Nigeria Boko Haram Terror: Tale of a Church Massacre Survivor

As Nigerian militant group Boko Haram continue to spark international outcry for the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls, IBTimes UK looks at the story of Ikenna Nzeribe, a survivor of one of the many terror attacks in the country.

Nzeribe, 33, was praying in a church in Mubi, northeastern Nigeria, when the militants attacked the religious building in 2012.

"They fired shots into the air while shouting Allah Hu Akbar," he told CNN.

Nzeribe and 13 other people hit the floor as the gunmen entered the building.

The masked terrorists fatally shot the 13 worshippers in the head. Nzeribe was the next person to be executed.

"As soon as I saw the man, I knew it was over for me," Nzeribe said. "The only thing I could do was say a last prayer, which was 'Blood of Jesus cover me'.

"And that was it for me."

Nzeribe was shot in the face with an AK-47 assault rifle. The bullets blew away his jaw, lips and part of his tongue, but did not kill him.

He decided to play dead until the militants left the building.

"I would say I died in the process," Nzeribe said. "But God brought me back to life."

Rescuers took Nzeribe to a local hospital in Mubi. He was later flown to London, where surgeons reconstructed his face.

"It gives me confidence," he said of his new face. "It gives me hope."

He now lives with his family in in Houston, US, where he joined a Nigerian immigrant community.

Nzeribe said he has forgiven the terrorist who tried to kill him. "Had they known better, they couldn't do that."

However, he added that Boko Haram and its leader Abubakar Shekau commit atrocities without impunity.

Boko Haram, which translates from Hausa as "Western education is forbidden", opposes the Westernisation of Nigeria and wants to impose sharia law in the country.

The group was founded by Mohammed Yusuf in the Nigerian town of Maiduguri in 2002. It soon moved to Kanama village, in Yobe state, to set up as a separatist community run on hardline Islamic principles.

Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency has resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths between 2002 and 2013.