Boko Haram Stoned Girls To Death As Rescuers Approached - Teen Mom Tells Story

A mother had to double over to protect her baby daughter as Boko Haram fighters stoned other Nigerian girls around her to death while rescuers approached. Lami Musa, 27, cradled her 5-day-old baby girl as the militants carried out a brutal attack on captured women and girls who refused to march with them.

She was among 275 girls, women and their young children, many bewildered and traumatized, who were getting medical care and being registered a day after making it to safety.  She was in the first group of rescued women and girls to be transported by road over three days to the safety of the Malkohi refugee camp, a dust-blown deserted school set among baobab trees opposite a military barracks on the outskirts of Yola, the capital of Adamawa state.

It is still unclear if any of the 700 were among the so-called 'Chibok girls,' whose mass abduction from their school a year ago sparked outrage worldwide and a campaign for their freedom under the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls

Musa gave birth to a curly-haired daughter the night before last week's rescue. From a bed in the camp clinic, a blanket wrapped around ankles so swollen that each step had been agony, she told the Associated Press:

'Boko Haram came and told us they were moving out and that we should run away with them. But we said no. Then they started stoning us. I held my baby to my stomach and doubled over to protect her,' she said, bending reflexively at the waist as though she still had to shield her newborn.

Last week's rescue saved Musa from a forced marriage to one of the killers of her husband, she said the militants who carried her away from her village after slaughtering her husband and forcing her to abandon their three young children.

'They took me so I can marry one of their commanders. When they realized I was pregnant, they said I was impregnated by an infidel, and we have killed him. Once you deliver, within a week we will marry you to our commander. We just have to give praise to God that we are alive, those of us who have survived,' said Musa. 

Source: AP / Reuters / MailOnline