Three-month-old baby, 6 others abducted as bandits attack Zamfara village

In a fresh attack on the state, gunmen invaded Kanoma village in Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara, killing two and abducting seven persons, including a three-month-old baby along with her mother.

An eye witness, Malam Ibrahim Muhammed who spoke in Gusau on Wednesday, said the bandits in their hundreds besieged the area at about 3 am on Tuesday and fired gunshots sporadically in the air to scare the residents away.

Muhammad further explained that “It was while they were scaring the people with gunshots that they killed the two victims who came out in the confusion.

“We tried to raise alarm to security agencies who were stationed in different places along Sokoto/Gusau road, but everyone was afraid of being sighted by the assailants who held powerful firearms,” he said.

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He said the bandits went to the residence of one Dan Haja, a businessman, beat him with iron rods and inflicted serious injuries on him after which they went away with his wife who is a nursing mother and her three months old baby.

Muhammad also said the bandits moved to the house of a retired Director-General in the state government, Sani Abdullahi, and picked him too along with six other persons and disappeared.

“At a later time, they called to demand for a ransom of 50 million naira for the release of those abductees,” Muhammad said.

The state Police Command spokesman, SP Mohammed Shehu, confirmed the attack but said, “from the report we received, no one was killed and a total of eight persons mostly women and children were abducted by the attackers.”

He added that the command’s Tactical and Anti-terrorism units had been deployed to the area to trail the bandits and arrest them, adding that peace had been restored to the area.

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