--- title: "Borno Families Group Says 10,000 Are Missing After Boko Haram Violence" description: "The Red Cross counts about 9,000 registered cases in the state, and families say 2024 floods destroyed photos they used in their searches." author: "rews desk" published: 2026-10-25T05:33:41Z modified: 2026-10-25T13:03:22Z url: https://rews.cc/a/borno-families-group-says-10-000-are-missing-after-boko-hara-933ff0 language: en tags: ["boko-haram", "kidnapping", "displacement", "human-rights", "nigeria", "africa"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Borno Families Group Says 10,000 Are Missing After Boko Haram Violence *The Red Cross counts about 9,000 registered cases in the state, and families say 2024 floods destroyed photos they used in their searches.* By rews desk · October 25, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/borno-families-group-says-10-000-are-missing-after-boko-hara-933ff0 ## In brief - A Maiduguri families association says its records show about 10,000 people missing in Borno State - The ICRC counts more than 17,000 registered missing in Nigeria, about 9,000 of them in Borno - Kashim Mohammed’s sister Falmata has been missing since 2011, and their father died without word of her - Muhammad Alhaji Bashir has searched for his brother Bakura since about 2012 or 2013 - Floods in 2024 destroyed photographs families had kept to identify missing relatives Kashim Mohammed, who leads an association of families of the missing in Maiduguri, Nigeria, said in an interview published on Sunday that his group’s records show about 10,000 people missing in Borno State alone, many of them after years of Boko Haram violence. Mr. Mohammed, 39, told [Al Jazeera’s Adamu Aliyu Ngulde](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/25/nigerias-missing-families-in-the-northeast-still-wait-for-answers) that many families still haven’t registered their missing relatives. His group, the Association for the Well-being of Displaced and Missing Persons’ Families, works out of Bolori II, in the Ngarnam ward of the state capital. He said it is helping about 600 orphaned children from those families. Some are in school. Others have dropped out because the relatives raising them can’t pay. The association’s count is higher than the Red Cross figure. The International Committee of the Red Cross puts the number of people registered as missing in Nigeria at more than 17,000, with about 9,000 cases in Borno, 3,000 in Adamawa and 2,500 in Yobe, [Daily Trust reported](https://dailytrust.com/14500-missing-in-neast-as-families-groan/) in August. Local advocates cite the same 17,000 estimate for northern Nigeria. It was not clear how Mr. Mohammed’s group compiled its records or what period they cover. The national number has shifted. In August 2024, the ICRC said it had registered [24,025 people as missing](https://www.westafricanpilotnews.com/2024/08/31/over-24025-people-declares-missing-in-nigeria-icrc/) and that the true total was likely far higher. It was not clear why the count has since dropped. Mr. Mohammed’s own search began in 2011, when his younger sister, Falmata Mohammed, disappeared while traveling with her mother from Maiduguri to Port Harcourt, in the south. He said unidentified gunmen abducted both women. Years later, a man at Baga Road Market in Maiduguri told him Falmata had turned up in Benin and was looking for her relatives. Then the man vanished without leaving contact details. “From then until now, nobody knows anything about the man who brought the information,” Mr. Mohammed said. Their father, Mohammed Kolo, worked at the State Specialist Hospital in Maiduguri. He died at 60 of an illness his son attributes to high blood pressure, never learning what happened to his daughter. “Our father always said, ‘Wherever she is, I believe my daughter is alive,’” Mr. Mohammed said. Muhammad Alhaji Bashir, 29, has been looking for his older brother, Adam Muhammad Bashir, known as Bakura, since he went missing around 2012 or 2013. Mr. Bashir was about 14. Bakura, believed to be in his early 20s then, sold cosmetics in a Maiduguri market and studied civil engineering at Ramat Polytechnic. “I sincerely lost my brother as a result of the Boko Haram crisis,” Mr. Bashir said. The family searched the city and took his photographs to a rehabilitation center in Bulumkutu whenever they heard rescued people had arrived there. “Nobody recognized him,” he said. His father and stepmother, Bakura’s mother, have since died of illnesses the family attributes to hypertension. Nobody has confirmed whether Bakura is alive. Boko Haram’s insurgency began in the northeast in 2009. Mr. Mohammed said families in his neighborhood formed the association in 2023, and it registered with Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission in 2025. Members meet monthly. Some families have lost eight or nine relatives, he said. The Red Cross sometimes sends the group notices with names and details of missing people, which give families leads but don’t necessarily mean anyone has been found. “We are now suffering because of the harsh living conditions,” Mr. Mohammed said. He said the ICRC had handed out relief supplies to some families. The 2024 floods made the searches harder. Mr. Mohammed said the water submerged parts of Ngarnam and ruined photographs families had kept to identify missing relatives, leaving some with only names and memories. The Alau Dam collapsed in September 2024, and by Sept. 15 more than 414,000 people in Borno had been affected, [according to the UN humanitarian office](https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/nigeria/nigeria-floods-maiduguri-mmc-and-jere-floods-flash-update-2-15-september-2024). Both families are asking anyone with information to come forward. Mr. Mohammed addressed his sister directly: “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.”