Freed from Boko Haram’s rape camps but their nightmare continues

Halima, 15, holds Hauwa, the baby of her friend Hamsatu, 25, who is sewing a prayer cap in their tent in Maiduguri, Nigeria. Both women were abducted, held captive and forced into marriage by Boko Haram. (Jane Hahn/For The Washington Post)

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — For months, they were kept in tiny thatched huts in the middle of the forest, waiting with dread each evening for their rapists to return. During the almost intolerable violence, the young women’s minds drifted to escape or death. The victims were as young as 8.

At the heart of Boko Haram’s self-proclaimed caliphate in northeastern Nigeria was asavage campaign of rape and sexual slavery that has only recently been uncovered. Thousands of girls and women were held against their will, subject to forced marriages and relentless indoctrination. Those who resisted were often shot.

Now, many of the women are suddenly free — rescued in a series of Nigerian military operations over the past year that dislodged the extremist Islamist group from most of the territory it controlled. But there have been few joyous family reunions for the victims.

Heartbreaking story and video here: They were freed from Boko Haram’s rape camps. But their nightmare isn’t over.