Culled from Cosmopolitan
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| After escaping Boko Haram, Chibok girls adjust to new life in America |
Grace slept through the sounds of gunfire in the night. Exhausted from final exams at her boarding school in Nigeria, she awoke when her roommate Mary prodded her, "Get up!"
Suddenly, the girls saw a gang of men spreading across the school grounds. "They said they were soldiers. They said they were there to protect us," Grace says. "They told us all to stay together."
Terrified, the girls did as they were told. The men made their way to the pantry, grabbing all the food. Then they headed for the administrative office. On the way, they began shouting, "Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!" It means "God is great" in Arabic. They lit the office on fire.
"We realized they were impostors," Grace says. "They were not there to help us." But it was too late to run. The girls were forced into trucks at gunpoint. Grace sat with Mary as their vehicle roared off into the dawn. As the school burned in their wake, lighting the sky, Grace thought: "These men are going to kill us."
