Four people have been confirmed dead and scores of others injured following bandits’ attack on Tsayau village in Jibia council area of Katsina state.
The incident, which police said occurred at about 5.30 pm on Sunday, is the third of such attacks on the community in recent times.
An eyewitness said the bandits came on dozens on motorcycles, fired shots into the air to scare away residents, then rustled animals and shot four people dead.
“The villagers mobilized and followed the bandits into the forest, ostensibly to recover the cows,” A Katsina police spokesman said. “The bandits killed four of the villagers and escaped into the thick hilly mountainous forest.”
The eyewitness said community members, angered by frequent attacks on the area, chartered a vehicle and moved the dead bodies to Katsina metropolitan area to meet the Emir, Alhaji Abdulmumini Kabir Usman.
“On arrival at the emir’s palace, they were told that he had travelled out of the state. The community members then moved the bodies to the mortuary at the General Hospital pending the emir’s return.”
The state is among those in the northwest and other parts of the country that have been experiencing attacks by bandits in recent months.
Bandits usually attack villages to stealing livestock, burn homes, loot food and other important household items and kidnap people for ransom.
Some of the attacks carried out by the bandits, residents say, are revenge attacks on communities where vigilantes had killed one of their own.
“They also attack communities when they learn that someone had snitched on them by telling security personnel about their hideouts or members living in such communities.,” an eyewitness told The Guardian.
“But this latest attack was not for revenge. The bandits just chose to storm the village and help themselves with whatever they want,” a resident in the village who pleaded anonymity, said.
The Guardian reports that the attack is coming less than a week after President Buhari had charged the military to be more spontaneous in restoring peace to the country, particularly states troubled by bandits.
