Pastor Enoch Mark, whose daughter, Monica, and others were abducted in the Chibok community of Borno State on April 14, 2014, speaks on the sad impacts of his child’s abduction.

I have six children. Monica Mark is my second child. When she was kidnapped on April 14, 2014, she was 18 years old. I was in Chibok then. I was a pastor in the Church of the Brethren in the area. I was transferred from Michika, Adamawa State to Chibok in Borno State. I had been there for just some months so I didn’t even know the town too well. My daughter attended the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok. On 14 April 2014, there was a gun attack all over the town. There were shootings everywhere and we were all running for our dear lives that night. While we ran, I didn’t go far. I just stood somewhere behind the town. Early in the morning, I came out to see the church because it looked like they set fire to my church, so I was not able to stay for a long time. I was moved to go and see what was burning. But fortunately enough, it was not the church. It was a place that was very close to my church. We also discovered that girls from the community had been taken captive by Boko Haram. I saw the car carrying some girls and I pursued it. While pursuing, I saw that one of the cars had broken down on the way, and some men were guiding it while it was being fixed. They said that if anybody came close, they would ‘finish’ the person. I was forced to come back. On the way back, I met one of the daughters of my watchmen who was among the girls that were kidnapped. She jumped from the car and escaped. As I met her on the way, I brought her back to the town.

How have you been dealing with the fact that your child is still in captivity ten years after the incident?

I cannot explain how it had been because it was very terrible. I lost her mother, Martha, because of the trauma she went through. She died on July 10, 2020. Even because of too much thinking, I came down with a stroke. Presently, I’m suffering from stroke. When I lost my wife and I remembered that my daughter Monica was in captivity, I couldn’t hold myself. I just didn’t know when I collapsed on the ground. As I’m talking to you now, I cannot walk for a long distance.

How certain are you that your wife died from the trauma of the incident?

Since my daughter was kidnapped, my wife has been going up and down praying in so many places. They often call her from Lagos for newspaper and radio interviews, and she always goes. There are even pictures of her in the newspapers when she was crying. She cried while she was being interviewed. She wasn’t able to eat. Whenever we remembered to pray for Monica, she would shed tears. She died while calling the name of Monica.

How did your other children react to Monica’s kidnap?

I cannot explain it, because when we discovered that our daughter was kidnapped, the children, the mother, and the relatives were not at ease. We all felt the pain, and we can’t explain how badly we feel.