‘I Lost Everything Twice’: A 70-Year-Old Woman Survives Boko Haram, Then a Flood in Maiduguri

BY: ADAMU ALIYU NGULDE, MAIDUGURI

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — When Boko Haram fighters stormed her village years ago, Yagana Abana gathered what little she could carry and ran. She left behind her home in Molgwai, a farming settlement in Damboa Local Government Area, and never returned.

Like thousands of others fleeing the Islamist insurgency, she found refuge in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, where she tried to rebuild her life in a modest house. But the city she hoped would give her safety has now delivered another blow.

This year’s floods swallowed her home, leaving the 70-year-old once again without shelter. She now squats in a neighbor’s small compound in Gwange, opposite Zara Plaza, where mats spread across the floor are the only comfort she and others share.

“I lost everything once to Boko Haram, and now I have lost again to the flood,” she said, her voice breaking as she described watching the waters rise around her. “All I want is a place to sleep and food to eat so that we don’t die of hunger.”

Her plight underscores the double vulnerability of displaced people in Nigeria’s northeast: first uprooted by conflict, then battered by extreme weather that experts say is becoming more frequent and intense.

In Maiduguri, where poor drainage and haphazard urban planning have turned heavy rains into disasters, the floods have deepened the suffering of families already living on the edge. For women like Abana, survival is no longer about choosing between insurgents and safety — it is about finding a dry corner to rest, and the hope that help will come before the waters rise again.