Over 20 killed in weekend raids across northwest Nigeria

More than 20 people have been killed in two separate attacks in Nigeria’s troubled northwest.

Local officials said nine people were killed when “unidentified persons” raided the village of Ungwan Dooh in Kaduna state’s Zangon Kataf district on Sunday.

“Nine corpses have been recovered so far following a search of the village,” Samuel Aruwan, the state’s security commissioner, said in a statement on Monday.

“One resident… sustained gunshot injuries and is receiving treatment in hospital. Two houses were razed in the attack.”

The region is notorious for flare-ups between predominantly Muslim Fulani herders and mainly Christian farmers.

Separately, police said at least 12 people were killed on Saturday when several hundred members of a criminal gang on motorbikes stormed Duba village in neighboring Katsina state.

“The criminals rode into the village, around 300 of them, carrying machine guns and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and ransacked the village, where they broke into shops and looted provisions,” Gambo Isah, Katsina state police spokesman, was quoted as saying.

Northwest and central Nigeria are struggling with tit-for-tat violence between nomadic herders and farmers over access to water and resources.

The armed gangs in the region also repetitively terrorize inhabitants by looting villages, stealing cattle, and taking people hostage.

More than 700 students and school children have been abducted in Nigeria for ransom by armed groups since December 2020 alone.

Last week, bandits seized nine pupils from an Islamic seminary in Katsina’s Faskari district.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has come under fire for the worsening security situation in several regions of Nigeria.

The Nigerian troops are fighting a 12-year militancy by the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group in the northeast, herder-farmer tensions and banditry in the northwest, and separatist agitations in the southeast.