The air was a chilly 55 degrees Fahrenheit at midnight on Jan. 12, about as cold as it gets on the forested savannah of Nigeria’s Plateau state. But John Rivi couldn’t think about the cold.
Despite the darkness, he could see the flashlights of 500 terrorists with assault rifles heading for his village of Ancha, Nigeria, and Rivi, 38, knew that he and 21 young men carrying single-shot rifles were the village’s first and only line of defense. As the terrorists approached, the volunteer guards fired their muskets and shotguns at the flashlights, which were moving to encircle the village of approximately 400 people.
