The Hudson Institute has been involved in Human
Rights work for several years now. Their Center for Religious Freedom (CRF) has
worked to tell stories that needed to be told, for several years, now. The CRF
brought together Emmanuel Ogebe, a human rights lawyer and US-Nigeria relations
expert, and Deborah Peters, a survivor of Boko Haram violence from Chibok,
Nigeria, in a recent discussion chaired by Nina Shea. The entire event is
available on video.
Deborah’s story alone is transcribed and presented below, with permission from the Hudson Institute.
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| Deborah Peters. Image (c) The Hudson Institute |
On December 22, 2011,
at about 7:00 PM, my brother and I were at home, and we began to hear the sound
of guns being shot. My brother called my father and told him not to come back
home because of all the firing. My father told my brother to forget about it,
since this wasn’t the first time that he was coming home when people outside
were fighting. He told us that he would come home, and in some time, he did.
When he reached, he told us that he wanted to take a shower since it was hot.
At about 7:30 PM, three men knocked on our door, and my brother opened the door
for them. They asked him where my father was. He told them that our father was
upstairs in the bathroom, taking a shower.
They waited for my father for about
three minutes, and then went ahead and dragged him out of the shower, saying
that they didn’t have any time to wait for him. When they took him out of the
bathroom, they told him that he had to deny his faith. He told them that he
wouldn’t deny his faith. They then told him that if he did not deny his faith,
they would kill him. He told them that he would rather die than go to hellfire.
He told them that God said that anyone that denied him will be denied in
heaven. My father then refused to deny his faith once again, and they shot him
thrice in the chest. My brother was shocked, and kept repeating, “What did my dad do to you? Why did you kill
him?”
They told him to be
quiet, threatening to shoot him if he didn’t quieten down. There were three men
that night – one who was a leader, one that seemed to be a second in command,
and a third who seemed like a servant. The servant suggested killing my
brother, but the second in command said that he was too young. The leader,
though, agreed with the servant, saying that he had a point – if my brother stayed,
he would grow up and become a pastor like my dad, so the leader told him to
kill my brother. They shot him twice on his chest and he fell. Once he fell, he
began moving – so they went ahead and shot him again, on his mouth. He fell
down and died. I didn’t know what was happening – they put me in the middle of
my dad and my brother, and on the next day, the army came and picked us up –
them to the mortuary, and me to the hospital.
Deborah Peters is fifteen, and is from Chibok,
Nigeria. She is the sole survivor of her household that was attacked by the
Boko Haram while on an ethnic cleansing campaign in Nigeria.