UN Confirms Ongoing Investigation Of Fatal Rape By Aid Worker – Official

The United Nations would issue a statement after investigating the involvement of a humanitarian worker who allegedly raped a female minor that later committed suicide in Maiduguri, Borno State, a source said. 

The Daily Trust newspaper had earlier reported that a teenage girl in Maiduguri, Borno state capital committed suicide after being forcefully defiled by an adult official of an international non-profit organisation, INTERSOS. 

The police in Borno state had confirmed that Aishatu Adamu, 14, reportedly took her life after she was lured and raped by the aid worker. 

The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Borno State Command, Sani Kameeludeen, confirmed the incident to journalists. 

Kameeludeen, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, said, “the incident happened around 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 18, 2022; and the girl reportedly stabbed herself to death, having lost her virginity to the rapist.”

“Huzaif Abdulrauf took Aishatu Muhammed Adamu into his room in 303 Housing Estate and forcefully raped her,” he added. 

“The victim started shouting in the process which attracted the attention of neighbours who gathered at the entrance of the suspect’s room, which made the suspect open the door while the victim was crying ‘my virginity,’” the PPRO said. 

According to the police, the suspect has been arrested and is under custody at the state command.

A top official of the UN in Borno state, who spoke to HumAngle on condition of anonymity, informed this reporter that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) “is aware of the unfortunate development. It will soon release a comprehensive statement condemning it after a thorough ongoing investigation is concluded.”

The source argued that “issues of rape and fraud are two major infringements that the UN does not condone.”

HumAngle’s checks further revealed that the suspected culprit lured the now-deceased girl in the company of three other girls to assist him with his laundry in his residence, a one-room apartment located opposite the University of Maiduguri. 

HumAngle also learnt, from sources familiar with the matter, that teenage girls usually go round the homes of students off-campus and INGO workers to render cleaning and laundry services in return for some token payment. 

A Borno state-based girl-rights activist,  Lucy Dlama, who took the case to the police station after it was brought to her notice, also confirmed the incident to HumAngle. 

She said  “the arrested man had been in the habit of luring minors to his apartment under the guise of engaging them in menial cleaning just to have carnal knowledge of them.”

“The man lured the girl into his room and asked the others to leave so that she would do some cleaning for him. He was said to have locked the door after he put on his generator. But the other girls said they later heard the girl screaming ‘banna so, banna so’ (I don’t want this, I don’t want this),” Dlama narrated.

The girls were reported to have “rushed to the window to see what was happening but before they got there, he had already had his way and the girl was sighted crying as she stepped out shouting ‘why did you do this to me, you have destroyed my life,’” Dlama said.

The girl then rushed to his kitchen area, picked up a knife and stabbed herself. She was subsequently rushed to the hospital where she later died. 

Dlama said that at the police station, the 35-year-old man confessed that the girl had threatened to kill him after he raped her but then turned the blade towards her abdomen and stabbed herself. 

“I was at the police station and questioned the man who identified himself as Hussarf in Maiduguri. He confessed that the girl threatened to kill him after he had raped her. He said she later killed herself when she saw blood in her private part because she was ashamed of confronting her parents with such shame,” the activist explained.

“When I asked why he didn’t stop her from stabbing herself, the man said he did not know she had stabbed herself until he started seeing blood coming out of her body,” Dlama added. 

An activist, Lucy Yunana said that the suspected rapist’s narrative was not adding up; noting that he could be responsible for the girl’s death. 

She said, “I told him he was lying and that his story was not adding up. Then, he asked me to please bake my price, so that he would pay me any amount to leave the case.”

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), especially the violation of minors, has been a major phenomenon in Borno state. Hundreds of vulnerable women and underaged girls have either been violated or forced into exchanging sex for food from IDP camp officials, security agencies and even humanitarian workers. 

HumAngle has earlier published a report chronicling the ‘sex for food’ menace in some IDP camps. 

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this report wrongly described the alleged rapist as an official of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). HumAngle, however, understands that he no longer works with the humanitarian organisation and is rather with INTERSOS, another non-profit aid organisation operating in the region.