Nigeria’s mass abductions: gunmen kidnap at least 100 more villagers in new attack

Armed gangs in Nigeria’s northwest have reportedly kidnapped at least 100 people in a new attack, which comes only days after gunmen seized nearly 300 students and staff from a school.

The gunmen attacked two communities in Kaduna state over the weekend, residents and state officials told the media. They seized at least 100 people from their homes in the latest mass abduction in the volatile region. Kaduna state is where nearly 300 schoolchildren were abducted less than two weeks ago. The latest abductions, like the previous one, have been blamed on bandit groups that routinely loot villages and carry out mass kidnappings for ransom in northwest and north-central Nigeria, where the violence has displaced about one million people, according to the United Nations.

Security forces are yet to provide any public update on the ongoing rescue operation to free the schoolchildren abducted earlier, which are thought to be held hostage in the vast forests that connect most states in the troubled region.

Authorities in the West African country have seemed powerless to stop the near-daily attacks, piling pressure on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose government did not immediately comment on the latest attacks. Meanwhile, Tinubu has ruled out the payment of ransoms — as is often done — in the operation to free the children. According to SBM Intelligence, a Nigerian risk consultancy, 4,777 people have been abducted since Tinubu took office in May 2023.