Gunmen killed at least 38 people in the village of Dutse Dan Agia in Zamfara state, northwestern Nigeria, police and local authorities told AFP on Saturday.
Zamfara police spokesman Yazid Abubakar said the attack occurred Thursday night into Friday in the remote village, which had “little access roads,” adding: “At present, normal life has been restored in the area.”
According to Hamisu Faro, a local lawmaker, who reported that 50 people were killed as a result of the attack, “The bandits came from Gando Forest. They laid siege to Dutse Dan Agia and opened fire indiscriminately, killing any resident who tried to escape.”
Armed gangs, locally called “bandits”, are stationed in the forests of Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi and Niger states, where they launch attacks on villages.
The Nigerian army has been deployed in the region for several years to fight these groups, but the violence still continues.
Increased violence by jihadist groups and bandits in Nigeria in recent months has drawn the attention of the United States.
Washington, which describes most of the violence as “persecution” of Christians, ordered surprise air strikes in coordination with Nigerian authorities on Christmas Day in Sokoto State in the north.
Since 2009, Nigeria’s jihadist insurgency, led by Boko Haram and its rival faction, the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP), has left more than 40,000 people dead and two million displaced in the country’s northeast, according to the United Nations.
