(Mercy Corps) – “They came to our place and surrounded us,” Mariam says. “They surrounded the whole village.” Boko Haram had taken them captive. In an instant, Mariam and her family were hostages in their own home, their village in northeast Nigeria cut off from the outside world. There was no food. There was no water. There was no help. They were trapped, their sheer survival left to the whims of one of the world’s most savage terror groups. “We were Boko Haram’s target,” Mariam says.
