Title: "The River Remembers" The river near our village was once a place of laughter. Children swam in it after school, our mothers washed cassava by its edge, and the old ones sat under the mango trees telling stories of how Tiv warriors once defended this land. But now, the river remembers blood. I am Adaga. I turned 14 last month. I did not have cake or candles. I had silence and a sky too quiet. My birthday was two days after the night they came. We were sleeping—my mother, my little brother Terna, and I—on mats on the floor of our small mud house. My father had gone to Gboko to buy farming tools. He never returned. We later heard that the roads had been blocked… and the markets burned. That night, we woke to fire and shouting. Gunshots. Screams. My mother threw herself over us. Terna cried. I froze. I remember the orange light dancing through the window. I remember the smell—of smoke, of fear, of something I cannot describe but will never forget. She told us to run. I didn’t want to leave her, but she pushed me. “Take your brother,” she said. “Run through the yam fields. Don’t stop.” We ran. I don’t remember how long we ran—only that Terna’s hand gripped mine tighter than it ever had before. The sound of bullets chased us, but the screams stayed with us longer. When the sun rose, our village was gone. What remained was ash and silence, and bodies that would never rise again. We found others—survivors—hiding by the rocks near the river. Women with torn wrappers. Boys with bloodied feet. Babies with no one left to call “Mama.” No one said much. We sat, broken, like pottery shards after a storm. A woman named Mama Doo took us in. She had lost three children but said God spared her for a reason. “To love what is left,” she told us. That night, she made rice and beans and split it between twelve of us. We ate slowly, chewing more grief than food. A few days later, aid workers came. They brought blankets, plastic buckets, and some rice. A man with a camera took our photos. I looked away. I didn’t want the world to see me only in pain. They said the attackers were “unknown gunmen.” But we knew. The elders had warned the government, written letters, begged for protection. None came. And still, NONE CAME. In the displacement camp, life is slow and heavy. School is a tent with no books. We write numbers in the sand. Terna draws butterflies that don’t exist here. At night, he whispers, “Do you think Mama is looking for us?” I tell him yes. I don’t know if it’s true. Every week, another camp gets attacked. We sleep in shifts. I hold Terna close, listening for footsteps, for warning cries. One day, I found an old journal in a pile of donated clothes. It smelled of perfume and sorrow. I began writing down everything—about the river, about Mama, about the mango tree she used to sit under. I write because I want someone, someday, to know we were here. We lived. We laughed. We farmed. We danced during yam festivals. We sang Tiv songs while grinding millet. We were more than victims. The last time I went near the village, the river was swollen. It flowed silently, gently, as though trying to erase the pain. But I knelt beside it and whispered my mother’s name. The river heard me. It carried my whisper far, maybe even to her. #documentary #Nigeria #BenueKillings