Nigeria: Sixty dead in a self-defense militia in the northwest

A village in Kebbi State in northwestern Nigeria (Illustrative image).

© Jorge Fernandez/LightRocket via Getty Images

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

In Nigeria, about sixty men, all members of a self-defense militia, were murdered in the northwest of the country.

They were victims of those nicknamed “bandits” in the region.

More than a hundred criminal groups are active between the states of Zamfara, Niger, Sokoto and Kebbi, where they multiply bloody abuses, in the face of which the security forces seem powerless.

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They were on the front line, facing the armed groups that have been ravaging northwestern Nigeria for months.

In Kebbi State, the “Yan Sa Kai” self-defense militia, a group of volunteer fighters from the Sakaba area, planned to attack a group of bandits on Sunday March 6 at nightfall.

It seems that the militiamen had set off in pursuit of the armed men who had just attacked several villages in the Sakaba district.

One of the leaders of this militia, Usman Sani, a former soldier contacted by Reuters, said that the members of the gang, warned of the attack, prepared an ambush, taking advantage of the cover of the forest which they know well.

After hiding their motorcycles, they surrounded the volunteer fighters before opening fire from several sides.

Civilian volunteers very exposed

Rather, the police seem to suggest that these bandits were fleeing army shelling in Niger State when they were chased by vigilante groups.

As army bombardment struggles to curb the deadly activity of these gangs in northwestern Nigeria, civilian volunteers are doing essential work, but are very exposed on the ground, recalls our correspondent in Lagos ,

.

The report transmitted by the militia and confirmed by an official source reports about sixty deaths.

Numerous armed gangs have been operating throughout the far north of Nigeria for years.

Their main modus operandi is the kidnapping, especially of children, to obtain ransoms.

In January, in the same state of Kebbi, criminals murdered nearly 50 villagers.

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• Nigeria