The story begins not in a war zone but in what was supposed to be a place of healing — a tertiary hospital in Zamfara State, northwestern Nigeria. For one young doctor, newly assigned there for her compulsory housemanship, it quickly became a front line in a conflict she never enlisted to fight. What she witnessed during those long, sleepless months would scar her memory forever — the endless flow of the dead and dying, the cries of widows, the mutilated children, and the relentless horror inflicted by men who came to be known simply as bandits.
Zamfara, once known for its rich farmlands and peaceful rural life, has over the past decade transformed into one of Nigeria’s most terrorized states. Rural communities are trapped between lawlessness and despair. The bandit gangs — heavily armed, emboldened by years of impunity — roam freely, raiding villages, abducting families, and slaughtering the helpless. It was amid this chaos that the young doctor found herself, unprepared for the scale of human suffering she was about to encounter.
“I worked in a tertiary health facility in Zamfara during my compulsory housemanship,” she recalled in a trembling voice. “That area was ravaged by armed bandits and kidnappers at the time. For every call duty, we had no less than ten new casualties, some brought in dead — men, women, and children.”
The routine became tragically predictable. Each night, the whine of ambulance sirens broke the uneasy silence as villagers, soldiers, and children were rushed into the hospital. “These bandits terrorized villages and killed people without mercy,” she continued. “I sutured different kinds of bullet wounds — people shot in their genitals, legs, anus — you name it! My nostrils were literally fed up with the smell of innocent blood.”
In a country where violence has become alarmingly commonplace, her account pierces through the numbing statistics. It’s not just about numbers; it’s about faces, names, and the quiet horror of those who bear witness. She described the emotional toll that came with treating the aftermath of such brutality. “There were days I got emotional on the job,” she confessed. “I could not stand the depth of unhindered wickedness that was being perpetuated in the land.”
Inside the hospital’s surgery department, coping mechanisms varied. Many of her senior colleagues, hardened by years of exposure to violence, turned to alcohol to dull the trauma. “Most of the medical officers took lots of alcohol,” she said. “I guess it was their way of calming their nerves and zoning out of the realities at work.” For her, it was prayer and tears. Each time a patient died on her table, she said she would excuse herself, wash her hands, and cry in silence. Then she would return — to face the next one.
Outside the hospital walls, the world was even crueler. Villagers came drenched in blood, some clutching the lifeless bodies of loved ones. “Most nights, the attacked villagers came in soaked in their own blood, crying, cursing at Nigeria and calling on God to help them. They had no one to call on, but God,” she recalled. Their cries, echoing through the hospital corridors, became the soundtrack of her nights.
Among the many horrors she witnessed, some remain seared in her memory. She recounted the case of a six-month pregnant woman whose story still haunts her. “I remember a woman who was six months pregnant. She was raped, and her husband was killed in her presence. She came in trembling and bleeding. Her eyes were empty — she had seen too much,” the doctor recounted. “We did all we could to save her, but I could see her spirit was broken beyond repair.”
The violence spared no one — not even soldiers. “They were not left out,” she said. “Many of them came in badly bruised and injured. Some died while raining insults on Nigeria till their last breath. It was a horrific experience.” The soldiers, once symbols of protection, had become victims themselves — overwhelmed by better-armed attackers and crippled by a system that had long abandoned them.
But perhaps the most haunting memory she carries is that of an eight-year-old girl. “I still recall an eight-year-old girl who was shot in her face,” she said softly. “Her eyes were apart, her face in shambles, but she managed to breathe through her disfigured nostrils. We referred them to Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Zaria for surgery, but the father said they had no money. They took her away from the hospital. I really can’t tell how that story ended. She was only eight.”
For her, that moment — watching a father carry his wounded child away because he could not afford treatment — captured the essence of Nigeria’s tragedy. It wasn’t just the violence; it was the poverty, the neglect, the abandonment by a state that no longer seemed to care whether its citizens lived or died.
By the end of her housemanship, the doctor had seen enough to last a lifetime. “I ran home immediately after my housejob and never looked back,” she admitted. Her departure was not just an escape from Zamfara; it was an act of self-preservation.
