At least 30 people have been killed after armed attackers stormed a village in Nigeria’s Niger State, setting homes and markets ablaze, looting shops and kidnapping several residents, according to state authorities.
The assault took place on Saturday in Kasuwan-Daji, where gunmen reportedly emerged from nearby forest areas and entered the village on motorcycles. Witnesses said the attackers were heavily armed and moved through the community with little resistance.
According to a local journalist who spoke to the BBC’s Hausa service, the attackers rounded up villagers before carrying out brutal killings. Some victims were shot, while others were reportedly slaughtered at close range.
Officials from the Niger State Emergency Management Agency confirmed the scale of the violence. Abdullahi Rofia said residents were left traumatised and fearful in the aftermath of the attack.
“People are hiding and are too afraid to speak to anyone,” he said. “They fear that if they talk, the attackers will return and do the same thing to them.”
Police said an emergency response team had been deployed to the area to assist the wounded, while security forces were working to locate and rescue those who were abducted during the raid.
A resident who witnessed the attack told local media there was no visible security presence in the village at the time of the assault. He appealed to the government for help, saying the violence had forced many people to flee their ancestral homes.
“We used to hear about these attacks happening elsewhere, but now it is happening in our own villages,” he said. “People are dying like chickens, and it feels like nobody cares.”
Criminal gangs known locally as bandits have carried out killings and mass kidnappings across Nigeria for years, but attacks in the country’s western and central regions have increased sharply in recent times. Although the government has classified many of the groups as terrorist organisations and outlawed ransom payments, there are persistent claims that ransoms are still being paid.
The latest attack came just one day after Niger State authorities announced plans for the phased reopening of schools, following a major abduction in November that forced schools to shut as part of emergency security measures.
That incident involved the kidnapping of more than 250 students and staff from St Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri. Officials later confirmed that all those abducted were rescued shortly before Christmas, though details surrounding their release were not made public.