In Boko Haram’s hometown, a favorite pastime endures: going to the zoo

The war came to the zoo here on a Friday, just after the afternoon prayer.

It was 2014 and Aliyu Yusuf, the head of the zookeepers, was doing his rounds. He looped past the crocodile enclosure, where a dozen of the scaly green reptiles napped on the concrete beside their pool, mouths gaping. Nearby, the zoo’s two skinny elephants, Jummai and Izge, dangled their trunks over a muddy vat of water. He passed by them and moved toward the primate enclosure, where a teenage chimp swung from the bars of his cage like they were, well, monkey bars.

That’s when the first explosion hit, a clap of sound so powerful it rattled the ground beneath him. When Mr. Yusuf looked up, he could see a cloud of smoke rising from the direction of the post office just