In central Niger State, Nigeria, armed men attacked a mosque and surrounding villages, kidnapping dozens of people, according to survivors and police officials. The attack occurred on Friday at around 2pm (13:00 GMT), targeting the villages of Gidan-Zana and Kpenya, followed by the Kpenya Mosque in the Dekara district of Borgu Local Government Area, police spokesperson Wasiu Abiodun said on Saturday.
Abiodun told Reuters that police were aware of the kidnappings but had no reports of fatalities, and that a joint security detachment had been deployed for assessment and rescue operations. He added that the exact number of those taken could not yet be confirmed.
Local residents told Reuters that more than 60 worshippers were kidnapped, but this figure could not be independently verified. Residents also told AFP that people were killed, though this claim remains unconfirmed.
Jibril Ahmad, a survivor of the attack on Dekara, blamed the Lakurawa armed group. "Soon after finishing the normal Friday prayer, the armed group of Lakurawa, in their hundreds, wielding guns, knives and machetes, began to attack us," he told AFP, claiming that people were "slaughtered". During the attack, a third group, Mahmuda, intervened and clashed with the kidnappers, allowing some abductees to escape, he said.
Federal lawmaker Jafaru Mohammed told AFP that several nearby villages were also struck. "Some members of the Mahmuda group were against the doctrine of the Lakurawa, and when they heard of what the Lakurawa were doing, they fought them," Mohammed said.
The attack occurred in a region near Nigeria's western border with Benin, which has seen growing activity from local armed groups and fighters from the neighbouring region, even as the country's 17-year armed rebellion remains concentrated in the northeast.
The violence in Niger State continued into Saturday. Resident Abdullahi Ahmad said the group returned to the area to seize more people as a "bargaining chip" in advance of an expected troop deployment, and planted landmines on the road out of Dekara. "A man and his family who were fleeing the town yesterday were killed when their car hit a landmine planted by the terrorists. Everyone is living in fear," he said.
Mass abductions have become a hallmark tactic of the country's armed groups, evolving into a lucrative, multimillion-dollar industry involving networks of both ideological and nonideological gangs across Nigeria's northwest and central regions.