“Do you think your husband is dead?”
Her mouth twists, contorting her young face, tears welling in her already reddened eyes.
“I don’t know… I pray to God to give him another chance,” she finally manages to stutter.
Her sadness is heavy and blankets both of us.
She tells me she has three children, and they last saw their father four months ago when he went back to his army unit on the front line in Nigeria’s battle with the radical Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.
Satellite images show devastation of Boko Haram attacks, rights groups say
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“When my husband died, they never called me to tell me that I lost my husband,” she says. “They buried him without notifying me.”
She gets no army pension, and she says there are many more like her: they feel abandoned, afraid to speak out because they still live in the barracks.
Government officials tell us they will look into these shortcomings, that they are working on getting better weapons for the troops.
If they do, according to the soldiers I met, it will easily turn the tide in this war.
Nigerian president in Boko Haram territory, spokesman says
