Kidnapped Christian Girls Die Days After Release in Nigeria

Silvia Samuel, 4, and Hasana Bulus, 13, died shortly after their release on 2 November 2026, following nearly seven months in captivity in Kaduna state, Nigeria. They were among eleven Christians kidnapped by armed Fulani gunmen from Awon village, Kachia County, on 20 April 2026. Freedom came too late for both girls, and for the families who had prayed for them every day of those seven months, the homecoming turned into a funeral.

Hasana died first. She was taken to hospital in Kachia after her release, and on 3 November, just one day after tasting freedom, she was gone. "On Nov. 3, just a day after tasting freedom, she died," said Reuben Buhari, co-founder of the Resilience Aid Dialogue Initiative, which has been tracking the case.

One day of freedom. That is all she got.

Silvia's story is even harder to hold. She turned four years old while in captivity, a birthday marked not with cake and songs but with hunger and fear in the bush. Her pregnant mother, Joy Samuel, died in captivity on 28 August, shortly after giving birth.

The newborn baby died too. Silvia came home an orphan, and then she died as well.

The eleven Christians were taken from Awon village on 20 April, in an attack that tore through an ordinary farming community and left it shattered. For nearly seven months, their families heard almost nothing. They waited, they prayed, and they scraped together ransoms they could not afford, because that is what families do when the people they love are in the hands of gunmen.

Five of the captives were finally released in early November, on 1–2 November. Alongside Silvia and Hasana, the freed hostages were Hanatu Yusuf, 52, Celina Maichibi, 46, and Faith Kefas, 14.

The price of their freedom, according to area resident Jethro Daniel, was three motorcycles plus two million naira, about $1,482, per person freed. That is the going rate for a human life in Kaduna state.

Not everyone lived long enough to be ransomed. Devine, 14, Rachel Bulus, 14, and another girl named Faith Kefas, 14, died in captivity. So did Yusuf Bawa, 34, and his five-year-old son, who succumbed to severe illness and hunger.

The names blur together if you read them fast. Read them slowly. Each one was a child, or a father, or a mother, and each one died far from home.

Amnesty International's Nigerian office noted the deaths in a press statement that pulled no punches. "While in captivity, the abducted persons were always repeatedly threatened to be killed, starved, women and girls raped, beaten and dehumanized in so many ways," the statement said.

It added: "A woman, Joy Samuel died on 28 August, after giving birth in a deplorable condition. The baby she delivered also died."

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, the UK-based human rights group, renewed its call for Nigerian authorities to protect vulnerable communities and secure the release of all abductees. Its report was shared with ACI Africa on 5 November. The call is familiar, and that is the tragedy of it: the same call has been made after almost every kidnapping in the Middle Belt, and the kidnappings keep happening.

Kidnapped Christians in Nigeria: A Crisis That Keeps Growing

The Awon kidnapping is not an isolated horror. It is one case in a pattern of mass abductions that has made Kaduna state one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian. Armed groups seize villagers, demand ransoms their families cannot pay, and hold them for months while the world looks elsewhere.

Those who survive come home broken. Those who do not are buried quietly, if they are buried at all.

The day after Hasana's death, on 4 November, gunmen struck again nearby. In Akwando village, two Christians were killed and 20 abducted in a raid, as reported in Akwando Kaduna Attack: Two Christians Killed, 20 Abducted in November 4 Raid. The timing was no coincidence.

It was a message: the release of five hostages did not mean the violence was over. It never is.

The scale of the crisis is now a matter of record in Washington. A US House hearing this week heard that Nigeria accounts for 72 percent of Christian killings worldwide, as reported in Latest: US House Hearing Finds Nigeria Accounts for 72% of Christian Killings Worldwide. Open Doors' 2026 World Watch List puts the number at 3,490 Christians killed in Nigeria between October 2024 and September 2025, out of 4,849 killed for their faith worldwide.

What Freedom Cost the Families of Awon Village

Think about what the families of Awon village paid, and what they got. Three motorcycles and two million naira per person, raised by people who farm for a living. Months of silence and dread.

And in the end, two of the five freed hostages died within days, and six others never came home at all. The ransom bought a homecoming that lasted a day for Hasana, and a little longer for Silvia.

The christain community in Kaduna is asking a question that has no easy answer: how do you keep going when freedom itself arrives too late? The families of Awon village are still asking it. The girls' graves are fresh, the village is still grieving, and the gunmen who took them are still free.

There are other villages like Awon across Nigeria, and other families still waiting for a phone call that may never come. In Ethiopia, the toll from attacks on Orthodox Christians in Oromia has now reached 94, as reported in Latest: 34 More Orthodox Christians Killed in Ethiopia as Oromia Toll Hits 94.

In Pakistan, two brothers were acquitted after spending 20 years in prison on blasphemy charges, as reported in Pakistan Supreme Court Acquits Two Brothers After 20 Years in Blasphemy Case. And in China, a Beijing house church pastor was arrested after a 100-officer raid, as reported in China Arrests Beijing House Church Pastor Edward Cui After 100-Officer Raid.

Silvia Samuel turned four in captivity and died days after coming home. Hasana Bulus survived seven months in the bush and died one day after freedom.

Their names deserve to be remembered, not as statistics in a report, but as two girls who should have had a lifetime ahead of them. The question now is whether anyone with the power to stop the next Awon will act before the next village is taken.