“THEY CAME FROM THE SKY” - How an airstrike turned a slave march into a scramble for freedom – and left 7 pupils still missing.

The first sign of rescue was a humming sound above the baobabs. Then the ground jumped.

Halima Dauda, 11, grabbed the hand of her cousin Aisha, 9, and both girls dropped into the ditch they had been ordered to dig. “The sky cracked open, sand entered my eyes, and the men with guns started shouting ‘Allahu ak—’ before the second bomb cut them,” Halima told me, voice still hoarse from dust.

When the smoke thinned, 76 civilians – 22 of them primary-school pupils abducted three weeks earlier – sprinted through the gap the jets had torn in the insurgent cordon. They ran barefoot across thorn scrub until Nigerian Army ground troops waved them behind a Buffel armoured car.

That, at least, is the picture painted by the Air Force press statement released Sunday night: “Precision air interdiction on Tudun Wulgo and Kirta forests destroyed terrorist enclaves and facilitated the escape of 76 abducted persons.”

I reached the scene at 08:30 yesterday with a hunter convoy. What I found is messier, braver and, for seven families, still unfinished.

THE MISSING MAP

According to coordinates shown to me by a flight lieutenant who asked not to be named, the strike package lifted off from Maiduguri at 05:42. Two Alpha Jets, one drone. Target: a “tree-line bivouac” where satellite pictures had picked up 30–40 fighters.

But the civilians were not in the camp; they were being force-marched south to serve as human shields. The bombs landed ahead of the column, scattering captors and allowing prisoners to bolt.

“In military language we call it ‘disruption of cohesion’,” the pilot said. “We didn’t even know the kids were that close until we saw them on IR camera sprinting toward our coordinates.”

BODY COUNT AT THE BOMB CRATER

I counted five freshly killed insurgents – one still wearing a suicide vest whose trigger wire had been severed by shrapnel. Villagers who helped bury the dead say two more bodies were dragged away by fleeing fighters. That is a far cry from the “scores neutralised” headline already circulating on social media.

THE SCHOOL WHERE NO ONE RANG THE BELL

The 22 pupils were seized on 12 October when gunmen overran the Government Day Primary School, Kautikari. Headmaster Bulama Ali showed me the empty classroom: tiny plastic chairs overturned, blackboard still carrying the date of the attack.

“I sent WhatsApp messages to every parent,” he said, voice cracking. “Seven children are still with the insurgents. The Air Force says 22 freed; my register says 29 were taken. Do the maths.”

Among the missing is 8-year-old Bitrus James, whose mother Rebecca trekked 17 km to the forest edge when she heard rumours of the strike. Soldiers turned her back. “They said operation still active. I just want to see my son’s shoes, even if his feet are not inside,” she sobbed, clutching a red sandal.

CHAINED BY NIGHT, FREED BY FIRE

Escapees told me the captives were split into three groups: boys over 14 to be conscripted, girls as “domestics”, adults for ransom. Each night their ankles were lashed with motorcycle brake cables.

Yusuf Alkali, 37, a truck driver, said he chewed through his cable the night before the strike. “They beat me for ruining the wire. But if I hadn’t, I would still be anchored when the bomb landed.” He showed me his lower incisors – one snapped to the gum.

AID THAT NEVER CAME

By 14:00 the freed civilians were queued at an Army camp near Mallam Fatori for “medical screening”. I saw one nurse, no doctor, two cartons of sachet water. A soldier whispered that higher command had “budgeted” for 50 escapees; 76 showed up.

The Red Cross arrived at 18:10 with high-energy biscuits. By then some kids had eaten nothing in 30 hours except wild dates.

QUESTIONS IN THE DUST

- Why was the school left unguarded three weeks after the first abduction?
- Did intelligence indicate the hostage column’s exact position before the bombs fell?
- Where are the remaining seven pupils, and is a pursuit operation under way?

Defence Headquarters declined an on-record interview, citing “ongoing operations.”

A TINY SHOE, A LOUD SILENCE

Back in Kautikari, Rebecca James has hung her son’s remaining sandal on the classroom door. “When Bitrus comes back he will need it,” she insists.

Unless another bomb, another miracle, or another press statement proves her right, the maths of war remains stubborn: 76 freed, 7 still ghosts, and one mother waiting for footsteps that may never echo past the baobabs.

This has been The Red Hot Report from Pepper-Room. The news that bears it all.

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