More than 50 people have been kidnapped by gunmen in a mass kidnapping in northwestern Nigeria, according to a UN report, citing Agence France-Presse.
According to the report, "armed bandits" attacked the village of Sabon Garin Damri, in Zamfara, where rural residents have long suffered from gangs who kidnap for ransom, loot villages and impose taxes.
This is the first “mass kidnapping” incident in Bakura administrative zone this year, the report said. “The recent trend of mass kidnappings in Zamfara is worrying,” it said, noting a “change in gang strategy towards larger attacks in northern Zamfara.”
A police spokesman in Zamfara has not yet commented. Nigeria's "banditry" crisis originated in conflicts over land and water between herders and farmers, but has turned into organized crime, with gangs exploiting rural communities that have long been abandoned by the state.
This violence is also worsening the malnutrition crisis in the northwest, as attacks force people to abandon agricultural lands, in a situation further complicated by climate change and cuts in international aid.
Last month, bandits in Zamfara killed 33 people they had kidnapped in February, despite receiving a ransom of $33,700. Three infants also died in captivity, local residents said.
Since 2011, with the increase in arms trafficking and unrest in the wider Sahel region, organized armed gangs have formed in northwestern Nigeria, where cattle rustling and kidnapping have become major sources of profit in poor rural areas.
These groups also impose taxes on farmers and artisanal miners. Violence has spread in recent years from the northwest to the north-central part of the country.
