Dozens kidnapped in northwest Nigeria after bandits invite them to talks

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By Reuters and Posted by TOE Armed bandits in northwest Nigeria abducted dozens of villagers whom they invited to a meeting ‌about potential peace negotiations, authorities and residents said on ‌Monday, highlighting the region’s worsening security. Police said 39 people were seized on Sunday ​when they went to a meeting in the forest near Magamin Diddi village in the Maradun municipality of northwest Zamfara State. Some local residents and officials said the number could be as ‌high as 50. According to ⁠a Zamfara State Police Command statement, the victims were meeting relatives of a bandit leader in ⁠an attempt to broker peace and ease restrictions on movement imposed on the community. Zamfara is at the centre of a long-running security ​crisis in ​which armed groups, locally referred ​to as bandits, carry ‌out mass kidnappings, killings and village raids. The violence has disrupted farming and displaced thousands. Security forces have deployed personnel and...
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Charred bodies, shattered lives after gunmen kill 100 in Nigeria

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By Abraham Achirga Reuters

The gunmen attacked after dark and chased farmer Fidelis Adidi away from the central Nigerian village of Yelwata. The next morning he returned to find the charred remains of one of his two wives and four of his children.

They had been living in a room he had rented in the market, in an attempt to keep them safe from a wave of clashes between cattle herders and farmers in the country’s Middle Belt region.

His second wife and another child were badly wounded in the assault that began on Friday night and, according to Amnesty International, killed around 100 people in the town in Benue region.

“My body is weak and my heart keeps racing,” the 37-year-old told Reuters as he stood outside the room, surveying the damage. “I lost five of my family members.”

In another room in the market, bodies lay burned beyond recognition next to blackened piles of food and farm equipment.

Authorities have struggled to contain the violence that has simmered for years, fuelled by competition over land as well as ethnic and religious divisions.

President Bola Tinubu – who called the recent upsurge in attacks “depressing” on Monday – is due to visit Benue on Wednesday, his first visit there since coming to office two years ago.

Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency said it was working with aid agencies to help at least 3,000 people displaced by the violence in a territory where the majority Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.

Market trader Talatu Agauta, who is pregnant with her second child, fled when the attackers came on Friday night and took refuge in the state capital Markudi.

She came back over the weekend to find 40 bags of her rice had been burned. A devastating blow, but not enough to drive her from her home.

“I came back and even if I die here, I don’t mind,” she said.



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/PnU8sAd

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