"Disguising Her Sons, Burying Her Husband: One Woman’s Journey Through Terror in Niger"

Hakuri saw first-hand how men are targeted in Niger—and it’s left her and her family in deep instability. Is there hope for her?

Hakuri* huddled in the schoolhouse with her young family.

Her village had been attacked by Islamic extremists—jihadists with ties to the Islamic State group. The village had grown accustomed to regular gunfire but, this time, the guns didn’t stop. “I and my husband with little children were in the house,” Hakuri remembers.

At first they ducked for cover, as they usually did when they heard gunshots, but then the extremists started burning the houses. "When [the] huts [started] burning, people came out and started running, and that is when the jihadists started shooting [at the men],” she says.

Even before the attack, Hakuri’s community had been changed by the threats from the Islamic militants. The extremists had already imposed strict Islamic dress codes in surrounding areas, requiring all women—regardless of religion—to wear head-to-toe coverings when they went outside. Additionally, Hakuri’s church wasn’t able to sing loudly and could only worship if there were soldiers patrolling in the village. It was clear that the militants would tolerate nothing but their extreme interpretation of Islam.

Eventually, Hakuri and her children were able to flee into the school. The militants then herded Muslim women and children into the building where the militants told them they had no intention of killing females. But the panicked group grew even more worried when the extremists announced that, if they found a single man, they would kill him.

Hakuri and the other women looked at their sons and knew that age would not protect them. “We removed the clothes of our boys and put female clothes on them,” Hakuri remembers. “We clothed them with [head coverings], skirts and wrappers and then we took to the road.”

As they left the village, they saw corpses in the wilderness; Hakuri counted at least 18. She didn’t know if her husband was among them—but soon found out he had been killed in the attack. “We saw some dead bodies of men that were killed in the village during the attack. Because men were scattered, we didn’t know exactly how many people had been killed,” she says.

There was nothing she could do but keep going, praying that they could find their way to safety.
   

‘I am paying the price for following Jesus’

As they fled the village, the extremists followed them, suspecting that there were men and boys disguised as women. “We told them that we don’t have boys with us [and that] all the children are girls,” Hakuri says. “[We said,] ‘The boys have scattered and we don’t know where they are.’”

The group continued on, cutting their feet on the stony road, told by the militants that they were not allowed to stop to rest or get water. “We traveled alone without our men; we traveled only with our children,” Hakuri says.

Eventually, after a series of checks, the militants left them and the crowd continued on to try to find a safe place to stop.
 

‘Life is so difficult’

The part of Niger where Hakuri is from is incredibly unstable—even larger communities are at risk from Islamic militants who target Christians and any Muslim who doesn’t adhere to the extreme interpretation of Islam. Even when Hakuri and her children found a place of comparative safety, they were still in danger … and now they were displaced, without any income or hope for the future.

Hakuri found shelter by renting a room in a Muslim’s house but wasn’t sure how to make ends meet. She lives there with her children and her mother-in-law. Like most women in this part of the world, she relied on her husband to provide economic security.

“Life is so difficult for me and my children,” she says. “We have to buy firewood, water, food and so on; living in this town demands money, and I don’t have a husband. Life has become so difficult for me.”

Hakuri sells small cakes made from beans to make ends meet—and any cakes she doesn’t sell are used to feed her family. Sometimes, if sales are slow, her children are forced to beg from the community around them.

This is the reality of the situation in this part of Niger, where men and women are targeted uniquely. In Hakuri’s case, the loss of her husband meant the loss of any kind of stability in addition to the emotional toll of losing the man she loved. By targeting men and boys, militants know they are striking at the future of Christian families, creating economic chaos and displacement that can destroy communities of faith and weaken the witness of the church.

And yet, Hakuri hasn’t turned her back on God. “I will not say that God has rejected me, God forbid,” she says. “But I can say that I am paying the price of following Jesus.”
 

Hope and healing

When Open Doors partners heard about Hakuri’s situation, they were able to send her a little bit of financial and practical aid to help with her immediate needs. She was given some money to help pay for her housing, and some food. “My pastor called me and told me that [Open Doors partners] sent him money to buy a bag of rice, oil, and [other food] for my children,” she says. This helped lessen her immediate worries.

But Hakuri also needed help to find healing from more long-term wounds. She was connected with trauma care from Open Doors partners, which has helped her see how to continue in her walk with Jesus even amidst the incredible uncertainty and difficulty of displacement and life as a widow. “Before I received trauma counseling, I didn’t have enough sleep,” she says. “I have been thinking about my late husband day and night, but now that I have received trauma training, I see changes in my life. I have enough sleep now and no more worrying about the absence of my husband.”

She also came to see how her anxiety could negatively affect her children. She knows that by working to find the peace of the Lord, she can help them see that there is hope. “If you want to do something positive, if you have worries in your life, you cannot do it,” she says. “If not because of the trauma training I received, I wouldn’t be able to talk like that; if I tried to speak before, I only ended up crying.”

Hakuri’s situation is not solved—she still lives the unstable life of a displaced Christian in a dangerous place. But thanks to your gifts and prayers, she feels she can continue.

For now, Hakuri asks you to pray for her. But her primary request may be surprising—it’s not first for food or stable shelter, things that are needed by any human being. Rather, her request is for faithful resilience. “I beg Christians around the world to pray for us—we need peace; pray so that God will make our faith to be strong in Christ in order to endure persecution,” she says.

This powerful request shows that God is still at work, even as displacement and violence are intended to harm His people. Hakuri and other believers in Niger continue to endure—but are hopeful that their faith will persevere, helping them live out the Great Commission, no matter what.

*Name changed to protect security