Gunmen kidnap 87 in Nigeria

At least 87 people were kidnapped in a new attack carried out by gunmen in Nigeria, reports Al Jazeera.

Prior to this, an armed gang seized 286 students and staff from a school earlier this month.

Officials on Monday said the attack took place in the Kajuru area of Kaduna state and the abducted included women and children.

Bandits routinely loot villages and carry out mass kidnappings for ransom in northwest and north-central Nigeria, where the violence has displaced about one million people, according to the United Nations.

Authorities have seemed powerless to stop the near-daily attacks, piling pressure on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

On Monday, Kaduna police spokesperson Mansur Hassan said the Kajuru incident happened on Sunday night, adding that security agents have been deployed to rescue the villagers.

“They went and removed people from their homes at gunpoint,” local official Ibrahim Gajere told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Residents said armed men dressed in army uniforms arrived in the village undetected because they had parked their motorbikes away from the village.

Village head Tanko Wada Sarkin said 87 people were taken.

“We have so far recorded the return of five people back home who fled through the bush. This attack makes it five times that these bandits have attacked this community,” Sarkin told the Reuters news agency.

Aruwa Ya’u, another resident, said he was captured but later released by the gunmen because he struggled to walk due to his poor health. He was receiving treatment at a local government clinic, he said.

“We were outside our homes chatting around 10:30pm [21:30 GMT], and suddenly bandits appeared, beating and shooting,” Haruna Atiku said. His wife and two daughters are missing.

On Saturday, 16 people were kidnapped in the Dogon Noma area, about 10km (6 miles) away, officials said.

On March 7, gunmen kidnapped more than 250 students from a school in Kuriga village, about 150km (93 miles) from Kajuru in one of the biggest attacks in years.