At least nine people have been reported killed and many abducted following an attack in Nigeria’s northwest, residents and local officials said, amid increasing violence against farmers by what have been described as “bandit” gangs.
The deadly attack on Friday took place in Zamfara state, the epicentre of attacks by heavily armed men known locally as bandits who have been wreaking havoc across Nigeria’s northwest in recent years, kidnapping thousands, killing hundreds and making it unsafe to travel by road.
Hamisu Faru, a local lawmaker, confirmed the attack to the Reuters news agency, saying the assailants took “no fewer than 100 people, including women and children”.
“As I’m speaking to you right now, they are searching house-to-house, abducting people,” Faru said by phone.
Yahaya Yari Abubakar, political administrator of Talata Mafara district, where the attack was carried out, told the AFP news agency that nine people were killed in total and at least 15 local people were abducted.
Abu Zaki, a resident of the district’s Jangebe village, said the victims included the head of the village’s vigilante self-defence group and his five colleagues, along with three residents.
“Everybody is now afraid of going to the farm for fear of being attacked,” said another resident, Bello Ahmadu, who corroborated the reported death toll.
Jangebe village was the scene in 2021 of the mass abduction of almost 300 female students from a boarding school. The girls were freed days later after authorities made a ransom payment.
Another resident in the area, Mohammed Usman, told Reuters that the attackers laid siege to the town for nearly two hours before taking their captives. Thousands of residents have now fled the village, he said.
Zamfara police did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
Nigeria’s bandits maintain camps in a huge forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states, in unrest that has evolved from clashes between herders and farmers over land and resources into a broader conflict fuelled by arms trafficking.
Zamfara’s state government has recruited vigilantes and armed militias to assist the military in fighting the bandits.
Last month, vigilantes, with the aid of Nigeria’s secret police, killed about 100 people when they raided the enclave of a gang kingpin in the state’s Shinkafi district, according to officials.
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