Fighting Terror and Chasing Goats in Boko Haram Country

As militants spread violence throughout northern Nigeria, a disparate array of crime fighters, Islamic police and volunteer vigilantes do what they can to keep the peace.

Photos by Glenna Gordon

Kano and Maiduguri, the biggest cities in predominantly Muslim Northern Nigeria, are drought-prone and sprawling outposts, filled with concrete roadblocks and teenage boys with machetes and bows and arrows. Frequent attacks by the militant Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram have killed thousands and displaced many more in this region. This Tuesday, two female suicide bombers killed thirty people in Maiduguri. Now, bands of individuals, organized by the state or by their own sheer will, are trying to create order from the chaos.