The White House’s decision to send U.S. troops to Nigeria to train local forces to fight the never-ending mob of jihadists couldn’t come soon enough. While the world’s attention is on the Middle East, Islamic extremists have ramped up their violence against innocent men, women, and children, sparking some of the bloodiest ambushes in recent memory. On Monday night, multiple suicide bombers detonated almost simultaneously in the heavily populated city of Maiduguri, massacring 23 and sending more than 100 maimed and injured victims into nearby ambulances.

The images from a hospital and two busy markets were equally horrifying. Twisted metal, piles of fruits and vegetables strewn on the streets, abandoned bags, and mismatched shoes dotted one of the targets, where police cars rushed to cordon off and secure the area. Modu Bukar, who was shopping when one of the blasts detonated, told local reporters, “We were sitting when we suddenly heard a loud explosion. Everyone immediately started running in fear,” he recalled. “As we ran, people kept shouting that we should keep going.”

Another eyewitness, Mala Mohammed, described the chaos after people realized they were in imminent danger. Most “ran toward the post office area, because the [two markets] are not far apart.” That proved deadly to some, she said somberly. “Unfortunately, as they were running towards the post office, the person who had the explosive device ran into the crowd while people were still trying to escape.”

Adding to the fear in a country already traumatized by years of attacks, these latest acts of terrorism have spiked lately. The fact that this happened “deep within the city,” reporters say, has “shaken residents who had cautiously begun to believe that the worst years of Boko Haram’s insurgency were over.”

In one of the cruelest ironies, the entrance of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital — a place where people go to be treated, not killed — turned into another sickening scene. Caleb Jonah, who escaped with his life but suffered injuries to his hands and legs, was coming to the hospital to visit someone “when I saw two men struggling with the security men at the gate. Before I could process what was going on, I heard the deafening blast, and I passed out.”

The mass casualty event triggered a statewide call for blood donations, as doctors continue to work overtime to try to keep the dozens of critically wounded survivors alive. President Bola Tinabu, meanwhile, blasted the violence as the “desperate acts of the evil-minded terrorist groups.” Tinabu, who’s been criticized for turning a blind eye to the systematic slaughter, rape, and burning of Christians over the years, did immediately order tighter security across the city and roadways.

While the U.S. works quickly to train the forces pushing back against these militants, the northeast has been a surprising hive of rebel activity. “In response to the military operations,” The New York Times warns, “the Islamic State West Africa Province has overrun 11 military bases in recent months, killing scores of personnel and stealing weapons and equipment, according to Kabir Adamu, an analyst with a security consulting firm in Nigeria.” Just this month, the same group “stormed and took over Ngoshe, a town in Borno, killing scores of residents. The military expelled them a week later, but the militants fled with about 300 captives.”

And while Trump has done everything in his power to help Nigeria fight back, even going so far as to decimate certain ISIS strongholds on Christmas Day, FRC’s Arielle Del Turco is concerned about the messaging from U.S. sources. “I think there’s a willful blindness about what’s happening,” she told The Washington Stand’s Casey Harper in an upcoming podcast on Nigeria. “I think the mainstream media in the U.S. — and honestly, in the Western world — doesn’t like the narrative that Christians are being targeted for attack. And so they ignore it. They come up with all sorts of excuses. They say it’s just about land. They say it’s a farmer-herder conflict. They’ll say it’s climate change, anything to explain away the truth that Christians are being targeted for their faith.” But, she adds, that denial is “so cruel when you get there, and you talk to these people, these Christians whose communities have been targeted.”

Del Turco, who just returned from a trip to Nigeria, was shocked at how accustomed the locals have become to this climate of fear and terrorism. “I think part of what was so shocking to me was just how routine this has become for the people living there. It’s almost a part of normal life.”

She talked about a conversation she had with a widow named Mary, who started a small business after her husband was murdered by Fulani militants. “So she was put in a situation where she was economically vulnerable [and] had to learn to support her children. And she invited us into her home … [an] extremely modest home. … But my colleague, I was traveling with someone from Christian Freedom International, and she mentioned to Mary, ‘Oh, you must feel very safe in your house. There [are] three locked doors between you and attackers,’” Del Turco recounted. “And [Mary] was a little confused by that.” A man who was there from the Stefanos Foundation stepped in to provide some clarity, explaining, “Yeah, those locks mean nothing to them. They are absolutely pros at breaking into these doors and gates extremely quickly. They are just absolutely experts at what they do, which is horrific.”

“Then what is the option for these people as their villages are being attacked?” Arielle asked. And he replied, “Well, typically they just hide and pray if they’re not running, and her choice was not to run. They’re just praying that they’re not the ones targeted that night.” It was just so shocking, she shook her head, that this is “a very routine occurrence for her and for this village.” And it’s not just executions, Del Turco explains. It’s “every evil imaginable” — rape, sexual assault, kidnappings, arson.

There has, of course, been some optimism under the Trump administration, since it took the bold stance of reversing President Joe Biden and reinstating Nigeria as a country of particular concern (CPC). “The Nigerian government fights this designation very hard,” Arielle stressed. “They fight for it because they fight for their reputation. They don’t want that negative label. They’ve hired multiple lobbying firms in Washington D.C., paying them millions of dollars … to go to the U.S. government, to go to Congress, to try to convince them that there’s no Christian genocide, that there’s really no religious freedom problems at all in Nigeria, that there’s just maybe a little bit of insecurity here and there.”

Now that the administration has unlocked the door with the CPC label, the next step, she said, “is to decide what the consequences are going to be for the Nigerian government.”

In the meantime, Nigerians like Mark Lipdo, author of “Killings in North and Central Nigeria: A Threat to Ethno-Religious Freedom and Democracy,” are trying to stay optimistic. “At least the strike [in December by Trump] passed a message that somebody is watching,” he told Harper, “and that the world is not going to take it lightly.” Lipdo pointed to Trump’s decision to send 200 U.S. troops to train the country’s soldiers. “The coming of the military on the ground is helpful. The military should be there to protect the people. But our military is not protecting [us],” he lamented. “We don’t understand.”

But the most important thing, Mark stressed, is for the world to engage. “We also need political understanding of the whole situation.” Nigeria, he points out, “is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society,” and more than anything, people need a level playing field where religious freedom is concerned. Ninety percent of the deaths have been at the hands of jihadists, he said somberly. “We are hoping that America’s intervention is going to … help us to settle back again as a nation [that respects lives].”