Bandits raid Birnin Zarma, kill one man and kidnap 18 women and children

Nigeria is reeling after bandits abducted 18 women and children following a fatal attack in Zamfara state. Photo / Getty Images

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 have told AFP.

The attackers, from kidnapping and cattle-rustling gangs known as “bandits”, stormed Birnin Zarma village at dawn on Friday (local time) in the latest violence in the region, the sources said.

Zamfara is one of several states in northwest and central Nigeria that have been plagued by bandit raids for years.

“The bandits attacked the village around 5am while people were preparing for morning prayers,” Ibrahim Bello, a Birnin Zarma resident, said.

“They broke into a house and shot dead a man and injured his wife before herding 18 women and children out of the village,” Bello said.

The attackers were believed to be from the neighbouring Anka District, where they maintain camps in a nearby forest, Lawal Umar, a resident of neighbouring town of Bukkuyum, said, confirming details of the raid.

“The bandits kidnapped 18 women and children from the village after killing a farmer named Garba Gambo and leaving his wife with gunshot wounds.”

Troops stationed in Bukkuyum to protect the area from bandits’ incursion could not get to the village to repel the attack as the river separating Birnin Zarma and Bukkuyum was in spate (had become swollen), Umar said.

That meant there were no boats available to ferry them across.

Residents of Birnin Zarma, 170km from the state capital Gusau, were still waiting for a ransom demand from the gang, Bello said.

Late last month, 15 passengers, mostly women and children, who were fleeing bandits’ attacks on three villages in neighbouring Gummi District drowned when their boat capsized mid-stream.

– Agence France-Presse