For one Nigerian family, freedom after a kidnapping hasn't ended their terror

BWARI, Nigeria — "They pointed their guns through the window of the children's room while they were sleeping," says the 49-year-old father of four sons, describing the beginning of a three-month ordeal that has overwhelmed his family. "Then they told them to open the door or they will shoot them."

In early January, around midnight, 20 men armed with AK-47s and machetes attacked his home in Bwari, a small town surrounded by outcrops of towering granite rocks and forest, on the hilly outskirts of Nigeria's capital Abuja.

The attackers dragged him and his four sons, ranging in age from 12 to 24 years old, outside. The armed men beat them with the back of their guns and the flat edge of their blades. They tied their wrists with rope and marched them barefoot into the surrounding forest, along with 17 other abducted victims. They walked for almost 10 hours, their feet bloodied by the time they reached a hideout in northwest Nigeria.

They were held within an