{"id":12754,"date":"2018-10-16T21:28:06","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T21:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=12754"},"modified":"2018-10-16T21:28:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T21:28:06","slug":"murdered-aid-workers-parents-in-denial-seek-evidence-of-her-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=12754","title":{"rendered":"Murdered aid worker&#8217;s parents in denial; seek evidence of her death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hauwa Liman\u2019s Distraught Family Refuses To Believe She Is Dead<br \/>\nBy <strong>Channels Television\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\nAs the world reacts with outrage to the killing of a second aid worker, Hauwa Liman, by a faction of Boko Haram, her distraught family are holding out hope that she might still be alive.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Parents Of Hauwa Liman Doubtful Of Daughter&#039;s Death\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gDwVIj-AZtM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nHauwa who works with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was killed by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), the Nigerian government confirmed on Monday in a statement condemning the act.<br \/>\nHer father Mohammed Liman says the heart-breaking news, barely a month after another aid worker\u00a0\u2013 Saifura Ahmed \u2013 who was abducted with her in March was killed, is hard to believe.<br \/>\n\u201cWe feel so bad and we are in doubt if she is dead or alive because we didn\u2019t expect her to be killed so suddenly,\u201d Liman told\u00a0Channels Television\u00a0at the family home in Maiduguri, Borno State.<br \/>\nThe family had expected that the insurgents would give the government time to meet their demands. And although the government, ICRC and many others across the globe have condemned the murder, her family remains in doubt that she is dead.<br \/>\n\u201cIn fact, we are in doubt because, unless we see her corpse or any evidence that shows she is dead, we still believe that she is living. She is living,\u201d her father insisted with her mom and other women in the home breaking down in tears intermittently.<br \/>\n<strong>\u2018Not A Warring Party\u2019<\/strong><br \/>\nStruggling to keep his emotions in check, Liman appealed to the insurgents to understand that Hauwa was not a warring party and should not have been made to face the ordeal she faced.<br \/>\n\u201cI appeal to the insurgents to release her because she is not a warring party. She is a humanitarian worker. She treats the young and the women and she is so helpful, even to them; not only to the whole society \u2013 even to them,\u201d he said.<br \/>\nAs many across the world struggle to make sense on the ever-more brutal approach adopted by the terrorists that have ravaged Nigeria\u2019s northeast, Hauwa\u2019s family wants the government to help them get closure.<br \/>\n\u201cWe appeal to the government, if she was dead at all, we want the corpse to be brought and we bury her. That will give us peace of mind. Otherwise, we will never forget such an incident in our lives,\u201d her dad pleaded.<br \/>\nHauwa\u2019s mother, Iyakachi, like her dad, is struggling to make sense of the nightmare she has had to endure.<br \/>\nDespite repeatedly breaking down in tears before speaking to\u00a0Channels Television, she remains hopeful.<br \/>\nSpeaking in Hausa, she explained that she did not expect that it would come to this.<br \/>\nShe said, \u201cUp to this moment my mind has not told me that my daughter is dead. Because if you see what happened, these people want money. Now after Buhari agreed that he\u2019d give the money, why is the gap between when he gave his consent and when this incidence happened so close?<br \/>\n\u201cIf a person wants money and they agreed to give him the money is he supposed to do this? Another thing is they (Hauwa and her colleagues) are humanitarian workers and are not supposed to be killed, and they are women. Why were they killed? And the ICRC had already pleaded with them to spare their staff and they even rendered them help as humanitarian workers. If this truly happened then it\u2019s wrong. And, me, I strongly believe, that my daughter is not dead.\u201d<br \/>\nBased on her belief about her daughter\u2019s fate, she also called on the government to act.<br \/>\n\u201cThe government should investigate; if this girl is still alive, they should just bring her back. I don\u2019t need anything except my child. If they can try and confirm that my daughter is well and alive, they should bring her back; that\u2019s all,\u201d she said.<br \/>\n<strong>Months In Captivity<\/strong><br \/>\nHauwa and two other aid workers \u2013 Alice Loksha and Saifura Ahmed Khorsa \u2013 were abducted by ISWAP on March 1, 2018.<br \/>\nWhile Hauwa and Saifura functioned as health workers with the ICRC, Alice worked with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).