After five years of brutal captivity by the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, 20-year-old Amina finally found her chance to escape.
She took the chance, and she succeeded. But instead of celebrating her restored freedom, she's stricken with overwhelming grief, according to the Mirror.
The reason? Her 28-day-old baby, the youngest of her three children, died in her arms as they were fleeing through the vast forest in north east Nigeria in a desperate bid to escape from the clutches of the Boko Haram, acknowledged as the world's most lethal terrorist group—even deadlier that the Islamic State (ISIS).
Amina (not her real name) is one of thousands of girls across northeast Nigeria who have been held captive by Boko Haram, but her story is probably the most harrowing ever told by an escapee.
"I was forced into marriage three times, and had a child with each husband," she told the Mirror at a refugee camp in Nigeria.
Amina recalled the day she was captured by Boko Haram fighters. She said she was visiting her elder sister in her home town of Baga when a car stopped and 10 Boko Haram men jumped out to take her.
When she resisted, they beat her unconscious.
When she opened her eyes she was in the Sambisa forest in the company of about 200 other kidnapped girl.
Amina said she was immediately forced into marriage with a 40-year-old brute who dislocated her arm and raped her repeatedly. Within a couple of months she was pregnant.
After the man was killed in a firefight, she was forced to marry again, and again she bore her second husband a child. Like her first husband, this man was likewise killed in a village attack.
She was forced to marry for a third time with yet another brutal fighter, and almost immediately she was pregnant again.
When her third husband got into a fight with another terrorist, she saw her chance to escape. She grabbed her three kids and ran through the forest, drinking from puddles to survive for five days.
She said her youngest baby must have died of starvation since she had no breast milk to give.
Finally, she reached a roadside and begged strangers for help, and they did, leading to her rescue.
Amina said although their fathers were evil, she loved her children.
"They are all I have. It does not matter," she said, smiling.
