Just a stone’s throw from the banks of River Gadabul — 4 kilometers from the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri — sits a cinder-block building housing three classrooms. Inside one of the classrooms, 8-year-old Abubakar Ibrahim reads from a textbook spread between his hands.

“Audu is making the bed,” Ibrahim yells. His two dozen classmates chorus after him, their voices rising above the din of people working in the fields close to the river.

In 2014, the radical militant group Boko Haram attacked his village in Gwoza — formerly a stronghold of the insurgents. Ibrahim fled as the insurgents killed his parents and seized the town. For nearly one week, he trekked to Maiduguri, which was the epicentre of the insurgency that has forced more than 2 million to flee their homes and killed about 20,000 people mostly in the northeastern region.

Ibrahim landed in an informal displacement camp on the outskirts of Maiduguri. Without access to formal education and food, the prospects of a better life eluded him. But in 2016, he was invited to join the Future Prowess Islamic Foundation School, which provides free education to children affected by the insurgency.

At the school, Ibrahim, alongside hundreds of children orphaned by the insurgency, receive meals, uniforms, health care services, bags, and learning materials, leaving them free to continue their education. Ibrahim’s class draws in those from all sides of the conflict: Children of Boko Haram fighters sit alongside those whose parents were killed by the fighters; the children of security forces attend, as do the children of traditional rulers and religious leaders, and the school founder’s own children.

Read more about Nigerian schools by Linus Unah at Devex.