Security forces patrolled an extensive market in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri on Tuesday where an assault by suspected Islamists killed some 30 people, vendors and residents said. Gunmen believed to be members of the Islamist sect Boko Haram on Monday afternoon stormed the fish section of Baga market and sprayed stallholders and vendors with bullets, traders said. The market opened on Tuesday but security forces shut all entry gates except one directly overlooking a police station. “Most traders in this section of the market have not opened largely out of mourning for their colleagues killed in the attacks of yesterday. We have lost many colleagues,” Bunu Ahmad said on the phone. Witnesses and medics said some 30 people died when the gunmen opened fire and set off bombs inside the market, in what appeared to be a retaliatory attack for the arrest of a suspected Islamist inside the market last week. The military denied there were any civilian victims, saying it shot eight of the attackers.
