After a deadly raid, a displaced Nigerian mother finds a lifeline in sewing
After losing her husband and two children, Safiya now fears losing the fragile future she rebuilt. Jibia, Katsina State, Nigeria – Safiya Musa’s sewing machine
After losing her husband and two children, Safiya now fears losing the fragile future she rebuilt. Jibia, Katsina State, Nigeria – Safiya Musa’s sewing machine has given her something violence had taken away: a way to provide for her children. But the livelihood she built after losing her husband and two of her children has left her facing a painful choice: whether to return home or risk losing the fragile independence she has created after being forced to flee. Safiya cannot remember which month it was, only that it was 2023, when armed bandits raided the town of Kankara in Katsina State, where she and her husband had built their life after moving from their hometown of Batsari. Kankara is a small rural community where farms sit close to homes, and her husband worked as a farmer and foodstuffs trader. They lived there with their two youngest children, Umar (4) and Maryam (6), while their three older children, Sani (12), Hajara (10) and Zubaida (8), were staying with relatives in Batsari. The attackers had come to kidnap the town head, but the attempt failed. As gunfire spread through the community, Safiya locked herself inside her room while Umar and Maryam were outside playing with other children. Her husband had left for the farm when the attack happened. The bandits killed about 20 people as they left the town. Three days later, after she had learned that her husband had also been killed during the attack, she fled to Batsari, where she was reunited with Sani, Hajara and Zubaida. When another bandit attack reached Batsari, she fled again with her three surviving children – now aged (15), (13) and (11) – to Jibia, where they eventually settled in a camp for displaced people.
She still remembers the night she lost much of her family. “Minutes later, silence overwhelmed the atmosphere,” she recalled. “Then I started thinking about my husband, who had left for the farm, and my children, who were outside playing with other kids.” The thought of them pushed her out of hiding. But she was too late. “They were all killed,” she told Al Jazeera. Safiya’s experience reflects a wider crisis affecting communities across northwest Nigeria. For more than a decade, the region has faced attacks, kidnappings and village raids by armed groups commonly called bandits. The violence has forced thousands of families from their homes, disrupted farming and trade, and left many people struggling to rebuild their lives. Katsina State, which borders Niger, has been among the areas hardest hit. After arriving in Jibia, Safiya survived by taking whatever work she could find. She ground grain for local residents and relied on temporary jobs to support her children. She was then selected for a handbag-making training programme organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through its Climate Security Project. The initiative provides women affected by conflict with vocational training and equipment to help them start small businesses. Months later, the programme gave her a source of income. The work brought stability, but it also created a new uncertainty: whether she could continue the business if she returned home. “The essence is to give them an opportunity to become self-reliant,” said Muhammad Hamisu, the project coordinator in Jibia. A skill that changed her circumstances After completing the training, Safiya turned handbag-making into a source of income for her family. With sewing materials and new skills, she began cutting fabric, stitching designs and producing handbags she could sell to support her children.
The BriefWire