Nigeria: Four Days Inside Boko Haram's Bloody 'Caliphate'

21 September 2014

It is Saturday afternoon and the time is five minutes past two. At Government Secondary School, Uba in Borno State, a boy, about seven years old, seats on a table behind empty classrooms. Holding a gun-shaped broken arm of a chair, he takes aim across the field, squints his left eye for a perfect shot.

As he settles his tiny index finger on an imaginary trigger, another boy, about his age and seated next to him, disrupts the mission. After attending to the fellow, the boy returns to his plot. Fastidiously, he levels the 'gun', coils the forefinger and then his mouth sounds the outburst of hot volleys: 'Kpa-kpa-kpa-kpa'. He raises his head to assess the result - all in the name play.

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