Business is bustling at one of the most frequently bombed shopping centers on Earth.
Monday Market has been hit at least four times in the past 12 months, officials say, leaving scores dead. Even security guards, herding customers through metal detectors at the market’s gate, struggle to remember how many times they have seen a suicide bomber sprint past them. Many of the attackers were young girls, they say.
Here in a nation plagued by terrorism—in the city that has borne the brunt of the militant group Boko Haram’s six-year-long jihad—this outdoor commercial plaza is the place that has been struck the most.
On Thursday, soldiers swept Monday Market on intelligence reports that 20 bombs had been placed across the city. If that is true, bomb squads haven’t found them. The day before, three blasts in two markets in neighboring cities killed 46 people.
More news of violence in the wider region came Friday, as soldiers in Mali’s capital shot their way into a hotel, liberating dozens of hostages after a siege by gunmen that officials said killed 27 people.
Despite the ceaseless attacks in Maiduguri, resolute shoppers are pouring back into their market, driving hard bargains and helping to resuscitate one of the world’s most moribund local economies. Encouraged by volunteers checking bags and burqas—and forced by necessity—they come to buy fresh fruit, cellphones and a host of other goods.
Their return signals how people here are powering ahead +with their lives in defiance of Boko Haram’s threat.
“I want to make a vegetable soup,” said Blessing Tunu, a 35-year-old who said she wasn’t going to let Boko Haram prevent her from accomplishing that aim. “I’m scared. But what can you do?”
Juliet Emmanuel, a shopper picking up some baby food for the infant son tied to her back, also struck a note of resistance. “Boko Haram terrorists cannot stop me from coming to the market,” she said.
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