In the fresh attack on Saturday afternoon, a local source in Maradun said, two villages, Faru and Kauyen Minane, were attacked.
Barely 24 hours after bandits killed 56 people in three villages in Bakura Local Government Area of Zamfara state, gunmen have killed another another seven people in Maradun Local Government Area of the state.
Maradun and Bakura local government areas share boundaries.
In the fresh attack on Saturday afternoon, a local source in Maradun said, two villages, Faru and Kauyen Minane, were attacked.
“I was at the Maradun General Hospital when the soldiers brought the corpses of those killed,” Jamilu Muhammad said. “Our people in the village of Garin Minane said the bandits stormed the town some minutes before 2pm and began shooting sporadically. What they used to do was to conduct house to house search for domestic animals or other valuables but yesterday, the moment they entered the village, they began shooting sporadically,” he said.
According to him, six people were killed in Garin Minane while one was killed in Faru. He said the number of those killed may increase because many are still missing in the affected villages.
“They have buried the deceased here in Maradun because going back to do the burial in the villages was impossible for fear that they (bandits) may return.”
He said the seven people killed were all male. Four of them were killed at the outskirts of the Garin Minane village while they were returning from the farm.
The police spokesperson in Zamfara State, Mohammed Shehu, did not respond to calls and SMS sent to him on the attack.
Zamfara, like other areas in Nigeria’s North-west region, is convulsing under attacks by gunmen locally called bandits who attack mostly rural communities and travellers.
These bandits have been blamed for killing thousands of people. They have also abducted many more in what is shaping to become one of the worst kidnap-for-ransom syndicates in the history of the country.
In the face of the failure of the government to protect residents of the area, many communities have set up vigilante groups to protect residents from attacks by bandits but this has worsened the security challenges in the area as it has given rise to an explosion of tit-for-tat killings between the bandits (who are mostly of Fulani extraction) and the vigilante groups set up by the majority Hausa communities in the area.