He escaped kidnappers, walked for 9 days through the forest, then got kidnapped again

He spent 141 days in captivity and escaped from a kidnap camp before being captured again.

Salihu said he spent nine days walking through the bush, unsure which direction would lead him home.

Mohammed Baba Salihu thought escaping from the kidnappers’ camp would finally take him home.

Instead, after nine days of walking through the bush without knowing where he was going, he was captured by another group of armed men and taken back into captivity.

By then, Salihu had already spent about 141 days with kidnappers.

The resident of Tsaragi in Edu Local Government Area of Kwara State was abducted from his home on May 8, 2026, after gunmen invaded the community at night.

Salihu said the attackers were looking for an engineer and that he was not their intended victim.

“They did not come for me. Something happened, and before I understood what was going on, a person was already dead, and they had turned to me,” he told journalists after his eventual escape.

The gunmen took him into the bush, where he spent the next 141 days moving between bandit camps.

Life there became increasingly difficult. Salihu said there were times when captives went as long as four days without food, while drinking water was also not provided regularly.

“Sometimes it was four days before food reached us. Not just food, even water was never given daily,” he said. He became so weak that he lost a significant amount of weight and muscle.

During the captivity, Salihu also witnessed the aftermath of a ransom exchange that went wrong. He said two men arrived with about ₦13 million, reportedly intended to secure his release, but the handover ended in gunfire. One of the men was shot while the other escaped into the bush.

The wounded man was later taken back to the camp. When the kidnappers asked Salihu whether he knew him, he said yes and was allowed to help care for him. For a while, the man appeared to be recovering.

“He was getting better. I could see it. He was becoming stronger,” Salihu recalled.

They were later separated, and Salihu did not know what happened to him until he returned home. He eventually learnt that the man had died while still in captivity.

Salihu’s chance to leave came when he escaped from the first camp, but freedom was not as straightforward as he had imagined. He did not know the area and had no idea which direction would take him back to civilisation. So he kept walking.

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“I did not know the road. I did not know which direction led home. I walked for nine days,” he said.

For nine days, he moved through the bush, already weakened by months of hunger and poor living conditions. Then he encountered another group of bandits. Instead of finding his way home, Salihu was captured again and taken to another camp.

“I thought I had escaped. Instead, I met another set of bandits who took me to another camp. The suffering continued,” he said.

The second captivity lasted until September 26, when Salihu and eight other captives noticed that their captors were no longer watching them closely. They seized the opportunity and escaped together.

Two of the captives were Fulani men who could understand some of the kidnappers’ conversations and had been passing information to the others, according to Salihu.

The nine men made their way through the bush until they reached Lata Nna, where residents found them. By then, some of them could barely stand.

“When we finally walked into Lata Nna, some of us could barely stand,” Salihu said.

Residents provided immediate assistance before soldiers took the survivors for questioning and helped reunite them with their families.

After 141 days in captivity and two escapes, Salihu returned severely weakened and in need of treatment for dehydration and malnutrition. He had lost considerable weight and muscle and was also being monitored for the psychological effects of the experience.