From where she sat under a mango tree beside two huts and an old three-bedroom bungalow, Hembadoon Tervershima watched a motorcycle turn onto the narrow footpath that ended in the compound.
Since the disappearance of her daughter in May 2024, the 42-year-old widow has lived with her mother. Two years later, the sight or sound of a vehicle approaching the compound still takes her mind back to her daughter.
“I still wait for her every day,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I thought I heard her voice.”
Joy Tervershima was 15 when she left for school one morning in Zaki Biam, headquarters of Ukum Local Government Area in Benue State. That was the last time a family member saw her. Her disappearance came years after armed attackers displaced her family and thousands of other residents from their ancestral home in Guma Local Government Area. The family settled in Zaki Biam with their two daughters, hoping to rebuild their lives away from the conflict. That hope was short-lived.
Months passed before the family heard from police investigators that Joy had been trafficked through Lagos to Libya. Then, one day, nearly a year after she vanished, she called from an international code.
