NewsBandits Kill 57 Vigilante Members In Kebbi

Bandits Kill 57 Vigilante Members In Kebbi

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March 08, (THEWILL) – Gunmen suspected to be bandits have killed at least 57 members of a local vigilante group in clashes in northwestern Nigeria, a security source and local residents said on Tuesday.

Police had confirmed Monday’s violence in the Zuru district of Kebbi State, without giving a casualty figure. But the security source said 57 bodies had been recovered, while two local residents said 62 people were killed.

Local residents often form informal vigilante units, known as Yansakai, to protect villages from bandit raids, though some states banned them after they were accused of abuses and extra-judicial killings.

However, the Spokesperson of the State Police Command, Nafiu Abubakar, said, “There was an incident involving Yansakai and bandits which left several dead on both sides. We don’t have a specific toll yet, we are still compiling fatality figures.”

Local resident, Almu Sallami, said vigilantes had mobilised from different villages to take on a large convoy of heavily-armed bandits.

Northwest and central Nigeria are a hub of criminal gangs which maintain camps in Rugu forest, straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states.

The bandits launch periodic attacks on villages in Kebbi state near the border with Zamfara and Niger states and withdraw to their camps, according to police.

Security experts have warned about bandit gangs, who are driven by financial motives are increasingly forging alliances with jihadists from the northeast waging a 12-year-old Islamist insurgency.

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