Families in Nigeria's northeast still search for relatives who vanished in the conflict

For more than 15 years, Kashim Mohammed has held on to the hope that his younger sister, Falmata Mohammed, is alive. She disappeared in 2011 while travelling with their mother from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, to Port Harcourt in the south. Kashim says unidentified gunmen abducted the two women.

Years later, a man approached Kashim at Baga Road Market in Maiduguri and said Falmata had been found in Benin and was looking for her relatives. The man left without giving any contact details. Kashim says he has never been able to confirm whether the claim was true. "From then until now, nobody knows anything about the man who brought the information," he said.

Kashim, 39, chairs the Association for the Well-being of Displaced and Missing Persons' Families, a community group based in Bolori II, Ngarnam ward, Maiduguri. Their father, Mohammed Kolo, worked at the State Specialist Hospital and died at 60 from an illness Kashim attributes to high blood pressure. He never learned what happened to his daughter. "Our father always said, 'Wherever she is, I believe my daughter is alive,'" Kashim recalled.

Muhammad Alhaji Bashir, 29, describes a similar loss. His elder brother, Adam Muhammad Bashir, known as Bakura, went missing around 2012 or 2013, when Muhammad was about 14. Bakura, then believed to be in his early 20s, sold cosmetics in a Maiduguri market and studied civil engineering at Ramat Polytechnic. Muhammad blames the Boko Haram crisis for the loss. The family searched across Maiduguri and visited a rehabilitation centre in Bulumkutu whenever rescued people were brought there, carrying Bakura's pictures, but nobody recognised him. Muhammad says his father and stepmother, who was Bakura's mother, later died from illnesses the family attributed to hypertension.

Boko Haram's armed rebellion began in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, and the conflict has brought attacks, abductions and displacement. The International Committee of the Red Cross, working with the Nigerian Red Cross Society, has supported efforts to trace missing people and reconnect families. Local advocates cited an estimate of 17,000 missing people across northern Nigeria, while Kashim said his association's records suggest about 10,000 in Borno State alone, with many families yet to register their relatives. The sources and methods behind these estimates have not been independently established.

Kashim says his search for Falmata helped inspire the association, founded in 2023 and registered with Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission in 2025. Members meet monthly to share information, and some families have lost eight or nine relatives. The group sometimes receives notices from the Red Cross with names and details of missing people, which can offer leads but do not necessarily mean a relative has been found.

The association also assists about 600 orphaned children from affected families, according to Kashim. Some attend school, while others have dropped out because relatives cannot afford fees or basic needs. "We are now suffering because of the harsh living conditions," he said, adding that the ICRC had distributed relief items to some families.

The search grew harder after devastating floods hit parts of Maiduguri in 2024. Kashim says the water submerged parts of Ngarnam and destroyed photographs that families had kept to help identify missing relatives. Some now have little more than remembered details and surviving records.

Both families are appealing for information. Muhammad continues looking for Bakura without the parents who once searched alongside him. Kashim has a message for his sister: "Falmata Mohammed, if you are alive anywhere in this world, we are the family of late Mohammed Kolo in Bolori II, Ngarnam. We are waiting for you."