Dozens of people were kidnapped by men with rifles in a village in northwestern Nigeria. gun violence news

Residents said men carrying assault rifles were going door-to-door and kidnapping people in the northwestern city of Kakin Dawa.

Dozens of women and children have been kidnapped by armed men in north-western Nigeria, the latest incident of kidnapping in the region.

Police said the incident occurred on Sunday in Kafin Dawa village of Zamfara state. Residents reported that people were going from house to house with assault rifles and kidnapping people.

“We learned that they have abducted more than 50 women, including married women and girls,” said Hassan Yau, a resident who managed to escape but his younger sister was abducted.

“Fear had spread throughout the village as gunshots echoed throughout the operation,” another resident was quoted as saying by Nigeria’s Daily Trust news site, which reported the abduction of 43 people.

Zamfara police said they have deployed additional security forces to the area.

Kidnappings for ransom by armed men, locally known as bandits, are common in northwestern Nigeria due to high levels of poverty, unemployment, and the prevalence of illegal firearms.

In March this year, gunmen kidnapped more than 130 students in the northwestern city of Curiga for ransom.

The government said at the time that the students were “innocently” freed several weeks later after intensive “backchannel” negotiations.

Kidnappings from Nigerian schools were first carried out by the armed group Boko Haram, which captured 276 students from a girls’ school in Chibok, in northeastern Borno state, in 2014. Some girls were never released, most of whom were forced to marry combatants.

In another mass kidnapping in July 2021, armed men captured more than 150 students in a raid. The students were reportedly reunited with their families months later after the ransom was paid.

At least 1,400 children have been abducted since 2014.