‘They only knew how to fight’: school helps girls to heal after Boko Haram

Women and girls who have been affected by violence or kidnapped by Boko Haram are offered trauma counselling and support. Photograph: Courtesy of Neem Foundation

What 19-year-old Binta Usman remembers most vividly about her early days at the Lafiya Sarari girls’ school in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s Borno state, are the frequent tears that made it hard for her to concentrate in class.

“We’d all be sitting in class and all of us would just be crying,” she says.