were abducted by Boko Haram and taken to the group’s camp in the forest.

Forced to take the name “Miriam,” she said that she was immediately put to work in a labor camp. She said she had been pregnant with her third child at the time of her abduction, but lost the baby due to the strains of her captivity.

After arriving in the camp, she said the fighters wanted her to convert to Islam. Having been raised a devout Catholic, Bitrus refused. As a result, she said the militants grabbed her youngest son, Joshua, and threw him into a river.

“I have lost him,” she said, explaining that, after the incident, she went through the motions and pretended to accept the Muslim faith, “but never did.”

Each time they were forcedto recite the Muslim prayers, Bitrus said she would instead pray the Rosary, asking God to free her “from the hands of this wicked people.”

“I was never convinced about Islam. I kept my trust in the Lord, and I was praying the Rosary with my fingers,” she said. “I am convinced that the prayer of the Rosary saved me from captivity.”

Bitrus said that, at one point, she was forced into a marriage with a Boko Haram fighter and — like many of the other female prisoners — subjected to repeated rape. She eventually became pregnant and gave birth to a child on Christmas Day, whom she named Christopher, in honor of Christ.

After two years in captivity, Bitrus and her two living sons were able to escape when the