Armed males took greater than 50 ladies and kids within the northwestern city of Kakin Dawa.
Armed males have kidnapped dozens of girls and kids in northwestern Nigeria, the newest in a spate of kidnappings which have plagued the area.
Police mentioned the incident befell on Sunday within the village of Kafin Dawa in Zamfara State. Residents reported males carrying assault rifles going door to door, kidnapping individuals.
“We came upon that they kidnapped greater than 50 ladies, together with married ladies and ladies,” mentioned Hassan Ya’u, a resident who managed to flee however had his youthful sister kidnapped.
“Your entire village was gripped by concern as gunshots echoed all through the operation,” mentioned one other resident cited by Nigeria’s Each day Belief information web site, which reported 43 individuals have been kidnapped.
Zamfara police mentioned they’ve deployed further safety forces to the realm.
Kidnapping for ransom by armed males, identified regionally as bandits, is rife in northwest Nigeria attributable to excessive ranges of poverty, unemployment and the proliferation of unlawful firearms.
In March this yr, gunmen kidnapped greater than 130 college students within the northwestern city of Kuriga for ransom.
The students were freed “unhurt” a number of weeks later after intensive “backchannel” negotiations, the federal government mentioned on the time.
Abductions from Nigerian faculties have been first carried out by the armed group Boko Haram, which seized 276 college students from a ladies’ faculty in Chibok in northeastern Borno State in 2014. A number of the ladies have been by no means launched, with most of them forcefully married to the fighters.
In one other mass kidnapping in July 2021, armed males took greater than 150 college students in a raid. The scholars have been reunited months later with their households after they reportedly paid ransoms.
A minimum of 1,400 kids have been kidnapped since 2014.
