Amanda Lindhout once wondered if she would ever make it out of Somalia alive. During a 15-month captivity at the hands of Somali gunmen, the Alberta native was subjected to torture and abuse.

Despite her ordeal, Lindhout is back in East Africa to help out with relief efforts in the drought-stricken region.

On Thursday, the 30-year-old Lindhout was within Somali borders, helping to organize a convoy drop carrying enough food to feed thousands.

While the operation into Somalia itself was an operational challenge, it also brought back horrible memories for Lindhout, who was working as a freelance journalist when she was kidnapped at gunpoint in 2008.

“I was kidnapped by a handful of teenage boys, so you can only imagine the types of abuse I endured, and it probably surpasses where your imagination can ever go,” she told NBC reporter Kate Snow.

Despite the trauma she suffered throughout her 15-month captivity, that didn’t stop Lindhout from unloading staples like rice, sugar, flour and oil in the famine-ravaged region this week.

Thousands of people are estimated to have died because of drought, and many thousands more have been uprooted from their homes and forced into refugee camps.

It’s estimated that 12 million people in the Horn of Africa need aid, and many families have been forced to make an arduous march from Somalia to UN camps in eastern Kenya.

Within Somalia, long considered one of the country’s most unstable and dangerous places, there are reports that local authorities are attacking famine victims. Getting aid inside the country has also been hindered by the suspicious Islamist militias who rule Somalia.

Still, with the dangers and the risks, Lindhout is firm in her belief that she’s doing the right thing.

“The last time I was here it was not so good. But at the moment I’m feeling better. You know there’s a lot of security around and you know, you look at the little kids here, and that’s the whole reason.”

Lindhout was kidnapped in August 2008 along with an Australian photographer and released in November 2009.

As a freelancer, Lindhout was working without the same support that many mainstream reporters use when entering dangerous places.

For Lindhout now, her participation in the relief effort can also be framed as a way to reclaim part of herself.

In fact, she is already planning a second relief trip in Somalia with her self-founded group, the Global Enrichment Foundation.

The foundation’s goal is primarily to empower women and young females primarily in Somalia.

She told CTV’s Canada AM recently that her ordeal, while very difficult, allowed her to refine her goals.

“The situation I went through in Somalia, which was so incredibly difficult, actually allowed me to discover my life’s purpose, which is the work of the foundation, which is the work of supporting and empowering the women of Somalia.”

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