Anka, Nigeria – Aina’u Umaru, 35, held her nine-year-old son Nuhu to her chest outside the mud hut they call home in the Anka community in Zamfara, northwestern Nigeria, and breathed in deeply, fighting to hide her pain as she spoke to Al Jazeera on a Sunday afternoon this June.
In April 2019, a military air raid hit her village, Tangaram, during an offensive against armed groups in the region. The air raid killed Sakinah, one of her six children, left Nuhu with ear injuries, and destroyed her home.
