The soldiers slaughtered her husband, dragged her away from her children, then took her to their stronghold in Sambisa Forest.

In their camp, when they learned she was pregnant, they told her that a week after her child was born she would be married to one of their commanders – one of the men who’d killed her husband. The day after her child was born, she heard gunfire echoing through the forest –the Nigerians were attacking. A guard ordered her (and the other women) to follow the retreating Boko Haram soldiers (ISIS’ ally in Africa) deeper into the forest; when the women refused the soldiers began stoning them. Holding her baby to her stomach she curled into a ball.

When, at last, Nigerians stormed through the camp three women who survived the stoning were killed by stray bullets. Still alive, clinging to her child, she was carried to a refugee camp – along with a sixteen year old girl.

The girl and her two sisters had been taken hostage when Boko Haram burned their village; the next day – as Boko Haram burned a neighboring village – she had found three abandoned children, an infant and two 4 year olds. Still a hostage, for two days she trudged toward the Sambisa Forest, carrying one child tied to her back, one in her arms, and another clinging to her waist.

Later, in Boko Haram’s camp, during the air raid, her two sisters escaped. But she stayed to care for the three children.

The girl, Binta Ibrahim, is a Muslim. The children she saved are Christians. And they are still with her.