Two days after armed men abducted scores of students from a university in the state, gunmen in Nigeria killed eight people on Sunday and kidnapped at least 60 more in two towns in northwest Zamfara state, according to locals and a traditional leader.
According to a police source and a driver who saw the incident, suspected Islamist terrorists attacked a convoy of cars that were being escorted by the military in the northeast of the nation, killing two troops and four civilians.
The assailants stole one truck, the witness claimed, and set five vehicles on fire.
President Bola Tinubu has not yet explained how he would address the pervasive insecurity. His economic policies, which include eliminating an expensive fuel subsidy and devaluing the naira, have raised the cost of living, angering citizens.
Locals said that gunmen tried to attack a forward army station in a remote Magami town in Zamfara early on Sunday but were repulsed. Zamfara is one of the states which are most frequently targeted by armed gangs, known as bandits, in kidnappings for ransom.
A traditional chief who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons claimed that three gangs of gunmen assaulted the army base, the settlements of Magami and Kabasa, and the army base itself. He said that 60 people—mostly women and kids—were abducted.
According to Shuaibu Haruna, a resident of Magami, “the bandits rode many motorcycles with guns and other weapons (and) were shooting sporadically.” According to Haruna, who attended the victims’ funerals, the attack claimed the lives of four individuals.
Isa Mohd from the Kabasa village said that dozens of people had been abducted and dozens more had been slain.
Attacks in Nigeria’s northwest are a component of the country’s general instability. Islamist fighters continue to carry out fatal strikes in the northeast, gangs and separatists target government institutions and security personnel in the southeast, and farmer-herder confrontations continue to take lives.
