School teacher who was held hostage for 93 days recalls terrifying moment she realized what 11-year-old was holding
A school teacher has shared her terrifying experience of being held hostage for 93 days, and the moment she saw an 11-year-old equipped with a gun 'learning the family trade of kidnapping and ransom'.
Jessica Buchanan is one of the very few people who can say they were held captive for three months and lived to tell the tale.
At just 32 years old, the American from rural Ohio was kidnapped by Somali pirates while she was living in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, a self-declared independent republic located in northern Somalia.
While working as an international aid worker, she was abducted on October 25, 2011, during a staff mission to the south of the country, in Galkayo.
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She was there to deliver a three-day training program, having twice postponed it due to an uneasy feeling.
"We'd had it planned and I just didn't feel good about it, I had this gut feeling that something was off," she told LADbible Group. "I went through the necessary security protocols with the security advisor, I checked all the boxes, I did all the things I was required to do.
"Everybody said it was safe to go down, and so I thought, you know, what are the chances that something bad's gonna happen?"
Despite completing these formal security checks, her convoy was intercepted while returning to the guesthouse - armed men in police uniforms seized Jessica and her then 60-year-old Danish colleague, Poul Hagen Thisted, as they climbed into the vehicle and forced the team south.
The pair were moved between vehicles through the night.
"They separate Poul and I at one point," she shared. "At another point, it's just completely pitch black, dark, and I hear a high-pitched voice behind me, and I think, 'my God, this is strange, there's a woman involved' - which, that would be so odd, especially in Somali culture, 'cause females and males keep very separate.
"And finally, my curiosity got the best of me, and I turned around and there was a small child behind me, maybe like nine years old? And he was wearing belts of ammunition and he had an AK-47 - and it was as big as he was."
Jessica continued: "I just remember our eyes meeting, and then he does one of these things where he like acknowledges me with his chin and then motions me to turn back around.
"Then I later learned that his name is Abdulahi. He was actually 11 but small for his age, and he'd already killed three people, and he was learning the family trade of kidnapping and ransom."
Jessica explained how her goal was to try and stay alive for the first 48 hours after having been held captive - something she learned in her training to become a humanitarian aid worker.
In the first few days, it became apparent who was in charge, a man called 'Abdi' - who, unlike his peers, wore Western clothes. After Poul and Jessica reunited, they asked what their fate would be and whether or not they were going to be killed.
"'We just want money'," she recalls being told by Abdi.
When they pressed him for the amount of money, they were shocked to find they had asked both the Danish Government and the US Government for a combined $45 million for their release.
She continued: "Because they were operating on this piracy standard of container ships being taken over in the Indian Ocean, and we kept just trying to explain to them, 'we're two humanitarian aid workers', we are not a container ship and a crew, there's no way you're going to get $45 million for us'.
"That was incredibly scary and frustrating."
But as the days passed, their captors began torturing their psyche, mainly Abdi, but so too did the young Abdulahi.
"Abdi was really good about that; he loved to screw with us," Jessica reflected. "He would drive us to the airport in Adado and we would think, 'oh my goodness', we're like, 'this is it, this is the day the ransom's been paid. They're doing the drop-in-exchange'.
"And he would stop at the airport, and then he would turn around and look at us and he would wave his hand and say, 'wave goodbye, Poul and Jesses' - he always called me Jesses - 'unless we get the $45 million, you're never gonna see these planes'."
She went on: "He would do stuff like that over and over again. Tease us, you know? Cruel. The worst was with Abdulahi, the child, where he would order me around, and he'd want me to move two inches to the left just because he could, and I would refuse to, so then he'd put a knife to my neck, and I'd think, 'Okay, I guess I have to move two inches to the left'.
"I have to take the orders of an 11-year-old child."
As the days passed, living in the harsh, unhygienic conditions, the Ohioan fell gravely ill after contracting a urinary tract infection.
Jessica made her final 'proof of life call' to the US on January 16, 2012, using the moment to stress that she's in a 'terrible amount of pain' and that she needs to be seen by a doctor because she was going to die in two weeks if not treated.
Nine days later, chaos breaks out at the Somali camp, as Jessica recalls: "I hear the night just erupt into gunfire."
Jessica continued: "All I can think is, 'oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, we're getting kidnapped by another group. This is probably Al-Shabaab, and I'm not gonna survive this.
"I don't have the energy, I don't have the strength, I don't have the capacity to survive another group. I'm really gonna die out here'.
"All of a sudden somebody grabs my shoulders and my ankles and tries to pull the blanket off of me, and I'm trying to keep it up over me. I have my hands in front of me, I'm trying to protect myself, and I hear the sound of a young American man's voice and he knows my name and he says, 'Jessica, it's okay. You're safe now'."
In the early hours of January 25, on President Barack Obama's orders, under the cover of darkness, 24 US Navy SEALS parachuted close to the compound where Jessica and Poul were being held captive.
Nine Somali pirates were killed in the rescue mission, while none of the SEALs were harmed in the process.
Topics: Barack Obama, US News
Joe Yates