The ruthless Boko Haram

Hamatu Juwanda was forced to don a veil and renounce Christianity when violent Islamist extremists invaded her village of Barawa last year.  (Robyn Dixon / Los Angeles Times)

Haruna Zanga, a farmer from Gavva West village in north east Nigeria was lucky to survive when he was shot four times by Boko Haram militants in an attack on his village last year.  (Robyn Dixon / Los Angeles Times)

Vigilantes in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri interrogate a male suspected of being a Boko Haram informant. The militant group has seized much of the northeast.  (Aminu Abubakar / AFP/Getty Images)

Schoolgirls from the village of Chibok who escaped from Boko Haram kidnappers wait to talk with the governor of Borno state in Maiduguri in June.  (AFP/Getty Images)

Security guards pass by a burned-out secondary school in Chibok where gunmen abducted more than 200 students.  (Haruna Umar / Associated Press)

Women gather cooking ingredients in front of a burned-out house in Mainok, outside Maiduguri. At least 74 people were killed in attacks on villages near Maiduguri on March 1.  (AFP/Getty Images)

People gather at the site of a bomb explosion in Maiduguri on July 1. The blast rocked a busy traffic circle and killed at least 15 people.  (AFP/Getty Images)