Gunmen killed 13 people and kidnapped 10 in two separate attacks on villages in central and northwestern Nigeria, residents and authorities said on Sunday (August 15th).
Northwest and central Nigeria has been terrorized for years by criminal gangs that steal livestock and attack villages, killing, looting and kidnapping people for ransoms.
These gangs have recently targeted schools, where they kidnapped students to extort money from their parents.
In the state of Kaduna (center),
"the village of Madamai (...) was attacked by unidentified assailants,"
a senior local official, Samuel Aruwan, said in a statement, without specifying the date of the attack. attack.
"Five people were killed, while nine houses were set on fire, as well as three vehicles
.
"
In the state of Sokoto (northwest), armed men on motorcycles raided the village of Birjingo on Friday, slaughtering men, kidnapping women and stealing cattle, according to residents.
"
An attack by suspected bandits
"
Local police confirmed "
an attack by suspected bandits
", without giving details. The attackers, perched by two on a hundred motorcycles, attacked the village of farmers around 5 p.m. GMT, explained some of its inhabitants. "
They shot eight of us and 10 women abducted during the attack, which lasted two hours
"
,
told one of them, Ibrahim Kallah
.
"
They looted shops, stole food and a lot of cattle before they left
." His testimony was confirmed by another villager, Halilu Abubakar, who accused the “
bandits
” of a similar attack a week ago on the nearby village of Tudu.
These bandits are increasingly attacking isolated villages in Sokoto and Kebbi states, from their bases in nearby Zamfara state. In June, 80 villagers were killed in a raid on a Kebbi village, a week after dozens of high school students were kidnapped from a state boarding school. Africa's most populous country faces other security challenges. Nigerian forces have also been fighting a 12-year jihadist insurgency in the northeast and separatists in the southeast.
