No fewer than 56 people were killed on Friday afternoon when bandits attacked three villages in the area, residents of Bakura local government area of Zamfara State have said.
According to a former councilor, who preferred anonymity, the gunmen attacked Sabon-Garin Damri, one of the villages, around 2:30 p.m.
He said, I was in the main town when the bandits entered Sabon-Garin Damri. We suddenly saw people running towards us. Then we started hearing sporadic gunshots. I was miraculously saved.
He said the bandits carried out what appears to be coordinated attacks from Sabon-Garin Damri, Damri and Kalahe before a joint security team confronted them.
Another resident, Muazu Damri, said the number of casualties would have been more if the security agents didnt confront the bandits.
Ill have to personally applaud them (security agents), though I believe they should have come earlier because if they came at the right time, they would have saved a lot of people. But their arrival helped because the number would have been more than that, he said.
Damri also said the bandits were pursued by the team of soldiers and police personnel, forcing them to abandon the livestock, food items and other things they had looted from residents.
Though Damri put the number of those killed at 48, other sources, including the former councilor, told newsmen that the number of those killed as of yesterday afternoon stood at 56.
In Damri, only three people were killed; a girl and two other men, but the remaining were all killed in Sabon-Garin Damri and Kalahe. Some of them were not residents of the two communities. They were people who came from nearby villages to celebrate the Eid-el Fitr with their relatives, he said.
Another resident of Bakura town, Usman Lauwalli, told that those who were wounded were receiving treatment at the General Hospital, Bakura.
The State’s Police Command spokesperson, Mohammed Shehu, didnt respond to calls and SMS sent to him on the attacks.
Zamfara State, like in other areas in the North-West region, is convulsing under the attacks by gunmen, locally called bandits, who attack mostly rural communities and travellers.
