A 12-year-old girl (names withheld) tested positive of the deadly HIV after she was repeatedly gang-raped by her 25-year-old half brother, Abdullahi Mohammed and his friends.
The young girl narrated that the sexual assault started four years ago and had been ongoing until it was busted recently.
Her mother got divorced with her father shortly after she was just born and she has been living with her father in a two-bedroom public apartment in Jahi district of Abuja.
She said her half brother started raping her when she was 8 years old, and each time he raped her, he would threaten to kill her if she told their father.
Recounting her harrowing ordeal, the 12-year-old said: “My father married my step mother who has a son. We were living peacefully until one night when I was lying on the floor and Brother Abdullahi came and started fondling my breasts. When he didn’t see breasts, he said he would suck them until they came out.
“When I objected, he raped me. He used a handkerchief to wipe off the blood that was coming out from my private part. He threatened to slash my throat if I told anybody.
“I didn’t tell anybody and it continued. He raped me every night; and sometimes he brought his friends, especially Ahmed along with him to rape me.”
She kept the ordeal to herself until her father took her to a hospital on advice after she started falling ill often.
However, confusion emerged when the two rapists who confessed to the crime were arrested by the police officials and subjected to a HIV test.
They both tested negative which fueled speculations that the girl’s mother was apparently HIV positive when she had her, which was possibly the reason why she was sent away by her husband.
Although suggestions have it that there are possibilities that the rest of the friends who were involved in the crime might turn out positive.
A police source said: “She was not tested when she was an infant, and maybe she was HIV positive from birth. Her half brother confessed that he was the first man to have had sex with the victim and how she got that HIV still remains a mystery.”
