Thousands flee after bandits kill 200 in Nigeria in revenge for military strikes

Rampaging motorbike gangs have killed at least 200 people and forced thousands to flee their homes in the northwest of Nigeria in the past week in a wave of revenge violence.

The gangs struck after a series of military attacks on their hideouts. On Monday the military said it had carried out airstrikes on targets in the Gusami forest and Tsamre village in Zamfara state, killing more than 100 bandits including two of their leaders.

Northern Nigeria has been engulfed for several years by an Islamist insurgency led by the jihadist group Boko Haram, which has claimed thousands of lives. At the same time herders and farmers have fought over land in northwest and central Nigeria.

Some groups have evolved into criminal gangs known as bandits, who kill, loot and kidnap. Both the bandits and Islamist gangs have carried out mass abductions throughout the region.

On Saturday, four residents told the AFP news agency that gunmen rampaged through the districts of Anka and Bukkuyum over two days, killing at least 140 people.

Babandi Hamidu, from the village of Kurfa Danya, said the militants were shooting anyone on sight.

Sadiya Umar Farouq, the minister of humanitarian affairs, described the past week’s attacks in Zamfara as “horrific and tragic”. She said in a statement: “Over 200 persons were buried . . . due to the invasion by bandits.”

The minister said relief had been sent to Zamfara after more 10,000 people were forced to flee when “their homes were razed by the bandits” and that “scores are still missing”.

President Buhari, 79, a former general who leads Africa’s most populous country, condemned the attacks as “an act of desperation by mass murderers”. He said: “We are determined to smoke out and destroy outlaws.” Buhari is contending with more than ten years of jihadist insurgency in the northeast and separatist agitation in the southeast.

Bandits made headlines last year after hundreds of students were snatched in a series of abductions. Students are often quickly released after ransom payments but 200 were still missing in September, according to the UN. On Saturday, 30 students and a teacher were released after seven months of captivity in Kebbi state, a local official said.

Nigeria’s armed forces said they had killed 537 “armed bandits and other criminal elements” in the region and arrested 374 others since May last year, and rescued 452 “kidnapped civilians”.

An analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations found last year that Nigeria recorded its worst death toll since 2016 related to bandits and the various insurgencies, with at least 10,398 people killed, among them 4,835 civilians and 890 security personnel.

Kabir Adamu, a security analyst with Beacon Consulting, told AFP that the latest attacks could be in response to heavy losses after raids on bandits loyal to the notorious gang leader Bello Turji.

Adamu said: “Angered by this, and perhaps by the fact that that they were facing certain death, [they] decided to move to other locations and seem to be conducting these attacks.”