ABUJA, Nigeria
Gunmen have killed nearly 70 members of a local defense group in Nigeria’s northwest region in attacks since Sunday and the violence is continuing, members of the force and residents told The Associated Press.
The attackers ambushed members
of the local defense group in the Zuru area of Kebbi state as they were
responding to calls for help in some remote villages, John Mani, a leader of
the civilian defense force in Zuru, said Tuesday.
At least 67 people have been
confirmed dead from attacks by the gunmen, said Mani, who added that the death
toll is expected to rise as the attackers “are still operating.”
“They just lay ambush on my
people. They came and were doing their operations and my people went to see if
they can help because the authorities are not doing anything,” he told AP.
Though Kebbi police spokesman
Nafiu Abubakar confirmed the incident, he said the death toll is not known yet.
Residents have in the past
accused authorities of being reluctant to speak about such attacks which have
become rampant in northern Nigeria where remote communities are the most
affected. Many times the violence is not reported until days later when officials
recover the bodies of victims.
Although security forces have
been deployed in the affected Kebbi communities, according to the police
spokesman, the local defense force leader Mani said some of his men and local
residents are still trapped.
“They are holding people
hostage,” he said on the phone. “Even as we are speaking, they are there
operating around Giri Wasa village.” He alleged that the security agencies
“didn’t respond at all.”
Nigerian authorities have in
the past identified the attackers as young men mostly from the Fulani ethnic
group who have traditionally worked as nomadic cattle herders and have become
caught up in a decades-long conflict with Hausa farming communities over access
to water and grazing land.
Northwest Nigeria has been the
worst hit by the spiraling violence, accounting for thousands of deaths in the
last year, according to figures reported in the local media citing residents.
The West African nation’s
security forces are already overstretched fighting a decade-long insurgency in
the northeast region while many of them continue to respond to pockets of
crises across the country.
Nigeria declared the gunmen
operating in more than 100 groups as terrorists last year and vowed to stamp
out the violence but the situation has not noticeably improved, especially in
remote communities where security forces are outnumbered and outgunned.
After dozens were killed in
the troubled northern region in January, Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani
Bello admitted that “we have really run out of patience with the terrorists.”
But similar rhetoric from the
government and security agencies have not been followed up with adequate
assistance to residents who are resorting to community defence groups,
according to local leader Mani.
“If the government is there,
how can an untrained civilian carry locally-made arms to face somebody with
sophisticated weapons?” he asked. “You just have to sacrifice. Either you face
them or you still die or they capture you and you lose everything – that is the
predicament.”
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