Nigeria Bandits who have continued to abduct children
LAGOS (RTN) -Police and a local official claimed on Wednesday that gunmen kidnapped close to 40 youngsters who were working on a farm in northwest Nigeria and demanded cash for their release.
On Sunday, dozens of gunmen riding motorbikes invaded a field near Mairuwa village in Katsina State's Faskari area and arrested 39 kids who were gathering crops for money, according to the police and the official.
Several states in northwest and central Nigeria, including Katsina, are terrorized by criminal gangs known locally as "bandits," who assault towns, killing and kidnapping locals while also robbing and torching homes.
Usually, hostages are freed when the gangs, who are said to hide out in the enormous Rugu forest that crosses Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, and Niger states, are paid a ransom.
According to Gambo Isah, a spokesman for the Katsina police, "bandits stormed a farm in Mairuwa and kidnapped away teenage laborers working on the field."
Isah added only that "our personnel have mobilized to the region with the aim to rescue the captives and apprehend the culprits."
According to a representative of the local authority in Faskari, the bandits entered the farm on motorcycles while several workers were working there.
39 minors who were unable to flee the robbers were apprehended, according to the official, who begged to remain anonymous for fear for his or her safety. "The adult workers who could run far faster managed to escape," he or she said.
He claimed that six of the hostages were from neighboring villages and that 33 of the hostages, both boys and girls, were from Mairuwa village.
He claimed that the robbers demanded a ransom through the phone of one of the captives.
The official claimed that the farm manager had already made a deal with the bandits, who sought protection money in exchange for allowing the harvest to proceed and were paid a down payment.
The insider stated, "It is clear the bandits were irate because construction started on the land without having resolved the amount."
The official claimed that Faskari, which shares a border with Zamfara State, frequently receives threats of kidnapping from bandits who enter the region from their camps in the woods.
Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret. ), the president, has come under pressure to address security issues before his two four-year mandates as president, the maximum allowed by the constitution, expire next year.
Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, is struggling with separatist agitation in the southeast, terrorism in the northeast, and bandit groups in the north-western and central regions.
No comments:
Post a Comment