More than 30 people die in an attack carried out by the "bandits" of the state of Kaduna, Nigeria

"Bandits" have kidnapped more than 80 civilians in the village of Kwari this Thursday

MADRID, 10 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Armed groups of looters and kidnappers whom the Nigerian government describes as "bandits" killed 32 people from the Adara community in the south of the Nigerian state of Kaduna, in the center-north of the country, from a helicopter on Sunday. , as reported on Thursday by local Nigerian media.

The national president of the Adara Development Association, Awemi Maisamari, has assured that the attack has been launched by Fulani herdsmen, who, in addition to shooting sporadically from the helicopter, have had the help of assailants on the ground. They would have arrived on 150 motorcycles with three armed people on each one, as reported by the Nigerian newspaper 'Daily Post'.

"The number of deaths reported as of Wednesday is 32, while villagers comb the surrounding bushes for more bodies. On Wednesday morning, seven were found in a state of decomposition," Maisamari said, adding that the evangelical church 'Winning All' of the area has been destroyed.

The Nigerian Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), in a statement by its national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, has criticized the military hierarchy, especially the Nigerian Air Force, for their slowness in dealing with to the armed groups that "terrorize" the northwestern area of ​​Africa's most populous country.

Likewise, the organization has lamented that while the Nigerian Army and Air Force are condemning the acts of "the bandits", the militiamen, "now emboldened by the inaction of the Government", have gone on to deploy more sophisticated weapons, such as a attack.

"The killing of dozens of people in Adara, in southern Kaduna, is unfortunate and totally avoidable if the military did not ignore the intelligence and telltale signs," Onwubiko stressed.

The "Bandits" have kidnapped more than 80 civilians in the village of Kwari on Thursday and have set fire to barns and local shops, as reported by more than 2,000 local residents who have fled and taken refuge in a school primary school in the city of Jibiya, in the state of Katsina (north).

"They arrived in full force at 5:30 p.m. (local time) and invaded us, without us noticing their arrival. They opened fire, shot sporadically and burned the shops and our barns," one of the villagers told the service. in the Hausa language of the BBC radio network, collected by the Nigerian newspaper 'Vanguard'.

Thus, the woman has denounced that "they kidnapped men and women, small children who cannot even speak, and took them to the forest. Later they made a count and discovered that 'the bandits' took about 80 people. They are members Fulani, they even took pregnant women.

"The truth is that we need help. We need help because we are in an unfortunate situation. Please help us, some husbands don't know where their wives are. Children don't find their mothers, some mothers don't know where their children are." stressed.

At least 360 people have been killed and 258 injured in the first three months of the year in Kaduna state.

The Kaduna "bandits" have become a scourge for the country's authorities, who have even declared these organizations as terrorist groups to facilitate security operations.

This has not prevented them from continuing to act with almost total impunity in attacks that follow the same pattern: they break into the state's towns on motorcycles, open fire indiscriminately against their residents, kidnap some of the survivors and flee before authorities can react.

Likewise, the "bandits" also include armed groups that intervene in favor of one side in the numerous intercommunity clashes that have plagued the African state for decades and kidnappers specialized in assaults on educational institutions in the northwest of the country, such as in the state of Zamfara .

A report, presented in May by the state governor, Nasir el Rufai, also detailed that 1,389 people were kidnapped during the first three months of the year, at least a dozen women were raped, including six minors, and 3,251 animals. they ended up in the hands of bandits, most of them in Kaduna Central.