Gunmen abducted at least 80 people, mostly women and children, in Nigeria’s Zamfara state, an area with many retribution-seeking kidnappings by armed gangs targeting remote villages, residents said on Saturday.
Gangs of gunmen have attacked hundreds of local communities in northwest Nigeria in recent years, as Islamist militants continue to stage attacks in the northeast.
The latest kidnapping was carried out on Friday in Wanzamai, a village in the Tsafe local government region of Zamfara, three villagers said. Zamfara is one of the states hardest hit by kidnappings.
Musa Usman, whose 14-year-old son Ibrahim is among those abducted, said village women and children were working the land to grow crops and gather firewood when they were taken by armed men into a nearby forest.
“Children from various families went out to collect firewood and some of them were going to farms to look for work when they were kidnapped,” Usman told Reuters by telephone.
Zamfara police spokesman Mohammed Shehu confirmed the incident in a statement, but did not say how many people were abducted. Police were working with the military and community safety to rescue the victims, he said.
Source: Terra
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