It was twilight when Boko Haram attacked Dzam-Dzam’s village in northern Nigeria, killing her husband and two of her children. When the gunshots stopped, she escaped on foot with her other two boys.
“We started running, running, running without turning back,” remembers Dzam-Dzam.
There was no time to mourn. Her three-year-old was rapidly losing weight and her seven-year-old was extremely sick. “He died before we reached the border. But I just had to keep walking. On the road, everyone was starving and I couldn’t find food for my young boy, nor myself.”
She walked through the blazing heat for seven days straight, determined to save her last living son.
Finally, Dzam-Dzam reached a safe haven in Cameroon, where UNICEF is treating children for severe acute malnutrition. “Here, people really take care of our children,” she says. “Look at my son. He is in good health now.”
Hard-working farmers who can’t change the weather