More than 200 people have already been buried, but many of them are missing and their number may increase. “The latest attacks by bandits on innocent people are an act of desperation by mass murderers who are now under the ruthless pressure of our military forces,” said Nigerian President Muammadu Bukhari, responding to the latest massacre of civilians in Zamfara State. , in the northwest of the country.
Armed groups that terrified the population of the Northwest, kidnapping hundreds of people other violent crimes, became the target of a security operation, during which on Monday more than 100 “bandits” were killed in several attacks, including two of their leaders. In the following days, more than 300 militants on motorcycles attacked 18 villages, shooting residents and burning houses.
Babandi Hamidu, a resident of the village of Kurfa Danya, says, quoted by Al-Jazeera, that the attackers fired “at everyone they saw.”
“We are very saddened by this ongoing invasion … and we are also concerned about the displaced people, people who are leaving their homes by the hundreds,” spokesman for Sadia Umar Farouk, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, told AFP. Residents, who returned to their villages on Saturday to organize the funeral, told Reuters that the death toll has exceeded 200.
In the past year, these armed groups launched several attacks on boarding schools, kidnappings hundreds of students in time. Most of them were released, but there are students who are still missing.
Kidnapping, especially in the vast northwestern territories where the state is almost non-existent, “is the fastest growing business in Nigeria,” commented Al Jazeera correspondent Ahmed Idris from Abuja. According to Idris, bodies are still found in Zamfar, some mutilated or burned.
“The conflict is becoming more deadly as the security forces try to deal with the problem,” Idris says, explaining that resources are scarce as the army has to respond to conflicts in 34 of Nigeria’s 36 states. The violence of these groups is rooted in clashes between nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers, but over the years, between attacks and retaliation, it has become a more common crime.
The military said last week that it has killed 537 “armed bandits and other criminal elements” in the region since May, injuring 374 and freeing 452 “kidnapped civilians.”
Over the past month, members of a well-known gang led by Bello Turji have suffered heavy casualties in their forest camps. “Angry about this and possibly facing certain death, they have decided to move elsewhere and appear to be carrying out these attacks in the process,” Kabir Adami, a security analyst at the Beacon consultancy, told AFP.
