Bandits kill at least nine, injure others in Kaduna

According to reports, bandits attacked Ungwan Dakwa village in Dogon Dawa ward in Kaduna State's Birnin Gwari Local Government Area and killed at least nine persons.

Honourable Yahaya Birnin Gwari, the member-elect for the House of Assembly for the Birnin Gwari State Constituency, verified the occurrence to Channels Television on Sunday even though the police authorities have not yet commented on it.

Gwari claimed over the phone that the bandits assaulted his hamlet on Saturday at around 2 pm and started shooting at the defenceless locals as they went about their usual business.

He said that some of the villagers were injured in varied degrees during the attack and were sent to nearby hospitals in Funtua, Katsina State, for treatment, while the majority of the people fled from their homes out of fear of another bandit onslaught.

One of the North-Western states hardest impacted by bandits who have persisted in causing mayhem in the area is Kaduna.

In the northwest and central Nigeria, heavily armed gangs known as bandits sometimes conduct mass kidnappings for ransom while detaining their captives in camps concealed in the extensive forests that cover the area.

After a break during the presidential and governorship elections in February and March, intercommunal assaults and kidnappings for ransom have just resumed.

Gunmen attacked an agricultural town in Kaduna last month, killing 33 people, part of the inter-communal conflict between pastoral farmers and Fulani herders.

Ten schoolchildren were also abducted earlier this month in central Kaduna, but eight of them were able to escape two weeks later.

Kidnappings of Catholic priests are another problem.

Nigeria's military forces not only fight criminal gangs but also a 14-year-old Islamist struggle in the northeast of the nation and smouldering separatist tensions in the southeast.

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