Armed men kidnapped 13 women and a baby in an overnight raid in northeastern Nigeria, the latest in a string of mass abductions to rock the west African country.
A bride and 10 of her bridesmaids were among those abducted in the night of Saturday to Sunday from the village of Chacho in Sokoto State, a resident told AFP.
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In recent weeks, attackers have kidnapped hundreds of people across Nigeria, which has struggled to respond to the threat posed both by jihadist groups and criminal gangs known locally as “bandits”.
The unrest has heaped pressure on the Nigerian government, with President Bola Tinubu declaring a nationwide emergency on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump has threatened military intervention in Africa’s most populous country over what he calls the killing of Christians by radical Islamists.
“Bandits stormed our village last night and kidnapped 14 persons, including a bride and 10 bridesmaids from a house in Zango neighbourhood,” Aliyu Abdullahi, a resident of Chacho village, told AFP.
In this region of Nigeria, it is traditional for young brides to spend their first night of married life with their bridesmaids in their new home, with the husband only settling in later.
A baby, the baby’s mother and another woman were also taken, Abdullahi added.
Abductions became more widespread in Nigeria after the jihadist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 teenage girls in Chibok, in the northeast, sparking an international outcry.
Besides radical Islamists, bandit gangs have also sown violence across swathes of northwest and central Nigeria, where they carry out kidnappings for ransom, attack villages, kill their inhabitants and burn houses after looting them.
According to Abdullahi, Chacho had already been targeted in October by bandits, who kidnapped 13 people.
“We had to pay ransom to secure the freedom. Now, we are faced with the same situation,” he told AFP over the phone.
A Nigerian intelligence report seen by AFP confirmed the attack.
“Sokoto witnessed a notable uptick in bandit-initiated abductions in November, culminating in the highest number of such attacks in the past year,” the report found.
It suggested deals struck by neighbouring states in the hopes of getting the bandits to agree to stop their activities may be partly responsible for the uptick.
Security experts have often criticised these agreements, arguing they allow gangs to entrench themselves in their hideouts while continuing their raids elsewhere.
“As a result, some bandits may be moving into areas with less military pressure. This shift can lead to more mass kidnappings in places like Sokoto, leading to an increase in mass kidnap-for-ransom attacks,” the report added.
AFP