Yet, even from afar, the memories refused to fade. On social media, she often reads Nigerians debating national security with indifference or detachment, and it angers her. “People sit behind their keypads and drop hot takes when they have no experience of what mass killings are all about,” she said. “They talk without empathy because they or their loved ones are not in any way affected.”
Her words cut deep because they reveal a painful truth — the normalization of violence in Nigeria. Mass killings, kidnappings, and communal massacres have become so frequent that they barely make headlines anymore. “The truth remains that real killings have been happening in Nigeria in thousands,” she said, “and the government has been inattentive to it.”
Zamfara’s tragedy is only one chapter in a broader national crisis. Across the country, from Benue to Plateau, from Kaduna to Borno, communities are being erased by marauding militias and criminal gangs. In many cases, the state seems powerless or unwilling to stop them. In Zamfara, what began as a conflict between farmers and herders has mutated into a full-blown insurgency driven by criminal opportunism, illegal mining interests, and a thriving kidnapping economy. Entire villages have been emptied, and thousands have been forced into displacement camps.
The doctor’s account offers a rare window into the human cost of this insecurity. Behind every casualty number is a story of horror, survival, and loss. In her words, one hears not just the despair of a medical worker but the silent plea of a nation gasping for peace. “I’m particularly thankful,” she said, “that these two days have aroused our leaders to action. Let them protect those who they are leading. Let them be held accountable for their negligence all through the years.”
Her hope, fragile but unwavering, is that Nigeria will someday heal. “I sincerely hope that Nigeria recovers from this colossal disgrace,” she said. “May peace dwell in our nation once again.”
To many who have never been to Zamfara, her story might sound like a tragic movie script. But for those who live there, it is the grim reality of daily life. The hospitals are overflowing, the morgues are full, and fear has become a permanent resident. The medical staff, like her, have become the last line of defense — stitching together broken bodies even as their own spirits crumble under the weight of despair.
Her testimony is not just a personal recollection; it’s an indictment of a system that has failed to protect its citizens and its caregivers. The Zamfara experience is a stark reminder that while politicians trade rhetoric in Abuja, rural Nigerians are living — and dying — in a perpetual state of siege.
As she recounted her ordeal, her voice often quivered between anger and sorrow. She spoke of nights when she could not sleep, haunted by the faces of the wounded who had looked up at her with desperate hope. “You see them clinging to life, calling for help, and you know you can’t save them all,” she said. “That helplessness stays with you.”
She no longer works in a public hospital. She moved south, away from the violence, but she says part of her heart remains with the people of Zamfara. “Every time I hear the news of another attack, I remember those nights — the blood, the screams, the children,” she whispered. “I wish I could unsee it all, but I can’t.”
The government’s response, she believes, has been shamefully inadequate. While billions have been allocated for defense, the killings continue unabated. Insecurity has crippled agriculture, displaced families, and destroyed entire communities. For many in northern Nigeria, the state exists only in name. “We need more than condolences,” she said. “We need real leadership.”
In her reflections lies a painful paradox: the doctor entered medicine to save lives, but in Zamfara, she found herself constantly surrounded by death. Yet, in the midst of all that horror, there were moments of grace — the farmer who survived a gunshot and thanked her with tears in his eyes, the young nurse who refused to abandon her post despite threats, the villagers who brought food for patients even when they had none for themselves. Those fragments of humanity, she said, were what kept her going.
Her story is both a cry for help and a testament to endurance. It exposes the raw underbelly of Nigeria’s most ignored war — one fought not on distant battlefields but in forgotten villages and overcrowded hospital wards. It is a war in which doctors and nurses have become unwilling witnesses to genocide by neglect.
As she concluded her account, her final words carried a mixture of exhaustion and resolve: “I just want peace. I want to see a Nigeria where people don’t have to die like that again. I want leaders who care. I want to stop seeing blood when I close my eyes.”
In her voice, one hears not just the lament of a traumatized doctor but the echo of millions of Nigerians yearning for a nation that will finally value their lives.
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