<br \/>\nThey were captured from Rann, a small town in Borno where thousands of internally displaced persons live in an IDP camp.<br \/>\nThe raid that led to their abduction was a bloody one with three other female aid workers and some soldiers killed.<br \/>\nTwo of the aid workers killed in the attack were contractors with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), working as coordinators in the camp believed to contain up to 55,000 IDPs who fled their homes because of the Boko Haram insurgency.<br \/>\nDespite global condemnation of the attack by ISWAP, which had earlier in the year shocked the world by abducting more than 100 schoolgirls from a secondary school in Dapchi, Yobe State, the Boko Haram faction refused to release the three aid workers it abducted.<br \/>\nIt is also still holding Leah Sharibu, the only Christian among the abducted schoolgirls, reportedly for refusing to renounce her faith.<br \/>\nIn August, United Nations called for the release of the abducted workers.<br \/>\nIn calling for the release of the aid workers, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria Edward Kallon urged Nigerian leaders \u201cto do everything in their power to protect the people caught up in conflict\u201d.<br \/>\nDespite the calls for the release of the workers, they remained in captivity.<br \/>\nAny hope that all three abducted workers would return to their family alive was shattered a month later when the terrorists killed 25-year-old Saifura.<br \/>\nIn executing Saifura, the Boko Haram faction threatened to kill another aid worker in a month if the Federal Government does not meet their demands and continues to ignore them, TheCable which saw a video of the execution reported on September 17.<br \/>\nThe group had also threatened that Sharibu could suffer the same fate.<br \/>\n\u201cWe contacted the government through writing and also sent audio messages but the government has ignored us. So, here is a message of blood,\u201d said a spokesman of the group had been quoted as saying.<br \/>\nAs the one-month deadline approached, on Sunday, the ICRC had made an urgent appeal to the Nigeria Government and communities and individuals with influence to secure the release of two other abducted health workers.<br \/>\n\u201cA deadline that could result in the killing of another health care worker is less than 24 hours away,\u201d the ICRC said in a\u00a0statement, adding, \u201cSpeed and urgency are critical.\u201d<br \/>\nAlso in the statement, ICRC\u2019s head of operations in the Lake Chad region, Mamadou Sow, begged ISWAP to show mercy and spare the lives of the aid workers who were \u201cdoing nothing but helping the communities in northeast Nigeria\u201d.<br \/>\nThe plea fell on deaf ears, with the insurgents once again sparking outrage and global condemnation by executing Hauwa.<br \/>\nThe UN, Amnesty International, Nigerian Government, and the ICRC are among those that have condemned the execution of the workers.<br \/>\nReacting to the execution on Monday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said, \u201cIt is very unfortunate that it has come to this.<br \/>\n\u201cBefore and after the deadline issued by her abductors, the Federal Government did everything any responsible government should do to save the aid worker.\u201d<br \/>\nMohammed added, \u201cAs we have been doing since these young women were abducted, we kept the line of negotiations open, all through. In all the negotiations, we acted in the best interest of the women and the country as a whole.<br \/>\n\u201cWe are deeply pained by this killing, just like we were by the recent killing of the first aid worker. However, we will keep the negotiations open and continue to work to free the innocent women who remain in the custody of their abductors.\u201d<br \/>\nFor the ICRC the execution of two of its aid workers has been devastating, and nothing can justify their murder.<br \/>\n\u201cThe news of Hauwa\u2019s death has broken our hearts,\u201d ICRC\u2019s Regional Director for Africa, Patricia Danzi, said.<br \/>\n\u201cWe appealed for mercy and an end to such senseless murders. How can it be that two female health care workers were killed back-to-back? Nothing can justify this.\u201d<br \/>\nShe appealed for the release of Alice and Leah who remain in captivity with their fate hanging in the balance.<br \/>\n\u201cHauwa and Saifura\u2019s deaths are not only a tragedy for their families, but they will also be felt by thousands of people in Rann and other conflict-affected areas of north-east Nigeria where accessing health care remains a challenge. We urge the group holding Alice and Leah to release them safely,\u201d Danzi said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hauwa Liman\u2019s Distraught Family Refuses To Believe She Is Dead By Channels Television\u00a0\u00a0 As the world reacts with outrage to the killing of a second aid worker, Hauwa Liman, by a faction of Boko Haram, her distraught family are holding out hope that she might still be alive. Hauwa who works with the International Committee [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}