‘We play to forget what happened’: football’s refuge for girls who fled atrocities

In Cameroon's Minawao refugee camp, young Nigerians use the game to help rebuild lives put in danger by Boko Haram

Lucy is the team's captain, so she looks after the ball. Her family's house is about 10 minutes' walk from the pitch: it is one of the more established dwellings in Minawao, a permanent structure largely screened behind a high mud wall. She greets her mother, who is sitting outside with an aunt, in Hausa before disappearing inside. Once she has retrieved what she came for, the day's training can begin. We play football with our friends to ease our minds," she says. That's why they give girls this ball to play with: to forget about what happened to us."

This could barely seem further from Yaounde, where the Africa Cup of Nations final will take place on Sunday. We are 500 miles away in Cameroon's extreme north region, tropical greenery having given way to the parched fringes of the Sahel.