According to the information commissioner and residents, more than 100 people, such as women and children, were kidnapped when armed men ransacked four villages in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara state on Sunday.
Abduction has become common in northwest Nigeria, with marauding gangs of armed men abducting people from villages, highways, and farms and demanding ransom from relatives.
According to Zamfara information commissioner Ibrahim Dosara and one local resident, more than 40 people were taken hostage from Kanwa village in the Zurmi local government area of Zamfara.
Another 37, mostly women and children were taken into the Kwabre community in the same local government area, the resident added, declining to be named for security reasons.
“Right now Kanwa village is deserted, the bandits divided themselves into two groups and attacked the community. They kidnapped children aged between 14 to 16 years and women,” the Kanwa village resident said.
Residents reported that at least 38 people were kidnapped while working on their farms in the Yankaba and Gidan Goga communities of the Maradun Local Government Area.
Dosara, the information commissioner, blamed the gunmen for using captives as civilians as shields against military air raids.
Nigerian troops have carried out a series of airstrikes in Zamfara and other troubled northern states, neutralising many insurgents and forcing them to flee their hideouts in the region’s vast forest reserves.
The country’s military has also come under fire after it was discovered that some of its air raids killed civilians.
Last month, Nigeria’s Air Force said it was reviewing “all allegations of accidental air strikes on civilians as well as review the circumstances leading to such strikes.”
