At the meeting, Lawmakers questioned State and Defense department officials on exactly what steps were being taken to rescue the girls and battle the Boko Haram. Reuters
Her father and brother were martyrs for the Christian faith, a Nigerian girl who survived the Boko Haram slaughter of her family told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday. Deborah Peter, 15, recounted surviving a 2011 attack on her hometown by Boko Haram terrorists.
Peter is from Chibok, the northeast Nigerian town where close to 300 schoolgirls were taken captive in April by Boko Haram. She told U.S. House lawmakers how her brother and father were shot in front of her and the attackers put her between their dead bodies, threatening to kill her if she did not keep quiet.
In her statement, Peter recalled how her brother and father were killed on the night of Dec. 22, 2011, when their home was invaded by Boko Haram. She said her brother had told their father not to come home because they had heard gunshots outside the house. But the father had told him not to worry since because "it was not the first time he had come home when people were fighting."
"At 7:30 p.m., three men knocked on the door. My brother answered the door because he recognized one of the men as a Muslim in our community. The men asked where my dad was and I told them that he was in the shower.
The men waited. After three minutes, they went into the bathroom and dragged my dad into the main room. They said that my dad was wasting their time and that they did not have time to wait on him.
The men told my dad that he should deny his Christian faith. My dad told them that he would not deny his faith. They said that if he did not deny his faith they were going to kill him. My dad refused, saying that Jesus said whoever acknowledges Him in front of man, He will acknowledge in front of God; and whoever denies Him in front of man, He will deny in front of God in heaven.
My dad said that he would rather die than go to hellfire. After he told the men that, the men shot him three times in his chest.
My brother was in shock. He started demanding, 'What did my dad do to you? Why did you shoot him?'
The men told him to be quiet or else they were going to shoot him too. Then, the men discussed whether they should kill my brother. One of the Boko Harams said they should kill Caleb, my brother. The second man said that he was just a boy and that he was too young to kill. But the third man said that they should make an exception in this case because Caleb will only grow up to be a Christian pastor. Caleb asked me to plead with them for his life but they told me to shut up or they would kill me too.
The leader agreed that they should kill him and shot my brother two times. My dad had still been breathing but when he saw them shoot Caleb, he died.
Deborah Peter said she wanted to tell her story so people would know "how horrible" the militant group is. "They kill innocent people who never hurt them. I want the world to understand what happened to me," Peter said.Reuters
Peter then continued her story, describing how the militants shot her brother a third time, and left her in the middle of her father and brother's bodies. "My brother fell down but was still alive and gasping. The men shot him in his mouth. Then, my brother stopped moving and died. I was in shock. I did not know what was happening. The men put me in the middle of my dad and brother’s corpses, told me to be quiet or be killed, and left me there. I stayed there until the next day when the army came. They removed my dad and brother’s bodies to the mortuary and took me to the hospital.
"I was traumatized. A nearby pastor paid for me to get out of town when he discovered that Boko Haram said they made a mistake by not also killing me. Boko Haram decided later that they should have killed me because I am the daughter of an apostate Muslim mother who converted to Christianity. So the pastor paid for me to get out of that region.
"I fled and Jubilee Campaign helped me come to a 9/11 child survivors of terrorism camp in America. On May 15, 2013, that pastor, Rev. Faye Pama, was killed by Boko Haram in front of his kids."
She added that her father's life had been previously threatened before the killing by Boko Haram because of his faith.
"My family was targeted by Boko Haram because we are Christians. My dad was a pastor. We had to move from place to place because Boko Haram always attacked my father and told him that they would kill him. In November, they burned his church and
threatened him. My dad refused to deny his faith and rebuilt his church. That is why they killed him — because he is a Christian.
Peter says she shared her story because she wants people to know "horrible Boko Haram is."
"I want the world to understand what happened to me. I hope that the kidnapped Chibok girls will take courage from my story, and know more of what God says, and know what it means to stand strong in the face of bad people. I hope that they will be free and be able to go to school and worship freely. I hope that like me, some of them can come and continue their education in America.
