken to a safe place,” she stated.
The reverend sister remarked, “We heard the security man running and saying something we could not hear clearly, and they later drove off.”
