'We are soldiers! We will save you': how Boko Haram tricked Dapchi schoolgirls

School staff and locals describe events leading to kidnapping of boarding school girls in north-east Nigeria
(From left) Fatima Abdu, 14, Zahra Bukar, 13, Fatima Bukar, 13, and Yagana Mustapha, 15, Government Girls Technical College in from Dapchi, who escaped the Boko Haram attack. Photograph: Aminu Abubakar/AFP/Getty Images

Isaac Abraak in Dapchi and Ruth Maclean West Africa correspondent Thu 8 Mar 2018 14.33 GMT

Evening was falling and hundreds of students were preparing to break the fast observed every Monday at the girls’ boarding school in the small Nigerian town of Dapchi.

Watching them get ready to eat reminded Usman Mohammed, a school security guard, that it was time for his evening prayers. It was a school night like any other. Until suddenly it wasn’t.

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