The hotline trying to stop men murdering their wives

Photo credit: Brittney Walker

New York, US - It was an ordinary afternoon when Anthonia Iheme left her work at a nursing home in Hennepin County, Minnesota, and got into her car. But as she was about to pull out of the car park, she was shot - twice. Her vehicle lurched forward and clipped the side of a parked van before going over a pavement, down a small hill and striking a chain-link fence bordering the nursing facility. The gunman followed. He approached the driver's window and fired several more shots.

The attacker was Anthonia's husband. It was July 24, 2008. After murdering his wife, he called 911 and declared: "I have killed the woman that messed my life up … a woman that destroyed me."

Years later, Grace Ogiehor-Enoma sat quietly on the J train heading to her office in the New York borough of Brooklyn. When the train emerged above ground, her phone rang. The caller had hidden his ID.

"Tell me why I should not kill my wife now," he raged.

Although she receives similar calls 10 to 15 times a year, they never cease to startle Ogiehor-Enoma. The man, calling from the state of Georgia, launched into a tirade against Nigerian nurses in the United States.

"Some of the women, they deserve what they get," he said. Ogiehor-Enoma let him vent.

When he had finished, she assumed the role of educator and counsellor. She asked: What would become of his children? What would become of him? By the end of her commute, she had managed to talk him down.

After 10 Nigerian women - eight of them nurses - had been killed in the US by their partners between 2006 and 2008 - shot, stabbed or bludgeoned to death - Ogiehor-Enoma decided to act.

The nurse and executive director of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses in North America (NANNNA) started handing out her mobile phone number at community gatherings and events. It became an unofficial, de facto hotline for Nigerian men abusing or contemplating killing their partners, for couples seeking help, and for abused women.

The unofficial hotline was part of her organisation's efforts to understand and tackle domestic violence among Nigerians in the US. Why was there so much violence against nurses? What should be done?

Real full story on Al Jazeera English.