Girl, 17, walked for five days to escape Boko Haram killers

thetimes.co.uk - When Boko Haram captured her home town of Gwoza, deep in the hills of northeastern Nigeria, Halima, 17, hid indoors for months.

To begin with her fears were not realised. The militants, who wore their hair long and their trousers short, tried to court the women in the same way as everybody else. “If they liked a girl they would go to her house. They would speak to her, they would speak to her parents,” Halima said. “A few girls got married. It wasn’t by force. But most of them said no, because their parents didn’t want them to.”