Armed bandits launched pre-dawn raids on Gatawa community in Sabon Birni LGA and Shalla village in Isa LGA of Sokoto State on Sunday, killing seven persons and kidnapping several others in attacks that lasted several hours.
In Gatawa, the gunmen struck around 1:30 a.m., triggering a fierce gun battle with local vigilantes.
Four vigilantes were killed instantly, while two others who sustained gunshot wounds were rushed to hospital; one later succumbed, raising the death toll in the community to five.
A resident who spoke on condition of anonymity told News men that six persons, two married women, two teenage girls and two young boys, were abducted during the raid. Large numbers of livestock were also rustled.
“They came around 1 a.m. shooting indiscriminately. Our vigilantes confronted them courageously, but four died on the spot. The bandits left with our people and animals before soldiers arrived,” he said.
He expressed fear that the abductees could suffer the same fate as a relative kidnapped two months earlier who was killed despite his family paying N1.5 million ransom when the bandits later demanded a motorcycle and phones.
Hours later, the same gang reportedly moved to Shalla village in Isa LGA, where they shot dead two residents, abducted an unspecified number of women, and set fire to several grain stores and a house.
The member representing Isa in the Sokoto State House of Assembly, Hon. Habibu Modachi, confirmed the Shalla attack and called for an urgent review of military deployment in the area.
“The soldiers are concentrated in Isa town, so bandits attack villages and disappear before any response. This pattern must change,” Modachi said.
Police spokesman DSP Ahmad Rufa’i said he was in Abuja and had not yet received official reports of the incidents.Meanwhile, the Chairman of Sabon Birni LGA, Alhaji Ayuba Hashimu, and the area’s lawmaker, Hon. Aminu Boza, have refuted circulating online reports claiming bandits stormed a mosque in the LGA, killed the imam and worshippers, and abducted others.
“No mosque was attacked and no imam or worshippers were killed. The report is completely false,” Hashimu stated.
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