A 23-year-old woman did not leave her room for weeks, her family said.
She is allegedly raped by a police officer who enforces government coronavirus guidelines.
“She’s very traumatized,” said Pamela’s older cousin, Fred, who has helped look after the family since the alleged assault.
“It has been very difficult for her to sleep well since that incident.”
On July 28, Pamela traveled by public bus en route to Port Harcourt, the capital of the south-central Rivers state, some 45 km west of Bori.
On reaching a checkpoint in Sakpenwa town, 25 km outside Bori, at 6:30 p.m., Pamela said four police officers arrested her for not wearing a mask.
Then, she said, they escorted her to a guest house where one of the officers raped her “until dawn” after “threatening to kill her” if she didn’t cooperate.
“I am not myself and have passed out twice since the rape incident,” said Pamela, whose husband died more than two years ago.
“Due to my deteriorating health, I had to move here to live with my mother so that I could be treated.”
Pamela is not the only woman in Nigeria who says she has been attacked by those who should take precautionary measures against the coronavirus.
The Women At Risk International Foundation reported in 2018 that more than 10,000 women and girls are raped or sexually abused every day in the country.
It is unclear how many rapists have been convicted in recent years, but Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics revealed that the country’s police reported no convictions for rape in 2017, despite recording 2,279 cases of rape and indecent assault.
