Nairobi: Gunmen killed one man and abducted 18 women and children during a raid on a village in Nigeria’s Zamfara state, in the northwest, local sources said Saturday.
According to Nam News Network, the attackers, from kidnap and cattle-rustling gangs known as bandits, stormed Birnin Zarma village at dawn on Friday in the latest violence in the region. Zamfara is one of several states in northwest and central Nigeria that have been plagued by bandit raids for years.
The bandits kidnapped 18 women and children from the village after killing a farmer named Garba Gambo and leaving his wife with gunshot wounds, said Umar. Troops stationed in Bukkuyum to protect the area from bandit incursions could not get to the village to repel the attack as the river separating Birnin Zarma and Bukkuyum was in spate, he added. That meant there were no boats available to ferry them across.
Residents of Birnin Zarma, 170 km from the state capital Gusau, were still waiting for a ransom demand from the gang, said Bello.