Survivors describe Rijana-like outdoor prison in Katsina Pulling victims from Western Nigeria
By Izhi Bitrus Adamu
KATSINA STATE, Nigeria — A long-running Fulani Ethnic Militia camp in Katsina holds nearly 200 hostages, some hauled by motorcycle from distant Kebbi over 100 miles away.
The kidnapping of four missionaries in Kebbi on Oct. 3 ended four days later in that terrorist-controlled outdoor prison in Faskari County, TruthNigeria has learned.
The survivors’ accounts, given in exclusive interviews on Oct. 31, offer a rare look inside one of the largest hostage compounds in northwest Nigeria, mirroring the Rijana forest camps in Kaduna State.
“We passed other camps but none was as big as the one in Katsina,” said Elizabeth Haruna, one of the freed captives.
Ambush After a Wedding Errand
The four members of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) were Pastor Aliyu Danlami, Yakubu Haruna, Elizabeth Haruna and Mrs. Talatu Yusuf. They had traveled to Zuru in southern Kebbi to settle a bride price. They were driving home to Gummi in Zamfara when gunmen struck at about 6:30 p.m. near Uli village in Ngaski County (Local Government Area).
“They blocked us in front and started shooting. The driver tried to reverse but they shot the tires and the vehicle could not move. We all ran out of the car,” Mrs. Yusuf said.
“I lay down not far from the car, holding my Bible and praying out loud. They came with motorcycles and carried away Elizabeth, Yakubu and Pastor,” she said.
The attackers struck Pastor Aliyu on the head with a gun before speeding off. Talatu Yusuf spent the night alone in the bush before finding her way home.
TruthNigeria first reported the abduction on Oct. 9.
Four Days by Motorcycle
The terrorists carried the captives east on motorcycles along bush paths for four days to Faskari County (LGA), a vast scrub bush forest with few roads accessible to four-wheel vehicles. That is about 120 miles as the crow flies, roughly the distance from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia.
Security sources call Faskari the logistics hub of the kidnapping trade. Victims seized in southern Kebbi are moved east across Zamfara into Faskari’s forest hideouts, where fuel and food extorted from villages keep the camps running.
Faskari lies inside the Rugu Forest, a 137-mile belt of woods, rocky hills and caves that runs across seven Katsina counties, some facing Zamfara State on its West and Kaduna State on its southern border. The area falls primarily within the Northern Guinea Savannah zone, blending broad-leaved tree species and tall tussocky grasses with fine-leaved, thorny edges.
In 2020, Daily Trust reported that militia leaders carved the forest into territories, holding captives in hideouts along rivers, in caves and in pits dug under trees.
On June 29, troops in Faskari rescued four women and two children kidnapped in Zamfara in March and held for months.
“Fulani Terrorists have been operating many labor camps in states like Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto long before they moved to Kaduna and Benue,” David Onyilokwu Idah, a director at the International Human Rights Commission in Abuja, told TruthNigeria.
“The state and federal governments refused to take action, believing that negotiations can curb their quest,” he said.
Inside the Faskari Prison
When the three arrived, they found more than 100 captives already in chains.
“We met over 100 people, minors, families, breastfeeding mothers, pregnant women and aged people,” Elizabeth Haruna said to TruthNigeria.
“They have many shallow graves. They kill at will,” according to Mrs. Haruna.
“On Saturday, October 24, the terrorists brought in more than 75 additional victims,” she said. Many were Muslims, though not members of the Fulani tribe, which is the ethnicity of virtually 30,000 gang criminals in Northern Nigeria, according to Prof. Murtala Rufai’e, a bandit expert at Usman Dan Fodio University in Sokoto.
The camp is no temporary hideout. The captors live there with their wives, who are kept away from hostages, and observe Muslim prayers every morning, Haruna said. She described the gunmen as young Fulani men in their 20s and 30s.
Pastor Aliyu was forced to fetch firewood for the captors’ families
Her younger brother Yakubu escaped once but was back a day later. “They injured him with guns on his head. He is mentally unstable now,” Haruna said.
The Price of Freedom
On Oct. 5 the kidnappers demanded about $37,150 (N50 million at N1,346 to the dollar), five jerry cans of fuel and $37 in phone recharge cards.
After three weeks of haggling, the families paid about $15,600, roughly $5,200 per captive.
“N7 million each, making N21 million in total,” Haruna told TruthNigeria.
The gang also demanded a motorcycle bought in Kano and delivered with a full tank. The families paid about $740 in cash instead, bringing the total to roughly $16,350.
The three were released on Sunday, Oct. 25, after 22 days. Pastor Aliyu and Yakubu are being treated for severe injuries in hospitals in Sokoto State.
Washington Angle
The camp operates in a country Washington has listed since Oct 31, 2025 as a Country of Particular Concern, a U.S. label for the worst violators of religious freedom.
In September, a U.S. Air Force C-17 delivered military equipment to Nigeria under a Foreign Military Sales agreement.
“If the American government ties its supply of military hardware to curbing FEM attacks, then the Nigerian government will sit up and act. Abuja needs American weapons too badly to ignore that condition,” said Scott Morgan, a Washington-based analyst.
Yet the Faskari camp still operates in a forest the Nigerian Army patrols, and every ransom, like the roughly $16,350 these families raised, keeps it supplied.
With nearly 200 captives still held in Faskari, families in southern Kebbi fear the wave of abductions is far from over.
Izhi Bitrus Adamu is a conflict reporter for TruthNigeria. Mike Odeh James contributed to this story.
