Fleeing Boko Haram

Unlike its Middle East counterparts wooing locals with a semblance of administration, villagers trapped by Boko Haram face food shortages, slavery, killing and a lock down on economic activity, those who escaped say.

"(They) have no form of government," said Phineas Elisha, government spokesman for Adamawa state where the camp for internally displaced people, pictured above, is located.

But while in Syria, after initially brutal takeovers, Islamic State has tried to win over communities, those who escaped Boko Haram say the rebels do little for them beyond forcing them to adopt their brand of Islam on pain of death.

"They provide raw rice to cook, the rice that they stole from the shops. They provide a kettle and ... scarves to cover up the women," said Maryam Peter from Pambla village.

A government-run camp in a former school is now Maryam’s home, along with 1,000 others, where mothers cook on outdoor fires while children run around.

Some 1.5 million people have been rendered homeless by the war, Oxfam says.

Among them is a young boy, pictured above, who fled Boko Haram violence in Mubi town, a northeast region of Nigeria and whose right foot heel was chopped off in an accident.

The army recaptured Mubi in November and Aliyu Maikano, a Red Cross official, said those still alive "were starved for food, water, almost everything there. There's no drinking water because (in) most of the wells there you'll find dead bodies.”

Slowly, with the help of traditional hunters armed with home made guns and a reputation for magic powers, government forces have pushed Boko Haram out of some of its southern possessions.

Morris Enoch, pictured above, a leader of the hunters, says they found an arsenal of military weapons: rocket launchers, machine guns, dynamite, anti-aircraft guns and grenades.

The rebels rarely leave behind much else.