Abductees Describe Network of Holding Camps Across Kachia and Kajuru Counties
By Mike Odeh James and Douglas Burton
(Kaduna City — BREAKING) More than 1,400 kidnap victims are held in horrific conditions in the forests of Nigeria’s Kaduna State in Northcentral Nigeria, TruthNigeria has learned. The camps are known to the Nigerian army which has recently moved to dismantle one of the smaller ones, rarely mentioning the major hub in Rijana, 33 miles south of Kaduna City.
Ado Alipiri, a local government office handling Internally Displaced Persons in Kajuru County (Local Government Area), told Truth Nigeria that the Rijana camp (in Chikun Local Government Area) alone is holding 800 hostages for ransom.
The Rijana camp is known to Nigeria’s National Security Advisor, Nuhu Ribadu, whose office celebrated the handover of 59 hostages rescued by Nigerian security forces and turned over to Kaduna State authorities in February 2025, according to Leadership Nigeria.
“Prior to their rescue, the victims had spent over four months in a kidnappers’ den,” according to Leadership.
The National Security Advisor, Abuja’s top law enforcement officer who works closely with the Trump Administration, “assured that the security agencies would ensure rescue of all persons held hostage and restore peace across the country.” Leadership reported.
Yet, although Nigeria Security forces recently scattered kidnappers from a forest hub in Kachia County on Jan, 26, there are no records of Nigerian military entering the massive network of camps near Rijana. TruthNigeria nonetheless has documented survivor testimony from the torturous camps in Rijana for 11 months. Repeated calls to Security officials regarding the Rijana camps have gone unanswered and unreturned.
TruthNigeria has long documented the existence of kidnapping near Rijana. New survivor testimonies now indicate that these camps are part of a wider, organized network spread across adjoining counties in Southern Kaduna.
According to survivor testimony, two other large camps can be identified: Doka Village and Enugwu in Kachia County each have recently held 300 hostages. These totals combined with estimated numbers of hostages in Rijana indicate that at least 1,400 persons are being processed through a multi-million dollar kidnapping cartel.
Survivors say the camps are run by armed Fulani ethnic militia groups who routinely raid Christian villages, abduct residents, and detain them for months under brutal conditions until ransom demands are met—or captives die.
“The Enugwu camp (in Kachia County) alone holds more than 300 people,” Alipiri said. “Rijana (in Chikun County) is the largest, with more than 800 hostages, according to survivors.”
He said dozens of settlements across Kajuru County—including Kutura, Karamai, Doka, Dogo Noma, and Kujeni—have been overrun.
According to Alipiri, Nigerian forces indeed have launched a major offensive against the Doka camp in on January 20, 2026, killing 70 terrorist kidnappers and freeing hostages. However, he said the broader hostage crisis receives little national media attention.
“For a long time, only TruthNigeria was reporting this,” he said.
Enugwu Terror Camp in Kachia County
For communities around Doka, Enugwu, Jan Dutse, and the Rijana forest corridor, the toll is devastating, Alipiri told TruthNigeria. Hundreds of people remain trapped in these obscure, hard-to-reach locations, where torture, starvation, and killings continue far from public view.
Enugwu (in Kachia County) lies approximately 45–50 miles (72–80 kilometers) from Kaduna City by road and takes between 90 minutes and two hours by car.
Dorcas Nuhu, a survivor of long captivity, was abducted from Maikori village in Kajuru County, she told TruthNigeria. Maikori is a small rural settlement located about 34 miles southeast of Kaduna City.
“On August 5, 2024, I stepped outside my compound to get seasoning for my food when Fulani terrorists attacked me,” Dorcas said. “They grabbed my neck, pointed guns at my head, and warned me that if I shouted, they would kill me.”
She said the kidnappers forced her to trek through dense forest for several hours.
After trekking approximately 18 miles, Dorcas said the group reached the outskirts of Karamai village, 40 miles southeast of Kaduna in Kajuru County. From there, she was taken to a rocky, mountainous area known as “Enugwu” in Kachia County.
“At Enugwu, I saw more than 15 Christian captives held in the open,” she said. “In another nearby camp, there were more than 300 Christians living in terrible conditions.”
Death, Torture, and Starvation
Dorcas described routine beatings, interrogations, and extreme deprivation.
“They beat me until blood came out of my head and eye,” she said. “They accused us of hiding weapons.”
She said she witnessed repeated acts of brutality.
“A young Christian man was flogged with a horsewhip for three hours,” Dorcas said. “After he died, they forced us to dump his body in the bush.”
Along forest paths linking the camps, she said she saw human skeletons, skulls, and, at times, freshly severed heads.
Food was limited to one cup of grain per day. “Sometimes we ate only once a day. Other days, we were given nothing,” she said.
Dorcas said she escaped with three other women while gathering firewood.
“We walked deeper into the forest until we eventually reached the Kachia–Kaduna highway,” she said.
Kidnapped Village Head Confirms Multiple Camps
Another survivor, Ezekiel Baruwa, who is also the village head of Kutura Station in Kajuru County, was abducted in July 2024 and held for two weeks. Kutura Station is located approximately 38 miles south of Kaduna City.
Baruwa said he was first taken to a terror hub in Doka village, located about 42 miles south of Kaduna City along the Kaduna–Kachia highway in Kachia Local Government Area.
“There were hills and thick grasslands hiding a network of camps,” he said. “More than 300 hostages were being held there.”
He was later moved to Jan Dutse, also known as Red Rock, a major camp near the Rijana forest area.
“More than 30 of us were kept there,” Baruwa said. “They took pleasure in torturing people. We were starved and allowed only four hours of sleep.”
His family eventually secured his release after paying ₦4 million (about $2,759) in addition to motorcycles, drugs, and phone cards—bringing the total ransom to $7,586.
The Fulani-terrorist hostage camps in Southern Kaduna are gaining the attention of religious freedom advocates in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Judd Saul, founder of Equipping the Persecuted, as well as TruthNigeria, told a press conference on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14 that upwards of 1,000 Christians are suffering currently in Rijana forest and other camps,
“Many don’t know about the hostage camps in Rijana forest, where kidnap-for-ransom victims are tortured and starved until ransomed, or killed,” said Dede Laugesen, CEO of Save the Persecuted Christians afterwards. Laugesen applauded TruthNigeria for bringing attention to what she called “an open-air Auschwitz.”
“Kidnapping has become an industry that is bankrupting entire Christian communities and forcing them off their lands and out of their homes. In essence, Christians are being forced to fund the terror that haunts them day and night,” she said.
Mike Odeh James is a conflict reporter and writes for TruthNigeria. Douglas Burton is the managing editor of TruthNigeria.
