Nigeria: Health care

For people fleeing the violence, and on the move, there are few opportunities for health care. Pregnant women have been forced to give birth in the most difficult of circumstances, sometimes obliged to abandon their newborn babies in order to save their own lives. Surgeons have had to deal with injuries they are not accustomed to, such as wounds from bomb blasts.

Most men fled. Still pregnant, Natisa Mohammed, 29, stayed behind with her four children. "I saw a lot of violence," Natisa recalls of the attack last September in her village of Gulak. "I survived because I was pregnant. I'm still afraid when I remember that moment."

In February, the violence returned, and Natisa and her children were forced to run. As they travelled the countryside, she prematurely gave birth to her fifth child, a baby boy. A passing man assisted with the birth and put the family in a truck travelling to the refugee centre in Yola.

"There was shooting everywhere in the area and bombs were being dropped the day I gave birth," says Natisa. "I decided then to call my baby Auwel, after the man who saved the life of my baby and myself."

Today, Natisa says she needs better food for her children and herself. There is no soap to wash the children's clothes and no money for doctor's visits. Despite these problems, Natisa feels safe in the camp. "We're living as brothers and sisters, helping each other, because we're in the same situation," she says.

Natisa longs for her previous life selling cosmetics and jewellery at home as her children attended school. But her village has been destroyed. "I just want my previous life back," she says.